Shadows on the Wall Chapter 80

Chapter 80 --  Halfway through the Wood

By Julia99/RJ

Sometimes people leave you.

Halfway through the wood.

Others may deceive you.

You decide what's good.

You decide alone.

But no one is alone.

--Into the Woods, S. Sondheim

Voiceover:  (Joan Bennett): Dark winds circle the Great House.  Old Lords call

to new disciples and the children of the Light fight to see the sun once

again. 

   

 Nicholas Blair did not notice anything but the gleaming golden mask of Ba'al.

The jewels glittering, promising, tempting.  Ultimate power was in his

grasp, finally.  He felt his own purpose solidify, his secret desires and the

fulfillment of his master's demands at hand.  He did not feel the power

rising behind him, the darkening of the room as Maggie whispered secretly her

private incantation all the while answering the Dark One's new commands.  She

could hear the words that were new but not foreign.  Her new Master gave them

over, a new language for them alone.  He told her that his minion Nicholas

was failing and arrogant.  He wanted obedience, not petulance.  Maggie was

obedient and greedy in a way that would work well.   She was also proving to

be quite adept at duplicity even with the man who knew her body but not her

soul.  He suspected her of nothing but desire for power, lust for him, not

treachery and betrayal.

"Maggie, isn't it exquisite?"  Blair's back was all Maggie saw, the Dark

One's words in her head, the heat of his power rising within, journeying from

her toes and fingers to her center. 

'Answer him,' she heard her Master command.  "Yes, Nicholas, exquisite."  Her

fingers ached to touch it, take it.  The power it contained.  She did not

fully understand but it's beauty pulled at her itching skin.

Nicholas adored the golden key.  He would not let it out of his sight again.

He held it like a baby.  "Master, I have what I've sought for so long.  I

have passed your tests, all of them and am now ready to -"

"Sancto!"  Maggie screamed the final word of the incantation-from her

outstretched fingers fire jumped toward Nicholas.  The burning flames

surrounded his body, a funnel of flame.  He did not drop the mask; only his

eyes betrayed his surprise.  Coolly, laughing, Maggie reached into the

flames, easily withdrawing the Mask of Ba'al from Nicholas' frozen hands.

"You fool!" she laughed. 

"Master!"  Nicholas screamed as the mask was taken so easily from his hands

and the flames rose up obscuring his face, his body, his entire being.

"Beware Margaret Evans.  What you've taken I do not surrender easily.  I've

long been his slave.  I know well what he wants.  I'll be back-"  His last

phrase was cut off by a violent flare and a demented, cacophonic laugh as the

earth parted swallowing him whole.

Screaming over Blair's anguished pleas, Maggie informed him--"Your Master

calls you home."

The stench of burning flesh and wool crept into Maggie's nostrils.  She

inhaled deeply the scent of her power.  The Mask of Ba'al glowed in her

hands.  She held it up but listened closely. 'Not yet my dear, not yet,' her

Master warned.

***

  

"Call me if you need anything."  Julia quietly closed the door to Vicki's

room.  Bringing her back from the Old House has been easy, but getting her to

rest and stop questioning where her baby had gone was another chore.  Julia's

headache had lessened but she still felt the Leviathans talking, celebrating.

Jebez had arrived;  they would soon accomplish their destiny.  Rubbing her

temples she walked to her own room for a long desired rest.  In this state,

she could not think, let alone find ways to stop the celebrated domination.

Vicki held up her hair brush admiring the many threads of dark hair

interwoven between the teeth.  Looking in the mirror she saw few remaining

dark strands.  Her hair was now mostly white. 

"Mother," a soft voice from a darkened corner called. 

Vicki spun to see her adult son, born only twenty-four hours earlier,

materialize.  She had seen him morph from a baby to this man; she had seen it

but still did not believe.

"I am Jeb."  He held out his arms.  He wanted his Mother's love.  He needed

it.

Vicki's eyes were wide, wild and confused.  How had this being come from her

body, her love of Quentin?  Was he Quentin's son? Or hers for that matter, or

had she purely been a vessel?  "I don't know what or who you are-" she

stammered.

His voice rich and full of power, blanketed her.  "I am your son, and I am

more."

"I don't understand."  She felt tears beginning to flow.  Where was the power

that had sustained her these last weeks?  She needed it now.  She could not

return to being the twist who cried and was in the dark about everything.

Where was the garden? 

Jeb's hands rested on his mother's snow white hair.  "In all the time you

were alone at the orphanage, in those days when the Collins family abandoned

you there-you wanted a child of your own.  In the centuries that I've waited

to be born, I planned for a kind and giving woman to bring me back into the

world--"

 

His words struck the right chord.  "Me?  You purposely chose me?"  She had

dreamt of children, something to love as she had not been.

"I, and others planned this, yes.  I am here to return my race to their

power, their glory, their divine nature.  You are part of those plans.  Your

Father, my Grandfather set things into motion long ago-"  His hand stroked

her hair as if she were the child, not the parent.

"My Father is evil!"  Vicki pulled away.  His crystalline eyes plead with

her.  She did not mistake what she saw.  There was something good in this

-this man?  There was immaturity, desperation but also, hope?

"Evil?  No, powerful, glorious, misunderstood, yes.  He does what he is

compelled to do, as will I-doing whatever must be done to bring about the

resurrection and survival of your race is not evil-" he naively and simply

explained.  He knew nothing but Petofi's words, his explanations.

"But you are human-"  She saw humanity, humility in his eyes.  Was there

kindness too?

"I am less human than the other but yes, as your Mother was human, so is

mine.  And I feel for this race, these humans but they subjected the

Leviathans-" He turned to a distant sound.

She knew what was calling to him, the ghosts and spirits of the Collins

forebearers.  They pleaded with him for life and the legacy of  humanity.

She heard them now too. "Can't you feel it?  Can't you discern the difference

between these races Jeb?  Where one is kind, the other is not-"

"Humans, kind?"  Jeb laughed.  "Need I remind you of the massacres against

your own kind, the genocide, the inter-familial pillaging?  I might not have

lived as a human but I've observed during my waiting, as a Leviathan all that

humanity has wrought to this place-innocence, goodness, they are

infinitesimal amounts of what humans are-"

She was not a history scholar, but a governess who knew the basics, what the

text books allowed to be said which didn't really deal with weighted truths,

with humanity's lesser accomplishments and greater sins.  "I can't argue that

humans are better than Leviathans through history, I can only argue what I

feel-I feel darkness and disaster from the Leviathans.  I feel the comfort

and love of my ancestors, your ancestors.  And from you I feel the

struggle-you want to be one of us but feel it is a lie-"

Jeb's hands reached out again.  His Mother felt all that he was; how could

she not?  She was a part of what he was, Leviathan, human, something else

entirely?  Even he did not completely understand his origin, his Grandfather.

"I am all that you are, we are the same.  I am your son and I am more.  You

are my Mother but also, so much more-"

Vicki laid her head against her son's chest.  She heard his human heart beat

rhythmically.  Jeb rested his chin atop her ivory hair.  "I know what it is

he wants-" she began haltingly.

"And you know I can not disobey." 

"I know."  She squeezed the steel muscles of his arm.  He had strength and

power.  But so did she.  She could not explain the longing in her heart to be

this man's mother nor could she explain her desire to save him from himself.

He was only to do what he was born, created to effect, just as she was.  But

somehow she did know better against Petofi's plans.  She had a sense of

humanity that her son did not, that her Father had not allowed.  She would

not let others destroy him or her-there had to be another way.

***

  Jeb left his Mother asleep in her room.  The quietude of Collinwood

surrounded him.  It was what his Grandfather had told him, a house of power,

a place of destiny.  It would be theirs for reasons beyond the knowledge of

even the powerful Nicholas.  Nicholas?  Jeb tilted his head outside the

closed Sitting Room doors.  He did not feel him any longer.  Nicholas wasn't

here, he was gone entirely.  He had been called home.  Jeb smiled.  There was

another but he'd worry about her later.  Right now he had two humans who

remained outside his control and they must be forced to capitulate before

they grew more willful. Jeb threw open the doors to the small Sitting Room.

"Well here you are-"  Jeb's voice bombastically filled the room.  He watched

the woman's eyes narrow, her chin thrust out in defiance.  The other man,

portly, professorial, wiped his monocle whilst smacking his lips.  "You two

have been very disobedient."

"We know what you are-"  Julia's voice was devoid of its usual nuances and

caring. 

"As you should."  Jeb picked up a small trinket from a side table, tossing it

back and forth.  "Now, it is silly for you two to refuse me, my plans-"

 

"It is silly for you to insist that we join such an absurd plot," Julia

retorted.

"What are you called?"  Stokes asked.

"You know already but to play along, you may address me as Jeb."  The

child-man walked about touching items in the room, reacquainting himself with

human existence. 

"Jeb, as Dr. Hoffman and I have skillfully demonstrated, we have no desire to

join in your plans for world domination."

"No desire-what of your desires?"  Jeb focused on the flames licking an

ashing gray log.  He need not stare at them to issue threats, to feel their

fear.  This would do.  Play upon their secrets.  Julia and Stokes exchanged

curious looks but remained silent.  "You daughter, Stokes, your secret desire

is for your daughter's life-"

"Do not speak of her!"  Stokes thrust out his chest insolently.  Julia's

comforting hand rested on his forearm.

Jeb spun around, his eyes alive with maniacal anger.  "I can restore her to

you-"

"She is gone, as it is to be.  You do not tempt me -"  Stokes reached down,

one hand resting on a burnished brass vase sitting atop the small table

before him.  Its diminutive nature exacerbated by his portly body.

"Too bad ... but perhaps the subjection of your dear dear friend Julia Hoffman

will sway you."

 

"You have nothing to tempt me with."  Julia stepped closer to the Professor

as the air filled with a familiar scent.

"Not your brother?  Raymond?"  Jeb snapped his fingers.  The ghostly visage

of a young man stood beside him.  He held a brown paper bag, he dropped candy

into his mouth.  "Raymond, your sister could return you here but she is

playing hard to get-"

Julia swallowed, her hands held onto Stokes for support as the scent of lemon

drops made her gag.  "It is not Raymond."

"Jules-"  The opaque man reached out.

Julia's eyes closed.  "You are not him."  Jeb snapped his fingers.

"All right, so perhaps I can not bring back the dead ... but I can cure Barnabas-"

Julia's eyes snapped open.  "Thought that might get your attention-both of

yours."

"Mr. Collins' affliction has been healed before without your intervention,"

Stokes huffed.

"Yes, but that was when he was made by little ole Angelique-but this time out,

well. . ."  Jeb took a few steps toward the standoffish couple.  "He was not

made by Nicholas or Angelique - but by my kind."

"You?"  Julia growled.

Seeing her curiosity, her anger, Jeb playfully informed her.  "Not me per

say, I just arrived-but by my caretakers, yes. And only I can unmake him-and

I will--"   

The Professor squeezed Julia's hand, she nodded, together they called out:  

"Amun-Ra!"  Stokes waved his free hand above the vase before him. 

Jeb looked down in amused confusion.  Stokes' hand gestured above the dark

copper vessel.  A thin line of white smoke began to rise.  "What the devil?"

Jeb laughed at the mere idea that these two could conjure up anything

threatening to him.

Stokes continued, Julia joined him.  "From the remnants of Osiris, through

the elixir of the body of Isis, the darkest soil of the Nile, from  this

sacred place, we summon thee!"  A long line of smoke traversed the room from

the vessel to the large hearth where the flames began to dance wildly,

crawling up the stones into the chimney, jumping out into the room.  Julia

and Stokes chanted, "Amun-Ra, Amun-Ra, Great God Ra."

Jeb laughed.  "What little incantation are you two trying to perform?"  The

words left his lips as the flames burst forcefully filling the entire hearth.

The heat of the sun emanated from the flames as the ball of fire collapsed

into itself taking shape as the searing heat flooded the room.  The ball

quickly changed shape, lengthening, elongating, forming a human figure.  Jeb

looked from it to the chanting couple.  Stokes' and Julia's brows were

dripping from the heat but they did not cease.

"Great God Osiris, lord of the Dead, is our family member returned to us?"

Stokes asked.

"Yesssssss-" A low, warm, female voice filled the room. 

Jeb suddenly became less amused.  "What have you done?!"

"Called in some reinforcements."  Julia smiled while touching her brow with a

hanky pulled from her jacket.

Jeb growled watching her pat her brow nonchalantly.  "You can't deny the

power of the Leviathans, nor our destiny forever, you stupid slattern!"

"Why have I been returned here?  David?"  Laura Collins, aglow in orange light,

stepped into the room.  Her nude form shimmered.

 

Julia pointed to Jeb.  "He is a Leviathan, and he has taken the mind and will

of your son-"

"My son!  You have harmed my son?"  Laura's fiery arms reached out.

"Stop this absurdity!"  Jeb stepped back, twisting away from the fiery claw.

"You must not harm my son!  Great God of Ra!"  From Laura's body a trunk of

flames burst out to engulf Jeb. 

***

 

"But you can, you must!"  Vicki stomped her feet petulantly.  Why would  Sky

refuse?  Angelique bit her thumb nail nervously watching and waiting. 

"Angelique-surely you -" Vicki pleaded.

"Surely I?"  Angelique's high pitched incredulous voice warned Vicki. 

Her hands to her breast, Vicki implored, "He is my son."

 

Angelique had enough.  Thrusting her errant blonde curls aside, she corrected

Vicki's naiveté.  "He is a monster!  He is inhuman and his complete aim is to

destroy all of us, every last one, including you!"

"No!"  Vicki shook her head.  "Sky-you have knowledge beyond mine.  But

together, our power can change this-we can help Jeb reject the Leviathans, we

can stop them, I feel it, I know it-"

"At what cost Victoria?"  Sky Rumson stood to his full height, an arm wrapped

about his wife.  "I've foresworn the powers of Darkness, although they now

attempt to retake my life.  Should I do as you ask, I will be subsumed, lost

forever-the Leviathans try what they will -there must be another way to stop

them.  I will not sign up for an eternity in Hell-"

Vicki's face twisted into a mask of hatred.  "Selfish, you are being

selfish!" 

"Aren't you?!"  Angelique stepped forward.  "We all know you could destroy

him without Sky's assistance but you won't!  You must save him-and for

that you do need help.  Who is more selfish, you or Sky?  You ask my husband

to sacrifice his soul forever to save that monster you think is your son!  A

being that has been here less than two days, you ask us to give up our hard

won, peaceful lives for the spawn of Petofi!?"

Vicki stared, hearing the woman but rejecting her logic.  Jeb was her child,

she felt it in her heart, in the emptiness now of her womb.  In her mind she

heard others tell her, Jebez is your son, he is human.  He is salvageable,

your son can be saved.

***

 

In a darkness he waited.  The strange fire creature had vanquished him for a

short time but he would rebuild his strength and return.  Let the haughty

professor and rigid female doctor think they had a victory over him, it would

make them careless.  That and their affection for his Mother. His Mother, did

she note his absence?  Did she feel it, had she known what they were

planning?  No, she loved him.  He loved her.  He wanted to be with her now,

feel her hands on his chest, listen to her words asking him to consider

another way, live another life.  He wanted to be what she wanted.

'Love is not lasting-stop fussing with such absurd human notions!'  Jeb heard

the voice, the one that directed him.  He felt a burning on his hand.

Looking down he saw a large, ruby colored ring.  He instantly knew, it was

the source of the voice, the power.  Within lay the spirit of his

Grandfather. 

 

"No, what compels her to exist, curiosity, desire, love-these things are not

absurd."  Jeb had tried for his whole two days of life to push aside these

things that lived within him.  They never screamed so loudly as when his

Mother held him, when he comforted her.  He could not spend eternity without

what he felt and knew when she held him, he would not, could not be devoid of

it.

'You are my Grandson, my son!  I forbid this type of thinking!  Focus on

returning to Collinwood and taking those two obstreperous humans into your

control-once they and their inhuman friend are under your power, we will

persevere!"

***

  "How long do we have?"  Barnabas worried his ring yet again.  Julia wanted

to reach out and grab his hands, stop his fidgeting. 

"Eliot said no more than forty-eight hours before he would be strong again

and return."  Julia pushed aside the stack of books she'd spent nearly eight

hours reviewing.  She pulled forth the last set, only three more she sighed

wearily.  Barnabas raised his head, checking the mantle timepiece.  He had a

few more hours before he had to retire.  He stood, a cup of tea would be a

nice thing for Julia he thought.

She opened her mouth to object to his departure but then spied him taking her

cold cup.  Since their conversation a few days ago, since he'd confessed all,

he'd been rather kind ... was that the word?  Yes, he'd been kind and solicitous

toward her.  He seemed to think about what she wanted.  He even said when it

was all over they would take a trip away to rest and shop.  He suggested a

new coat.  She had spied his frown before but didn't know her coat was so

intensely disliked.  She rolled her aching shoulders.  There was no time now

to dissect his reason or motivations.  She reached for the book he'd been

perusing for the last hour.  While he had keen eyesight, he was not a fast

reader.  She skimmed the text.  "Barnabas!"  She quickly read in the text all

the things he had told her about an ancient race.  Julia turned over the

cover of the book, it was ostensibly, and Eliot had said surreptitiously,

about Greek mythology.  But she read closely and saw it was not.  She read

aloud:

 

The Kraken

 Below the thunders of the upper deep,

 Far far beneath in the abysmal sea,

 His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep

 The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee

 About his shadowy sides: above him swell

 Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;

 And far away into the sickly light,

 From many a wondrous grot and secret cell

 Unnumbered and enormous polypi

 Winnow with giant fins the slumbering green.

There hath he lain for ages and will lie

Battering upon huge seaworms in his sleep,

Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;

Then once by men and angels to be seen,

In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

 

"What is that?" Barnabas returned with a hot cup of tea.  He set it down,

resting a hand on Julia's shoulder as he leaned over.  She tried not to think

anything or react to the overly-familiar gesture. 

 "It's the book you were reading.  Eliot told us how it was written in code,

these references to the Ancient Ones, the Titans being the Greek Gods before

Zeus, Hera and that pantheon.  In this book, the Titans are actually code for

the Leviathans."  Julia twisted in her chair, Barnabas' hand falling away.

"Vicki said she had visions of a great sea creature before Jeb was born, a

dream-"

"Petofi-"  Barnabas stood taller, he kept his hand on Julia's chair back. 

Julia nodded.  "The only thing that could destroy the Kraken was the head of

Medusa, a priestess of Aphrodite whom the goddess punished for sleeping with

Poseidon in her temple-"

"She became a serpent woman-"  Barnabas remembered his Greek mythology. 

"Yes, Perseus used her head to turn the Kraken into stone."  Julia made an

exasperated noise whilst taking up her steaming cup of tea.  "Now where are

we going to find that?"

 

 ***

  

"You're back!"  Amy jumped like a child watching Jeb rematerialize.  She had

sat patiently in the Tower room awaiting him. 

Jeb saw her.  He wanted to free the child from the Leviathan control.  He

knew her soul was somewhere in torment watching. 

"No!"  Amy stomped her feet.  "You mustn't think of that."  She was becoming

quite exasperated by Jeb's vacillating emotional state.  Between him, Roger

and David she was the only truly loyal follower.  Barnabas had thrown in his

lot with his girlfriend and ex-wife.  Amy ground her teeth.  Those two women

exerted too much control over him.  Once Jeb stopped dithering, she would see

that he focus on Barnabas and the doctor.  

"Can't you hear her?"  Jeb looked out at the distant ocean, it called to him.

"No, I can't and you shouldn't try to hear her.  Things are ready, it is

time."

"You are driven," he noted with remorse.  His Grandfather's malevolent

lectures in the darkness had only tilted him further toward his Mother's

kindness and love.

"You were born to lead us Jeb, anything else you would do is a waste of

time."  Amy opened the door.  "You can pretend all you like but you were born

to restore us, them to the world, you can not do anything else."

"There can be no peace between us and them?"  Jeb followed the girl into the

hallway and down the stairs.

"That was decided long ago.  There is nothing to be done but follow the path-"

"But as a leader, I can chart another course-"Jeb and Amy halted at the

landing at the top of the stairs.  Below the could faintly hear Roger singing

some boozy version of  "The Lady is a Tramp."

"You forget, you are the Grandson of our true leader, you are to follow his

course, not chart you own."  Amy spun at hearing Roger drop a decanter in the

Drawing Room.  "And it's time for him to say bye bye!"  Amy bent down.  From

her boot she pulled out a syringe.  "Always good to have a doctor with drugs

in the house-"  She smiled sweetly before bounding down the stairs to the

drawing room.  "Mr. Collins!  I need your help!"

TO BE CONTINUED ...