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Through a Wood Darkly

The Croglin Nightmare

Coven

Written by Glynn Barrass : Illustrated by Leon Atkinson

Slouching and wet on a street corner, Vampirella barely felt the cold from her rain-soaked trench coat, her alien physiology combating most earthly conditions of discomfort and harm. One thing that she couldn’t combat however was boredom, and after standing here for over two hours, the condition had begun to permeate her bones. Just as she was beginning to call the mission a lost cause, headlights from an approaching car illuminated her rain-drenched frame. ‘This must be the one’, she thought, the trap was set – but would she become the victor or the victim?

*   *   *

Three men were seated in red leather chairs, in a most luxurious drawing room. The walls were formed from black teak panels, covered with framed paintings of an abhorrent and disturbing design. This, the twenty-third meeting of ‘The Gentleman’s Society of Esoteric Learning’, a coven full of despicable men, had taken a most surprising turn. Once a month (on a full moon, usually) the five members of this exclusive club (not including the kidnapped girls intended for sacrifice) would meet in this abandoned building and perform certain rituals, intended to contact the anti-Christ and in general further the causes of evil and damnation in the world.

‘Well, he certainly arrived at the right time’ mused Nikos, the coven's second in command, twiddling the end of his beard with thumb and forefinger.

'That means nothing!’ sneered Arthur, an arrogant lay-member.

‘Shush!’ whispered Phillips, the group’s main kidnapper and disposer of victims ‘We must stay quiet till Simon returns’.

The brass handle on the solid oak door turned, and a man clad in a purple velvet smoking jacket slid silently into the room. ‘Gentlemen, gentlemen!’ smiled Simon, the group leader, ‘I don’t think we have anything to worry about’.

‘You’ve performed some kind of test?’ questioned Arthur.

The raven-haired girl, her naked body chained to the crude concrete block of an altar, had long since stopped struggling...

No, not a test as such, but I have consulted the tarot cards, and they came up with nothing out of the ordinary’ Simon replied, taking a sip from a nearby glass of sherry.

‘So, it was just a coincidence then, he’s not the Dark Lord?’ Nikos asked, a troubled expression crossing his sharp profile.

‘Well just because he dresses in black and has a goatee’ Simon smiled, ‘it was all just bad luck on our part and bad timing on his, that’s all’, Simon gestured, ‘he just happened to stumble upon us at the peak of the invocation’.

‘Well that may be true’ the antagonized Arthur said, rising from his chair, ‘but how on earth did he make his way into the inner sanctum?  One of us accidentally left the front door open? We had enough trouble with the last girl we caught, screaming about revenge and such without getting ourselves into yet more trouble!’

Simon thought about this, and placing his thumb against the bridge of his nose, as he usually did whilst thinking deeply, cast his mind back to the events that transpired thirty minutes previously.

*   *   *

The raven-haired girl, her naked body chained to the crude concrete block of an altar, had long since stopped her struggling, and stared blank eyed at the ceiling. Simon, adorned in black robes and wearing a goat-headed mask over his face, raised a black blade and prepared to plunge it into the poor girl's heart. He smiled at Phillips’ story of how easy it was to ensnare this one – just standing out in the rain waiting for a lift.

To his surprise and consternation, a light tapping sound came from the door beyond the black draped room. A look of horror and bewilderment shot across Simon's face, and a quick shuffling ensued, the members of the coven slipping off their robes and masks, snuffing out the smoking braziers, and with the thought ‘police raid!’ running through their minds. One of the coven members, Charles, was dispatched to the door (being the most respectable and innocent looking member of the group) with explanations and possibly an attempt at a bribe. The door behind the curtain opened a crack, and to Charles’s relief, there stood a tall, rain-drenched man in place of the expected police officer or plain clothed CID man. ‘Can I-I help you?’ Charles stammered.

The light from the doorway filtered into the inner sanctum, making dancing dervishes of the smoke escaping from the now extinguished braziers, the odour of evil smelling incense filtering past Charles’s nostrils to the saturnine face of the bedraggled, black clad stranger.

Squeezing past Charles, Simon took command of the situation and led the stranger to the end of the corridor, beyond the inner sanctum, and after an anxious twenty minutes of waiting and shuffling, Simon returned with a smile on his face and an explanation for the untimely intrusion of their ceremony.

‘Who the hell is he?’ snarled Arthur, clenching his fists angrily.

‘Isn’t it obvious!’ exclaimed Nikos, ‘It’s the dark one! We’ve been trying to summon him for weeks, and here he is.’

‘No, no, no,’ grinned Simon, slowly shaking his head ‘Just a man whose car happened to break down and accidentally stumbled upon our little gathering.’

‘So where is he now?’ questioned Charles.

‘He’s in the front room drying himself off,’ Simon replied, ‘I told him that he’s strayed across a secret ‘gentleman’s retreat’, so I suggest you disperse yourselves to the drawing room and pretend you’re all rich layabouts’

‘And what about you?’ quizzed Nikos.

‘I’m going to my study to consult the tarot – see if they give any answers about this little event’ Simon answered, ‘I’ll see you all in ten minutes or so, and Charles, go take care of our guest,’ and turning his head on his retreat from the room: ‘and all of you, try to act normal!’

When Charles opened the door to the front room, the stranger was sat so close to the roaring fireplace that steams rose from his wet clothing. Dressed in a thoroughly damp black suit and tie, his dark hair lay stuck to his forehead in black greasy tendrils. As Charles quietly closed the door behind him, the man smiled and stood up.

A twinkle came to his dark brown eyes as he said to Charles; ‘I’m sorry I had to intrude, but it’s blowing a gale out there!’

‘So what were you doing out so late in this god-forsaken wasteland?’ Charles enquired, returning the smile.

The man seated himself back down and placed his palms close to the flames; ‘Oh, a late business meeting, a lucky coincidence that I found your building and shelter.

*   *   *

In the drawing room, Simon returned his mind to the present, and turning to Nikos said; ‘I think we should maybe check on the girl, ensure she’s still incapacitated. You do that, whilst Arthur and I check the grounds in the back lot, to make sure our ‘guest’ hadn’t been snooping before he came here. Phillips, go check on Charles.’

Walking downstairs to the inner sanctum, Nikos pondered whether or not he would have time to have sex with the girl' After all, she was going to die soon anyway, so it would be a shame to put her to waste.

Phillips stood awestruck in the center of the front room, mouth open, he gaped in shock at Charles’s crumpled form. He lay in a fetal position, the only movement the steady trickle of blood from his damaged head.

For a second Phillips thought of fleeing, thought of getting his pistol, and then wondered why there was a sharp pain at the back of his head, and why some dark fluid clogged his vision. Then he died, face down on the expensively carpeted floor.

Nikos entered the sanctum and couldn’t believe his eyes,’ No, no, this can’t be happening!’ he gasped, staring at the broken chains splayed across the alter, ‘Where’s that bitch gone?’ A footstep sounded behind him, then darkness.

Simon grimaced and turned to Arthur, ‘After the new girl’s been disposed of, and then maybe that gate-crasher Astarth or whoever he says he is, but first I’m going to check for his car, see if it really has broken down.’

... why some dark fluid clogged his vision ...

*   *   *

Vampirella wiped the blood from her hands on the black altar cloth; the man called Nikos lay at her feet – black bubbles of blood popping from his dying throat. She smiled at the sight of a small snub-nosed revolver, hanging from the dead man's inside pocket.

Arthur watched as Simon trudged away into the, gloom, his frame soon obscured by the dark night. The squelching of footsteps sounded behind him, and turning round, assuming that Phillips or Nikos had come outside, was shocked to see the stranger, Astarth standing before him. Not shocked for long though, for as the stranger brutally swung down the poker he held before Arthur’s head.

The stranger pulled the bloody poker from Arthur’s head with shaking hands, the heat of vengeance burning in his brown, deep-set eyes. ‘Robert Astarth I presume?’ A female voice sounded from behind him. He spun round at the sound of his name, finding himself face to face with a beautiful, raven-haired girl pointing the dripping muzzle of a pistol in his face.

As Charles quietly closed the door behind him the man smiled and stood up...

Vampirella smiled at him, and blowing a strip of long black hair from her mouth: ‘You’ll find the leader on his way to your car, I think you’ve killed the rest of them.’

‘Who are you?’ Astarth muttered, a look of disbelief on his face.

‘The one who tipped you off, telling you where to find the monsters that murdered your daughter,’ she replied, ‘And someone they thought they could hold in chains’ .  They stared at each other in silence, rainwater dripping from the muzzle of the gun, a darker fluid dripping from the end of poker.

‘You’d better take this,’ Vampirella said, handing him the pistol, ‘their leader might be a bit more of a handful than the others.’

‘Why are you doing this, helping me kill them?’ Astarth asked, taking the pistol from her.

‘Because I can,’ smiled Vampirella, and turning round, she walked off into the night. The gunshot came echoing to Vampirella’s ears a few seconds later, then repeated itself twice more.

Vampirella strolled down a cobbled side street, illuminated by the headlights of a waiting van. The driver's side door opened, and a distinguished looking, grey- haired man appeared from inside. ‘Did everything go according to plan my dear?’ grinned Pendragon.

‘Well, I almost had to transform into a bat, to stop them sticking a knife in me, but apart from that, the plan went like clockwork,’ Vampirella smiled, heading towards the passenger’s side of the vehicle.

Pendragon climbed back inside the van, opening the door for his companion; ‘I bet their leader wishes he hadn’t sent that letter to Lord Goatland, describing their last victim and where their coven was!’

Vampirella sat beside him, pulling on her seatbelt. ’And I bet he wishes Goatland hadn’t used it as a bookmark in that Grimoire we took from him, they were so keen on worshipping the devil – but they couldn’t even see what was happening when they brought out the devil in their victim's father.’

Vampirella flicked on the overhead light, examining her nails'  Pendragon turned a beady eye to her; ‘Well, they’ll all be meeting Satan on his own terms now – I hope they’re satisfied!’

Placing her hands on the dashboard, Vampirella nodded in approval.

  All images on this site are copyright © 2007, Harris Publications, Inc.  VAMPIRELLA ® and other characters are trademarks of Harris Publications, Inc. Text and concepts © 2007 Mike Grace. All rights reserved.