Shadows on the Wall Chapter Fifty-Six

Chapter 56: History/Mummy (amen ra)

by CollinsKid

 

Voice-Over (Diana Millay) : "Collinwood, in the year 1897. The legend of the

Phoenix speaks of death and rebirth...but never love. Love, the most mortal of

emotions, passes the great bird by. It has a duty to fulfill. It comes to this

Earth, and plays its human fiction and gets what it must. But after centuries

of its cycle, where does the Phoenix stop...and the fiction begin? Or even

end?"

The flames whicker-hissed out of the fireplace, and screamed towards Miranda.

Coils of flame twisted and bit at her, and it was only for a quick flash of her

hands, twisting in an arcane little spinneret, that they stopped short,

dissipating into blackness.

Miranda's eyes were like gems of ice. "Without my powers?" she hissed. "I'm

afraid you're mistaken, Laura dear. Though I scarcely need them against a sad

little machine like you."

"Machine?!" Laura sneered. "Oh, I'm far from a simple automaton, Miranda *my

dear.* You should know. I am the thing that made the pharoahs tremble. I am the

beginning and the end. I am the Phoenix, and no matter what any of you or your

old Puritan friends do to me, I will *never* go away. I've come for what I left

behind, and I will have it and then some. Quentin Collins is not yours to have.

He has..." Her eye flickered. "...prior engagements."

Miranda laughed, a short, derisive little bark. "What? Your 'revenge?' Making

him pay but not letting him go? You're still not quite over him, Laura. It'll

be your undoing."

"You know all about undoing, don't you, you little slattern," Laura shot back.

"Those pretty, pretty eyes buried in that pretty, pretty face, telling all

sorts of skewed little truths; oh, you're very good at damning everyone who's

ever been in your way, in the wrong place at the wrong time -- "

"You were certainly both of those when you took Quentin back to the motherland,

weren't you?" Miranda cooed, batting her lashes. She rubbed the hem of her

dress lazily between two fingers. "Tell me, Laura, did your native tongue have

a suitable synonym for them to scream, 'burn witch?'"

"That's enough out of you," Laura snarled. Her eyes shimmered with phantom

flames. "That's enough, period."

"He'll never take you back," Miranda said, circling her now. "Quentin let those

priests burn you. And even he won't have a say with me."

"Really," Laura said dryly. Then, there was the flapping of great spectral

wings, and a huge ball of flame belched forth from the fireplace beside Laura,

and engulfed Miranda.

Miranda screamed. She howled. She beat at her flaming chest, at her melting

clothes, at her blackening flesh, as the fire seemed to spread across her as if

from nowhere.

Laura crossed to the tumbled-over, still flailing girl. "For whatever sad

reason, you seem to be a bit dimished, Miranda my girl." She checked her nails.

"I daresay a bit *peakish.*" A corner of her mouth kept tugging upward,

threatening to change her expression from faint amusement to maniacal joy.

"Pity, that." Her eyes simmered with that black abyss, where --

Miranda was melting down now, hair afire, a corona of blonde. Her hands, now

claws, scrabbled at Laura's shoes. Laura stepped back, only once. Miranda

gasped, mouth running over with flames. "you... B -- !!"

"I'm sorry, Miranda," Laura murmured, and now there was something very quiet

and horrible in her voice. "You'll have to speak loudly and concisely in order

for this good Christian jury to hear you." She crushed Miranda's hand at her

feet to ash under her heel. "But no one will hear you," she added.

The charring, howl-moaning thing on the ground that had been Miranda was

finally starting to settle down; only a few faint movements. Laura steadied

herself against a nearby chair, still watching. That bloom-burst had taken a

great deal of the energy she'd been conserving. No matter, though. She had a

date for which she could not be late, with two darling children of hers, not

the first not the last, and they all had a one-way ticket back to their

ancestral home, where Laura would dance and bathe in her rejuvenated power, and

the phoenix would once again scream its siren song.

Laura cocked her head, watching the mass on the floor writhe and burn one

moment longer. "hm," she finished, then took her bag and her cloak and left the

cottage.

Miranda did not move again for thirty minutes.

*/*/*

Count Petofi hated artists.

Not the older ones, mind you. Quite brilliant some of them. Brilliant work that

he stole or occasionally bought any chance he could get. Splendid. But these

contemporary monstrosities, they were the trouble. So "tortured," too much

absinthe in their diet, all about the pomp and the glamour and the dramatics.

Someone had told them all at the age of five or so that artists were deep,

tragic, damaged romantics who were never allowed to be whole and yet somehow,

this put them on a higher plane than all the rest of the rabble. And they

believed it, and now they reveled in their malaise and despair, and sold their

work for far too much as all the pundits sighed and nodded and APPRECIATED.

ArTISTES, as it were. Well, anyone could put on a sour face. It took a true

artist to know when, and how, and why.

Charles Tate was not a true artist, not yet, Petofi reminded himself as he

redonned his waistcoat and adjusted his eyeglasses. Still a bit too full of

that nouveau-tragedy jimjam. When Petofi had met him he was a wisp of a boy,

makeup all about, the worst pants Petofi had ever seen, and he sweated far too

much (and still did, but now he at least had just cause) . He was out of money,

no one was buying his awful landscapes or the even-worse portraits, but he

still never shut his maw and ceased to speak about the 'darkness inside.' Yes,

yes, darkness inside, Petofi saw. Petofi didn't care. He saw something in the

boy, more than simply the cosmetic. Something malleable. Something to be

molded. Trained. Tamed. He saw it now, more than ever. And I'll give it all to

you, boy, if you just take my (one) hand. And he had. And here they were, in

Petofi's suite, and Charles was buttoning his shirt and eyeing Petofi with that

petulant little moue of disgust he always affected, the one that said I hate

you but I'll never walk away from you, for without you I have no money, without

you I have no home, without you I drink too much, without you the absinthe

scorches my lungs, without you my parents tell me Charles we warned you about

these fool artist dreams. I hate you but without you I have no sense of self.

Of course. Petofi had seen it all before. He would see it again.

Petofi poured himself a snifterfull. Charles crossed from the bed to him. "Pour

me one?" he asked, not too hopefully. Petofi snorted and simply handed him the

decanter. Charles moved to pour himself a glass. Downed it quick and fast.

Gulped, hissed it out, as though it absolved him. Of course.

"So tell me, Charles," Petofi said, absently feeling the buttons on his

waistcoat and staring off into space.

"I already did," Tate sulked. He poured another glass. "The new wife appears to

be making time with good Mr. Quentin, and they have the object."

"The Vessel of Anubis," Petofi murmured.

"Whatever it is," Tate said. He sipped at the glass, this one more hard than

the last. It always got progressively harder for Charles, poor dear, no matter

where it was drink or art or sex or life. He wiped at his mouth disdainfully.

"What do you want with it anyway?"

"You know better than to ask," Petofi said, and there was a tinge of that old,

beautiful menace in his voice. "In time, dear boy. In time."

Charles slammed his glass down. It was still not empty. "'In time,'" he husked,

trying to mimic his patron. His voice was bitter and foul. "'In time, in time.'

You just won't say. You never say." He sulked some more, leaning over the

cabinet.

Petofi's hand was on his wrist. "Charles."

That voice was iron now. Charles turned -- met those telescoped eyes.

"The rest."

Tate licked his lips, and found he had no spit. "There's a woman," he said.

"Blonde. Beautiful. She's a witch, I think. And there's Barnabas Collins."

"'*Barnabas* Collins?'"

Tate nodded. "Yes. And here, here's the ridiculous part -- the new wife and he,

they...well, they claim to have...come here from the future." He couldn't help

but snicker.

That grip tightened suddenly, and now it was like a vice. Tate winced. Petofi's

voice was like a surgeon's scalpel now.

"The future?" A pause. "What of it?"

"They claim to be from there," Charles said, a little petulantly as he

struggled to release himself from Petofi's grasp. "Nineteen....sixty-seven, I

think it is."

Petofi let go. Tate took his hand back, rubbing his wrist. Petofi leaned back

in his chair, holding up the snifter to the light and suddenly beaming.

"Nineteen sixty-eight..." he sighed, content suddenly. "Marvelous."

He held the snifter up until the glare hit his eyes, then downed it.

"Marvelous," he croaked. "Charles, you are well on your way to becoming a true

artist. And quite a faithful dog."

Not a true artist yet, no, Petofi mused as he turned the snifter over and over

in the light. Charles went back to the bed and sulked more.

Not true. Not yet. But he could be.

*/*/*

Except for a few select areas like Quentin's room, the West Wing was a dreadful

mess. Nora wished she could take a big huge broom and sweep all the clutter up.

It certainly would be nice now, in this big dusty room that she and Jamison had

always been forbidden to go into.

Mummy had come for them, just like she'd promised. She'd come to Jamison first,

then Nora. Nora had roused to see her in the doorway, cloak round her

shoulders, bag in hand, smiling that amazing smile that not a single person on

Earth could duplicate, and she'd taken Nora in her arms and told her that it

was time for them to go, off to that beautiful, golden, shimmering country she

had told them about so very much, where the people knelt in terror and Isis was

in servitude, and Nora had felt so warm and safe in those arms, as if just by a

fire, and as she saw Jamison, leaning against the doorframe, clothes sticking

to him, head glistening with sweat from that awful fever he'd picked up, she

knew he felt it too.

Mummy had taken them here, saying it was the right place for this -- no one

could find them easily, no one would know where to look, and no one would get

in except who she wanted. Why Mummy had led them further INTO the house and not

out of it was something that would plague Nora's fractured memories of this

night for years to come; one of the few remaining things that lingered, in

fact. Mummy said it was an old 'music room' of sorts, and a very pretty one it

had been at that, Nora supposed, as she surveyed the powder-blue wallpaper,

cracking and peeled, yes, but very pretty she supposed, and then the various

musical instruments mounted around the room, and yet another anonymous

great-grandperson in the portrait overlooking the fireplace -- Nora's eyes

always came back to the fireplace.

She sat on the old, cobwebby divan, fidgeting a bit, feet swinging as she

watched Mummy arrange various strange things all about the room, around them.

Little gold trinkets, mostly; odd stuff, probably two dollars on a market in

Bangor but did Father ever buy Nora one? oh noooo because then she would be a

libertine. And then Nora saw that Mummy's trinkets were probably not so cheap;

she saw the gold ones, the silver one, the jewel-encrusted ones, the sleek,

black one...all these little tools and trinkets that Mummy needed to perform

one big grand magic trick, Mummy explained presently, a trick that would whisk

the three of them off to Mummy's magical land with the dying Isis who had pled

so convincingly to be spared from destruction in Nora's dreams.

Jamison lay on the floor, against the divan, sweating quite a lot now. His

breath came in panting gasps, and he watched dazedly as Laura bustled back and

forth. "what're you...i..."

"Am sick," Laura finished briskly as she hurried back and forth. "Sometimes

that happens, darling. But you'll be better once this is done, Jamison, I

promise you. We're all going to go away and everything's going to be perfect.

You'll see."

"Why aren't I sick?" Nora chimed in.

Laura paused, looking over them both. "That,"she said, "is a very good

question. For another time." She turned back to her bag, about to fish

something out --

"There won't be another time."

Quentin stood in the doorway. Laura's face went sour. Nora's eyes lit up.

Jamison slowly turned his head, regarding his favorite uncle with foggy eyes.

"Quentin," he mumbled simply.

"Quentin," Laura repeated, voice and face a mixture of disgust -- and fleeting

hope. "And where are all your new little friends?"

"Busy as bees," he said in a hollow, halting voice. "They didn't figure on you

moving so quickly. But after earlier I had a feeling you might. I figured I'd

wait around. You don't mind, do you? When you told me you'd go I knew you'd --

only leave one way." He swallowed hard. "I spoke to them. I know who you are."

"Do you."

"I sort of know what you might be, anyway," he said. His hands trembled as he

tried to keep his voice modulated. "Let them go; we'll finish this."

Laura let a bitter little smirk flit across her features. "And how, pray tell,"

she scoffed, "will you do that? With me?"

"I don't know," Quentin said, and it was God's honest truth. "Any way I can, I

guess. Any way you'll let me."

For a moment, she weakened; her face lost its hard edges. "Would that I could,"

she said softly, her voice very brittle -- then steely. "But this is not the

casinos and you are not gambling. I don't compromise, Quentin; you know that,

you always have."

"You have to beat a hasty retreat," he murmured, in that silky voice that she

hated and loved so much. But there was something quiet, honest, scary about it

now. "To wherever. I understand that. But I -- I can't just let you. Not with

them, for whatever you need them for. Take me instead. I'll go with you." He

sighed, chuckled a little, and it sounded like dead leaves. "I haven't much

left round these mortal parts anyway. I'm sure I'll hate where you're headed,

but if I have to I'll go."

Laura suddenly felt all the weight of all her time on her wings -- (arms) --

and suddenly felt very tired, and very old. She bowed her head, but only for a

moment. "That's not how it works," she said simply. "I can't...take you and not

them."

Quentin pursed his lips. "Then you'll have to kill me," he said. "I don't care

very much about me these days, Laura. I don't care very much about very much.

But I swear to high heaven you don't take these children with you to whatever

dead little void you go to unless you kill me first."

"You never cared about me," Laura whispered, more to herself than anyone else.

"You used me."

"And you used me," Quentin said, stepping further into the room. "And now we're

both monsters." He stopped, looked at her, eyes dark. "Just go. Please."

Laura held out a hand, more to guard than to grasp. Her eyes were shining, but

not with fire. "Come or don't, but shut up," she snapped. Behind her, in the

fireplace, flames sprouted. The children had grown remarkably placid and

silent. "You don't know me, Quentin. No mortal does. I have a place, I have

power, I have a NAME -- so few things have real names anymore, with meaning,

not this Victoria person, not YOU -- I do. And they will."

"You don't care about them," Quentin said. "You just take them with you. That's

what Barnabas figured. But for what? If they have what you gave them, why don't

they ever come back? You kill them," he murmured. "Don't you?"

"Be *QUIET,*" Laura snarled. "You could never comprehend -- "

"I comprehend power," Quentin cut in quietly. "I comprehend greed. And, though

I must say I wish I didn't, I think I'm coming damn close to comprehending

whatever the hell it is you are, Laura. Not in any definite, scientific sense,

just in a very human sense." He smiled oddly, and it frightened her. "How very

human you are."

"Come with me," Laura hissed, and this time her eyes did crackle with fire.

"No," Quentin said.

A thin, white line of lips. "Then leave me to my business."

"No."

There was a long pause. Laura bowed her head.

Then, the flames roared out of the fireplace, and Quentin was slammed back

against the wall. Laura raised her head, and now her blonde tresses were a

corona of fire, and her eyes were golden and smoldering, and the children's

hair was flying and their eyes were gold too, and they were, all three of them

in a row, Laura as the center jewel, advancing on him.

"Then die," the Laura-thing sybil-hissed, and Quentin realized with dazed,

gasping-for-breath horror that it had no sex.

"astua," Nora murmured.

"amen ra," Jamison said.

*/*/*

"all right."

Everything stopped.

The thing between the children raised its head/mane. Quentin turned.

Miranda was in the doorway. Bleeding, scorched, seemingly regenerating as they

watched. Her legs twisted at bizarre angles; she clung to the doorframe with

bleeding fingernails. Her hair was a jagged, burnt mess. All that was truly

there...were her eyes.

"you want your mummy," she hissed, looking to the children. "have her."

Then, she spat out a string of harsh, vicious old words and Laura stopped short

and screamed:"NOT YET!"

Laura exploded. Not exploded in the most traditional sense of the word, gore

and blood aplenty, no; she simply -- blew out of her earthly skin. Laura

Murdoch Stockbridge Collins let out a keening scream, which bled into the cry

of a great, ancient animal, and then she expanded and burnt out into an

incandescent, crackling shape, shredding through her clothes, and now all of

her was a corona, not just her hair -- now she was like the classical vision of

the angel, all gauze and white light and indistiguishable limbs, all in a fog

of burning white fire. Her face was there, a hint of hair, but beyond that, a

spectre of pure light.

Then it began.

Laura's left arm returned. Then the other. Then her legs. Then, her arm began

to pulse, to seize and inflate, to shake with ague -- then, to bubble outward

and upward, and slowly, ever so slowly, transmute. Slowly the arm became a much

larger blob, then a fin of sorts -- then, as strange, gauzy residue began to

appear, a wing. The other arm ripped itself back out into a wing as well. The

legs fused, forming a perfect tail. Her hair lurched back, wrestling with what

was once human muscle to form a wide, arching back and mane. It was like

watching a fairy tale in the most horrible reverse possible. And then, before

the shocked, frozen faces of her children, the thing that had been Laura

Murdoch Stockbridge Collins' wings began to flap.

"not YYYEEEETTTTTTT -- " she managed to garble out once more, and then Laura's

mouth RIPPED out with a sick, wet sound into a massive maw, and then her eyes

were black abysses,

The Great Bird arched its back and SCREAMED,

the children and Quentin stared,

Miranda -- Angelique -- smiled.

The room exploded, then burnt back out and in again. Laura was gone. The

children goggled at nothing, in shock, quivering with inner scars that would

never fully go away no matter how many pretty stories Miranda plugged into

their brains.

Quentin gawked.

Miranda couldn't stop smiling. She looked over to him. He looked back.

"*Well!*" Miranda said cheerily through a mouthful of ash and her own blood,

and struggled to her feet.

*/*/*

Petofi didn't need his better Hand to get into places he wanted to be. He

simply got himself in. And by the feel of things, the cottage's occupant would

not be returning for, oh, say, seventy-five years. After jimmying the lock, he

slowly opened the door and allowed himself inside. He hadn't sent Charles on

this; he wanted a bit of physical exercise himself. He promised himself he

would reclaim his lionlike vitality anyday now. He had been promising himself

this for about two hundred years.

Charles might yet be able to become a true artist, but he was a dull boy at

heart. Petofi wasn't even sure he'd find the item if sent for it. And time was

still of the essence; soon, the victors would return for the spoils of the

Phoenix. Petofi was here to see it that they didn't get them.

He found it on the table next to the bookshelf, and smiled. Held it in his

hands, cradling it like a baby.

"The Vessel of Anubis," Petofi purred, voice still mellifluous despite years of

age and abuse. "And with it, the power to make grown men weep...and wonder..."

He smiled, pocketing it with a hmmph. Quite a poet himself, he thought.

"'True artists,'" he scoffed.

And left.

TO BE CONTINUED ...