XVI. Naming and Banishment

Next to Mahatma Ghandi atop a large velvet cushion the size of a small automobile, on a balcony overlooking the Mouth of the Ganges, reclined with both arms behind his head, Doctor Arthwitte takes a powerful drag from his opium pipe. The setting sun casts their shadows upon the wall, where a third shadow emerges with his knife drawn. It belongs to a man who announces himself as an assassin, one of the Imperial Queen’s finest, sent on the behalf of her steward.

Ghandi rises from his seat and agrees to be killed without conflict, on the condition that the man answer a single question. The assassin is suspicious but agrees. With a silent nod, Ghandi touches the man’s forehead and sighs. Unaware that he is now smoking from Ghandi’s opium pipe, the assassin falls to his knees and weeps. In the smoke he sees himself and the man he was sent to murder both as his self, and so forsakes career and country, swearing there and then to a life of spirituality.

“Indescribable,” Doctor Arthwitte gasps, exhaling a plume of smoke. “I’ve not seen feats of legerdemain such as that since–”

Though perfectly still in his cushion, a pounding comes from everywhere, a knocking that rattles the world – then another, and another. It is a siege against the walls that separate one from the unseen. In a wink, the sky eats itself and descends down a darkened intestine of endless throats.

Doctor Arthwitte recoils from the dawning fear that this world is nothing more than a mangled chunk of cud, some half-digested lump within one of many guts in a great and horrible beast, beyond which there is a nothingness that shines as stars.

“Not the street milk,” Doctor Arthwitte shouts, awakening upright in the locked broom closet of a tiny wooden manor in the isolated, rustic village of Rukriz. Lifting the bucket from his head, he asks, “Am I in Calcutta?”

His plush, velvet bed has been replaced by a torn mattress of goose down and straw. What was once a harem of lovelies strewn about the room is gone and naught but a bucketless mop is left in their wake. Then he remembers his vampire bite.

Doctor Arthwitte slaps a hand over his wound to find that it, the marks, even the swelling, have all vanished. “By the metals,” he says, wiping his soaked forehead. “It’s as though I’ve spent the past week trekking the Mojave.” Fishing in his front pocket, he pulls out a little vial, empty and uncorked, labeled with a sensible yet extravagant print: “One-Hundred Percent Distilled Divinity Down to the Last Drop.”

“By the metals,” he whispers. Slapping his cheeks and feeling his fingers, Doctor Arthwitte remembers the Nosferatu bite, the burning infection within his veins, all replaced by a refreshed yet still drained sense of relief. “Now, what sort of bedeviled oubliette have I found myself in this time?”

The knocking comes again, a sharp pounding at the door that shakes a trail of dust free. “But a moment, please, er, uh” Doctor Arthwitte grunts, fumbling for the knob. “It appears the door is unlocked; I do apologize for this inconvenience.” He flips the lock clockwise and counterwise in confusion. “If I am recalling correctly my cell was nailed shut shortly after I was gruffly tongueswaggled by a rather odious bulb of garlic, and–”

A muffled clattering of metal upon on the wooden floor interrupts him. Stepping back, he watches as the knob slowly turns, the door opening, leaving a hooded figure at the threshold of the closet. “Ah, Mademoiselle Mathers,” Doctor Arthwitte sighs with relief. “How serendipitous of you.”

“And you as well, Doctor Arthwitte,” she says with a smile. In one hand she carries a lit lamp. “You’ve been cured. How… intriguing.”

“Yes, although I regret this was far from a controlled study, we’ve far too many variables to sort before approaching a theory. Tell me, how is the old Austrian fellow?”

“He’s dead,” Angelica replies, matter-of-fact. “He was beginning to turn, so he… well, I’m sure you know that death cures all ills.”

“Oh, how dreadful.” Doctor Arthwitte clears his throat. “Then I daresay it’s plausible my patented pristinity did the trick. If only I could notify the Board under more favorable circumstances.”

Angelica extends a hand to help him up then leads him down the hall. “We should let the others know.”

“Quite, although by the looks of this place the cavalry and the infantry have sundered the wall, pillaged the larder, and driven everyone aback – how long was I out?”

“Most of the day.”

“And the children? The gypsy and her husband?”

“Penelope and Dorian are with my son.” They exit the manor and cross the warped and broken porch, descending the steps. All around them the old houses have caved in, collapsed and exploded as if ripped apart by a focused gale. “I’m not really sure where the Hrobars went.”

“And the villagers? Have they been relocated to a new prison or–”

“Dead,” she replies. “Spent in some fashion although I couldn’t sense much of anything before the fog left.”

“That befuddling Aztec Death Whistle,” Doctor Arthwitte mutters. “Have we any idea from where or whom that abominable sound emanates?”

“Not yet,” she says. He notices that Angelica’s candelabra is not carried, but floats beside her as they make their way further out towards the graveyard. “Although I should thank you and your associates. When I first wrote you that letter I had no idea you’d solve my problem so quickly.”

“Solved, is uh, is that it?” Doctor Arthwitte wipes his glasses on the end of his disheveled shirt then applies them. “I suppose that is one way of viewing the matter – but it would have been preferable for us to save your fellow villagers.”

“You misunderstand,” she replies. “Don’t you recall my letter?”

“Letter? Ah yes.” Doctor Arthwitte fishes in his pockets to find a crumpled and folded envelope, handwritten postage, addressed to him. “Funny how it managed to find us all the way out in Egypt. Oddest of happenstances, come to think of it. A man on camelback rode up and thrust the thing into my hands in the middle of my breakfast gin and biscuits.” Opening the envelope and reading it, he recites:

“To the esteemed Doctor Edward M. Arthwitte and his associates, my name is Angelica Mathers and I desperately require your aid. Your travels around the world have given you a peculiar expertise that could help me. I currently reside in the small village… overrun by vampires… etcetera and so forth, directions… Please hurry, I do not know how long we will have left, and only you can help me track down a very important lost book.” He folds the letter and envelope back into his pockets. “And this means we’ve helped you?”

“Yes,” Angelica says, beaming. She takes him by the arm and leads him further into the cemetery. “And cleared out all the Rakes to boot.”

“Rakes? You mean those blood suckers…,” Doctor Arthwitte’s voice trails off as they come upon Penelope and our brother grappling with Marcel. My sister has her hands around the book and Dorian has his around her. Together they struggle against Angelica’s son in a tug of war for my grimoire.

“This book belonged to Olivia, you pervert,” Penelope growls. “You can’t have it.”

“It was in my great grandfather’s library,” Marcel snaps. “I don’t see your sister here trying to stop me.”

“By the codpiece of Krishna,” Doctor Arthwitte exclaims, eyeing the dessicated Nosferatu and the blood drenched dirt surrounding them. “Is this a graveyard or a slaughterhouse?”

“Children,” Angelica coos. “There’s no need to fight.” After they refuse to heed her words, she adds, “Stop it!”

Some unseen force separates them, throwing Penelope and Dorian one way and Marcel the other. The Book of Splendor falls to the ground where they were, opened to blank pages. Angelica rests her candelabra atop a nearby tombstone as she walks over and lifts my grimoire, flipping the pages meticulously. “Yes,” she says. “This is the book, well done Marcel.”

“Excuse me,” Doctor Arthwitte says, clearing his throat. “Is that the book in question from your letter?”

“Yes,” she replies with a smile.

“Then the vampires, the hallucinations, the fog – all of it was you?”

Angelica muses for a moment. “Honestly? I don’t really know where the fog came from, I’m as perplexed as you on that. My grandfather never once mentioned anything about Aztec Death Whistles.”

“Crowley,” Penelope mutters. “He used the Aztec Death Whistle when we were at the old shed. My guess is he’s the one who kept making the fog.”

“No doubt to cover his track,” Doctor Arthwitte adds. “The old codger always was one for stealth and trickery.”

Angelica hisses, “Is that so? I told the Archons that he should have been put down before he caused us more trouble. They disagreed but this should finally change their minds.” She pauses, a sneer forming on her face. “What’s this?” With a wave of her hand over the pages, blood emerges in clotted lumps, recreating the portrait of a city and portal that were there before. “Marcel, is this the spell you were trying to cast?”

Her son nods, sheepishly. “I’ve found him”

“Found who?” Angelica eyes my sister, then Doctor Arthwitte, then my brother. “Do you mean?”

Marcel nods again.

“How serendipitous.” She smiles. “Well, Doctor Arthwitte I should have waited to thank you for all of your help. Your associate is exactly who we were going to look for next.” Gazing at my brother, then back to my sister, she muses. “Funny that the Star Queen’s own blood would be the key. Even the Mundane Angle of the world is filled with magic if you know where to look.”

“The Mundane Angle?” Doctor Arthwitte asks.

The Fallen are curious spirits, and their servants share in their fundamental flaws. Despite vast knowledge, immortal memories, and an uncanny insight into the human psyche, they are temperamental and empathetic beings. Emotional outbursts are not uncommon, and when their tempers rage or overwhelming sadness grips them, that shared empathy quickly turns to something inhuman.

Angelica turns to her son and asks, “And you’re certain this is the spell you were going to cast?” Another timid nod from Marcel screws Angelica’s face into a geometric puzzle. Her lips extend a bit too far, her cheekbones jut out at odd angles, and her eyes, seething beneath a pronounced brow, seem to grow twice their size.

“You reckless, stupid little boy!” She swings her free hand and a force of wind slaps Marcel across the face. He stumbles, but keeps his head low, dark hair casually falling forward to conceal the hand print stinging his cheek. “Don’t you realize what this is?” After a beat of silence, she shrieks, “Answer me!”

“It was a portal,” he murmurs. “I was going to take him back.”

“Back to where, Marcel? Back to where? This isn’t the spell and he’s not ready.” She points to Dorian. “Look at him, what is he doing right now? Is he defending you? Is he standing by your side? Does he care about you?”

“But… but I feel it–”

“Yes, but does he feel it?” Angelica shakes her head and clicks her tongue. “Stupid.”

“So, it was you,” Penelope says. “You were the one who attacked me in my dream.”

“Attacked in a dream?” Doctor Arthwitte gasps. “Telekinesis? Sweet Devil of Dion Fortune, you’re a psychic vampire!”

He retrieves his revolver and pulls back the pin, aiming it right for her. Angelica waves her hand and his arm makes a perfect forty-five-degree angle then fires off every round until the chamber clicks empty. The color drains from Angelica’s face, eyes now rigid with fury. She suppresses a shout through clenched teeth, then slowly melts into a hostile grin. “We are not vampires. We are angels.”

“Are you sure?” Penelope asks. “What I saw in my dream was a parasite.”

Angelica’s face contorts into a twisted frown. Her eyes somehow receded into her face yet bulge out in anger. Her fist clenches so tightly that her shoulders take on a dream like contortion. “We. Are. ANGELS!” Psionic waves of ripping force burst from her form, creating a powerful gust of wind that whips at their faces. Doctor Arthwitte, Penelope, and Dorian shield their eyes from the blast of dirt and ashes pelting their faces as the stray caskets and cracked tombstones littering the cemetery fly out into the distance.

Crackling thunder echoes, rumbling through the old Moravian forest as Angelica takes a deep breathe and exhales. Her body and eyes return to their original, human shape. Turning to her son, she calmly asks, “Marcel, do you understand what this spell does?”

He shakes his head no.

“This is a conjuration of the wrong angle and demands a sacrifice – you would have killed him!”

“What?” Marcel’s eyes widen and her casts a concerned look towards my brother. It was never my wish for the Book of Splendor to fall into their hands. Omnipresence is a far cry from omnipotence, and it was only by calling out to the Fallen’s child, by luring him to my secret tome, that I could bring my sister here in the first place. Still, one must always have additional plans laid in case of an emergency, and tempting his impatience and lust seemed as good as any a way to keep their doorway shut.

“Where would we be then? Centuries of planning and work for absolutely nothing, all because you couldn’t control yourself. This is why I always tell you that you must–”

Glass chimes ring near my sister’s ear and she gasps when an iridescent orb of shimmering light swings into her field of vision. “Olivia?” she asks.

“By jove,” Doctor Arthwitte whispers as my little orb bounces in the air towards Angelica, unnoticed by her. “The Vril-Ya…”

“You can see that, Doctor Arthwitte?”

“It came out of your hairpin,” Dorian adds, pointing. “Right there, from the amethyst.”

“Marcel, look at me when I’m speaking to you,” Angelica snaps.

“But mother, there’s a–”

“There’s a what, Marcel?” She rifles through the pages and waves her hands over my grimoire, drawing up a new spell through sheer force of will. There are those of enough psychic strength that they may call forth the secrets of my tome without being selected by the Light. Those of the Fallen’s most powerful are among them.

Shuddering and hising in pain, thin slits emerge on the vellum and bleed out, creating the spell to send them back to their world, their angle of wishes and dreams. It is why I took such precaution to never let it leave my side, a precaution which I failed to follow through upon. For even the Light may still be undone by the forces of Desire.

“Marcel,” she snaps. “If that boy is the key then don’t just stand there rubbing your elbows – retrieve him and bring him to me instan-AH!”

Perhaps Angelica drops my grimoire. Perhaps it leaps from her hand in a flutter of flesh and chitin. Regardless, my grimoire lets out a chirp and plops onto the ground, still open with her spell laid out upon it. She grabs her hand and looks to her son, “It bit me?”

Marcel shrugs, I told you it could move.” He trudges over towards her, “It’s hard to control.”

“Insufferable,” Angelica mutters. “Grab the book and we can–” She finds that an invisible barrier has emerged between her and my grimoire. She whips around to find that the wall extends to her other side as well. Marcel pounds on the same barrier, creating a ripple of concentric bulges in the air. “The Star Queen!”

Bouncing and bobbing in the air, rotating and humming a geometric harmony, my orb swings about my book as crackling energy begins to froth beneath their feet. The ground begins to waver and flicker, like a dream approaching its end. Marcel slams his fists against his unseen prison and with each blow the ripples overtake him, his body shaking like water struck by a pebble.

Angelica sneers then turns to my sister. “Of course,” she says. “That was her grounding this whole time. How stupid of me.” Pressing her palm to the barrier, a white-hot energy burns like a welder’s torch. The brass and crystal ringing of my light crescendos. The Book of Splendor shivers with power as the ground beneath Marcel and Angelica’s feet vanishes, replaced by a circle, dark and opaque, like the color of one’s eyelids when sleeping.

Tendrils of inky nothing slither around Marcel’s legs and begin to drag him down into the undertow of the mind. Panicking, he grabs at the walls, digging his fingers in where there is nothing to cling to. “Where is it taking us?” he asks.

“Home,” Angelica replies, her tone chilled by disappointment.

A whirring and spinning lightining ball erratically bulges out from where her palm rests, as if this energy has a life all its own that seeks to spring forth, hunt, and destroy. Perhaps it is the light of this feral power casting a glower upon angelica’s face. Perhaps it is a result of her expending so much energy to overcome my intersecting vectors containing her. Whatever the case, her bones begin to poke through her flesh, her hair begins to lose its fiery shade, turning from red to a shiny grey.

“We’ve failed, for now. The least I can do is make sure we return with an advantage.”

My warding succumbs to her attack and implodes, invisible edges twisting and turning the night sky around them as a concussive wave of light bursts forth then focuses to a thin beam of light, a bolt of white fire aiming straight for my sister. Dorian grabs her by the arm to pull her out of the way and she narrowly avoids it. The lightning arcs across her head, slicing off a chunk of her hair.

My final gift to her, the hairpin, is not so fortunate. The amethyst gemstone explodes in a mist of fine crystal, leaving only the empty brass moth behind. My orb of light seizes and a screeching of static scraping upon metal cries out. All at once the flickering ceases, and a slit runs up the side of the sphere. Blood, thick and voluminous, spills out onto my grimoire from my orb. The color drains from it as well, leaving brittle grey rocks that float away like ash carried on a light breeze.

In the fray of overweaving fractal realities, Angelica raises her hand to deliver a second blast but stops short. Her arm wiggles like boiling spaghetti as her legs distend and stretch, elongating down deep into the void below her. Marcels stretches out as well, limbs whipping around and entangling her, until they are contorted into one squirming mass of screaming limbs. Rotating and undulating, their image appears to flatten out, as if seen at once from all sides, then snaps down into the abyss and vanishes altogether.

My barrier, the void, and them, all gone in an instant, as if nothing were ever there. Penelope grabs her hairpin off the ground and desperately paws at the ground in search of the gemstone’s fragments. All she finds are little purple shards, pebbles, and dirt. Broken little moth in hand, she hurries towards my grimoire and dropps to her knees, flipping the pages.

“There’s got to be a way to fix it,” she says. “Olivia, please, do something!” Tears welling in her eyes, she clumsily returns the pin to her hair such that it dangles to the side. Little droplets fall onto the pages of the Book of Splendor, but nothing is bled out upon them. A profound disquiet settles in over my sister, the undeniable realization that something watching over her, a presence she had not felt until coming to this tiny remote village, is now gone.

Perhaps forever.

“There, there,” Doctor Arthwitte says, placing his hand upon her shoulder. “It’s alright, child. Come on, let’s get you up.”

“No,” she cries.

“Penelope,” Dorian says. “Don’t–”

“Don’t what?! All this time, I had hoped she was alive. I knew, deep down, there was no way she could have survived. Her plane went down over antarctica – why would she even go to that place?! But I just thought, or hoped, or I don’t know, that if I searched far enough I’d find something of her, some kind of answer. Now I’ve found her, and it’s gone. Destroyed! How do I even–”

“Olivia isn’t dead,” Dorian says. “Marcel told me before you showed up. They never killed her. She survived the plane crash.”

“She… what?” Penelope clutches my book to her chest. “He said that?”

“Well then,” Doctor Arthwitte chuckles, adjusting her pin and dusting off her back. “I daresay our work here is done.” A massive tree in the distance uproots and falls to the ground with a booming thud. “Dorian,” Doctor arthwitte says, clearing his throat. “What the devil was their talk of this key and gateway nonsense?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “He never explained it to me.”

“Quite. Well then, we’d best be off before the sun rises.” He helps Penelope up and muses over my grimoire, “What a curious thing you’ve got there – and you say this was Olivia’s book?”

“Crowley told me it was. He said it belonged to her before she… disappeared.”

“Then we’d best keep it safe.” He tromps on into the darkness. “Come along now, we’ve likely enough gasoline to get us to the border before night’s end.”

“Do you want to tell him or should I?” Dorian asks, following along behind.

“He’ll find out soon enough,” Penelope mutters.

Doctor Arthwitte saunters through the ruined village, grabbing the lantern off the manor porch and turning it on. “Much better,” he says, continuing to the village entrance. “Sweet illumination.” He pleasantly chuckles to himself before jerking upright with horror when he spies the wrecked Black Beetle under the gate. “By the metals, what happened to my car?!”

“It was Marcel,” Dorian says.

“The canopy was peeled like a potato! Where’s the engine – and the Welshman!” Doctor Arthwitte begins fanning his face. “I can’t very well traipse about the world without my haunted vehicle, it’s completely off brand. Oh dear, the vapors, the vapors are rising. Children, I may faint, I must return to my closet this instant.”

“We could walk.” Penelope grimaces, “There’s a city about a half day’s walk if we follow the road.”

Doctor Arthwitte grumbles. “I suppose it’s less of a burden than that time we were lost in the Mojave. Damned Hualapai ghosts. If that’s our course then we’d best set out now. Are you children able?”

“Do we have a choice?” Dorian asks.

“We’ll take it easy, set up a camp along the roadside should exhaustion overtake us – but there is one matter still unattended.” He waddles around the ruined car and rifles through the open trunk, casting out beakers and spent flint strikers until he retrieves his Monkey’s Paw with al lthree fingers curled in. “I’ll get that damned refund if I have to shake down every suflaki vendor and card jockeying soothsayer from here to Timbuktu!”

He marches headlong into the night and Dorian follows behind. “What about the Hrobars? Shouldn’t we look for them?”

“I do suppose that is an option,” Doctor Arthwitte replies. “However, I’m more interested in this book you children found – was that human skin?”

“I try not to think about it,” Dorian mutters.

“We can discuss it some other time then. We’ll have plenty to discuss after we’ve reached Germany and procured a new means of transportation. There are more preferable places, to be certain – but no finer a place for a new automobile. Shame they killed all the horses though, that would make this trek considerably less vexing.”

“Have you ever rode a horse?” Dorian asks.

“I’ll have you know that I rode my first horse on the day I enlisted in Her Majesty’s Royal Navy.” Doctor Arthwitte coughs. “They tied me to one and sent it out of the recruitment office – apparently formal rejections were repealed by the Crown whilst I was caught unawares.”

Penelope lingers behind them, the Book of Splendor tucked within her crossed arms. Looking down, she tries to concentrate on the sound of tinkling glass, of the brass chimes and opalescent light, hoping that she will hear my voice singing the harmony of the spheres. All she hears is the rustle of an owl in the trees, perhaps a rodent scurring in the forest brush. The road may be treacherous, but there are far greater terrors in store for her that this rural forest could never conjure on its own.

I’ve done all I can to guide her to this moment, when her real trials begin. She must face them without my protection, rise and ascend into her own power. I only pray to the Light that she may succeed.