by Marcus James
She was being hunted. Like the Campus Slasher before, Kathryn was the end game. The Slasher had been a human. Just a man disturbed and corrupted; driven by insanity. This was so much more. This was divine, this was absent of humanity. This was powerful beyond measure, and could possibly wipe her out at any moment.
This was because of who she was.
Angelina looked at Kathryn with sympathy. Kathryn didn’t like that look. Sympathy was akin to pity, and Kathryn refused to be pitied.
“The Dark God...”
“What?” Angelina asked.
Kathryn shook her head and looked at her watch. “I’ve got to get back to the hotel; my cousin is going to be here in a couple of hours.”
“Yeah, I’ve gotta get ready for my shift. Covering for a coworker. I’m off at one if you want to hang. I’d love to meet Magdalene.”
Kathryn nodded. “Totally! We’ll meet you at The Rainbow.”
They waved at each other and Kathryn made her way back towards her car in the front of the house, passing through the foliage of the side garden. She had just rounded the corner when she was startled by a thin and leathery old woman. She was clothed in a white linen dress and her gray hair was tied up in a white scarf. Her black eyes were small and staring into Kathryn.
“The Devil shall come for his witches...” she said in a near whisper, the words curling in the sound of her Spanish.
“What did you say?”
The old woman crossed herself. “The Devil shall come...”
“Where did you hear that?” The old woman just continued to stare at her. “Tell me!” Kathryn demanded. Still she said nothing.
Kathryn wanted to shake her, to grip those frail arms and crush her until the answers came out of her mouth. But she wouldn’t do it. She would not resort to that type of cruelty.
“Go to hell.” Kathryn spat at her.
Kathryn walked back to her car, turning one last time to look at the woman, who simply continued to stare.
She cried all the way home with The Runaways on full blast. She needed to drown out the sound of her crying so no one could hear. She needed to keep herself from hearing the true depth of her fear and of her pain. She had already been hunted once before and it had cost her the only man she had ever loved, and now, here it was again; the undeniable truth that she would never escape. That it was all true.
The Dark God of the Wood, the prophecy of the Blackmoores-the Legacy-it was not just some superstition that colored an already dark history. It wasn’t a lore that was passed down through the generations to scare Blackmoores from embracing who they were and keep them in line.
It was real, and she knew that whatever these things were-these judges-they were in service of Him. They were real and they were dangerous, and they were coming for her.
Kathryn couldn’t understand it. Why were they coming for her specifically? What role did she have to play? Why not her mother or her aunt, or any of her cousins? Would these things come for them eventually? Was she just the first, or was there something else? Was there something specific about her that was bringing this retribution?
There was blood on her hands now. All of those faces she had seen on the news, that young man on the canyon, it was all because of her.
Death was her gift. Being a Blackmoore always meant death. It didn’t matter that she always used condoms and that she knew she would never have kids, one way or another, people would always die because of her.
This was her reality. This was her truth, and there was nothing that could change it. Kathryn let those tears dry up and the sound of her sobs quieted with the stillness of her breath. The road was before her and the sun still had hours to set. So she drove towards it. She drove towards those towers in the distance.
The closer she came to Hollywood, to the eccentricity and the grime of the Strip, she once again felt peace. Be in this, she told herself. Be in this and forget the rest. You fought before and you have won. You can do it again. For now, just be in this.
Kathryn pulled off the freeway and dipped back into the Strip, once again being swallowed by giant billboards and neon, welcoming her and her darkness, welcoming her once again into its iniquity and grit.
II
The plane ride had been short, just a couple of hours, not even enough time to finish a book and there had been more than one infant screaming for most of the way there. Even the benefits of first class weren’t enough to combat the wailing.
Magdalene had called her mother as soon as she had gotten off the phone with the airline, letting her know of her plans to join Kathryn in Los Angeles and then straight on to New Orleans after. She would not be returning to the house on Fifteenth Street, and she knew even then that it would be for good.
Her mother Mabel, or Queen Mab as everyone in the family affectionately called her, was more than understanding, and when Magdalene expressed to her her worries that something sinister was spreading its arms across the city of angels, her mother confirmed to her that she had felt the same thing.
The house on Bourbon Street was ready for her, and if she wanted it, Magdalene could have the two story cottage in the back across the courtyard all to herself if she wanted it. Magdalene was appreciative of that, and told her mother to pass on her gratitude to her grandmother Fiona.
She had taken a cab from LAX to the Chateau Marmont, Kathryn having informed her that she had let the front desk know of her coming and that a key would be waiting for her.
Magdalene was dressed in rose printed linen shorts, a thin cotton white tee with gold horizontal stripes, a thick distressed brown leather belt, a long gold owl necklace with pearl eyes, and gladiator sandal on her feet.
Her gold and silver bangles sang as she wheeled her luggage behind her. she had brought three suitcases, not knowing how long she would be staying, and the attendant, Eddie, was pulling two of them while he led her through the grounds, passing the sparkling blue pool and shaded cabanas, entering through a private gate that was shrouded in foliage and singing birds.
As soon as they came to the bungalow next door to Kathryn’s, Magdalene stopped. She saw a familiar face staring at them. It took her a moment to figure it out, but the full face, dark five o’clock shadow, shag of dark hair, and the arched eyebrows reminded her of nights as a pre-teen watching Saturday Night Live.
“Excuse me,” Magdalene asked. Keeping her eyes locked with the portly man with the cigarette hanging from his lips, his skin the color of snow, and his cobalt eyes void of any whites, who grinned and lifted a bottle of whiskey to her in acknowledgement before taking a swig.
“Yes?” Eddie replied.
“Who’s place is this?”
Eddie followed her eyes to the window. He obviously didn’t see the man looking back at them with that smirk. “No one right now, but that’s where Belushi died.”
Magdalene nodded and gave a discreet wave back to the dead comic. “So sad.”
Eddie nodded. “You’re not afraid of ghosts are you?” Magdalene shook her head. “Good, ‘cause a lot of people say he is there. He likes to scare people, especially the housekeepers. Everyone knows he is doing it to be funny, not to hurt anyone.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
They continued down the path to Bungalow Four and Eddie sat the suitcase at the door and gave it a knock.
“Coming!” Kathryn’s familiar whiskey voice called back.
“Hurry up, loser-I need a drink!” Magdalene called back with a laugh.
The door swung open and Kathryn stood there smiling, wearing a short black silk spaghetti strap dress, with a black cardigan left open, and stiletto sandals strapped to her feet.
She had a cigarette in hand and her usual three tier pearl necklace was bright in the early evening sun.
“Finally!” Kathryn said to her. “I was beginning to wonder if you would ever get here!”
They hugged and Magdalene smiled at the comforting fragrance of Kathryn’s Chanel No. 5. “Well, as my mother likes to say, if one comes
by plane-”
“One must expect delays... yeah, yeah. Get in here!” Eddie carried the suitcases to the guest room and when he returned Kathryn handed him a twenty. “Thank you Eddie”
He nodded and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.
“Well, good to know...” Kathryn said with a smile.
“What?”
“Oh, I fucked him the first night I got here.” Kathryn turned and led the way to the bar near the kitchen.
“You didn’t?!”
Kathryn looked back from over her shoulder at Magdalene and winked. “Of course I did, how could I not? He’s hot!”
“Yeah, and he works here!”
“Don’t worry; I made him forget as soon as it was finished. I sent him on his way and made sure when he woke up the next day he’d forget everything.”
“Still, what if it hadn’t worked?”
Kathryn shrugged and finished pouring their gin and tonics. “Well, then I guess I would have had to check out by now.”
“I guess so...” Magdalene took the drink and she and Kathryn made their way out to the patio, taking their seats in the matching lounge chairs.
“Did you have any trouble at the front desk?”
“No. I met your next door neighbor though...”
Kathryn gave her a quizzical look for a brief second before recognition fell on her. “Oh, you mean John Belushi?”
“Yeah. He’s cute, even as a dead guy.”
“I wouldn’t know, I haven’t seen him.”
“That’s surprising,” Magdalene responded. She took another sip of her drink before lying back in the chair.
Kathryn followed suit, her tan legs glistening with recently applied sunscreen and her various rings glittering in the light. “Well, I’ve been bothered by other things...”
Magdalene didn’t like the ominous tone in her cousin’s voice. “What other things?” Kathryn sighed. “What haven’t you told me?”
Kathryn got up and walked back into the living room, reemerging a second later with her cigarette case, grabbing a fresh one and lighting it before continuing to speak.
“There is some serious shit going on here and I am in way over my head.”
Magdalene nodded. “It’s what I had suspected. Tell me everything and leave nothing out.”
Kathryn looked at her cousin and began to speak, confessing everything to her and as she spoke, Magdalene could hear the relief in her cousin’s voice. She was finally unburdening herself to the only person she had ever felt, aside from Sheffield, that she could allow herself to be vulnerable in front of.
III
It felt good to Kathryn to confess everything without worry of judgment. Magdalene sat and listened patiently as she told her cousin all about the ominous shadow form stalking her, the guys from Nephilim, the bodies all over the city, meeting Richie and Angelina Ramos, the dreams, and her suspicions that Arish, Niiq, and Kuri were undoubtedly involved.
She had left out the more illicit details of her interactions with them, though she didn’t hide that she had been seduced by the men, and that mixed in with her apprehension of them was a strong, undeniable desire for the them.
There was a pang of guilt in this confession. Though Sheffield was eight years gone, it didn’t stop her from feeling as if all she had done in LA was betray him. It weighed on her as if it were an actual person standing behind her and pressing its hands down on her shoulders.
“So, what do you think?” Kathryn asked her cousin when she finally finished.
“I think that there is no doubt that these guys are involved in whatever it is that you have been seeing, and that they know exactly what this thing is that has been killing these people over the past few months.
‘I also think that this is all tied up into the Dark God of the Wood.
“We know he is real. Despite what our family hasn’t told us. He is very much real and very much coming for us.
“I think that it coming for you is not some random draw from the hat... there is a very real and very dangerous reason that it has picked you.”
Kathryn shook her head and stood up, walking back into the living room and to the bar. Magdalene was quick to follow behind her.
“Kathryn, we have to tell someone. We have to call your mom-”
“No.”
“My mom then!”
Kathryn shook her head. “Absolutely not.”
“Kathryn!”
She turned back and looked at Magdalene. Her cousin’s arms were folded across her chest, her glass sweating in her right hand.
“This doesn’t concern them, and I don’t want them involved. We’re adults. It’s time we take care of things ourselves.”
Magdalene pulled off her sunglasses, revealing her brilliant amber eyes and shook her head. “You need help.”
Kathryn smiled. “That’s why I asked you here.”
“Oh, great.” Magdalene walked over to the dining table and opened her purse, removing the little glass pipe and the leather satchel that she kept her pot in that had been wrapped up in a thick bundle of rabbit fur.
Kathryn said nothing as she watched her cousin load a bowl and take a hit, holding it in and offering it to her cousin.
Kathryn waited a few moments before taking the pipe from her cousin and drawing in a deep hit. The burn of the marijuana felt good to Kathryn and she swallowed the smoke gingerly before letting it back out in one long billow of aromatic smoke.
“I think we are in way over our heads. This isn’t like anything we’ve dealt with before. This isn’t just ghosts in haunted houses. This is very real and very deadly.
“I have...”
“What?”
Kathryn took another deep hit and passed it back to her cousin. She walked over to that L-shaped green velveteen sofa and sat down, crossing one leg over the other and staring into the dark fireplace.
She had never told Magdalene about the body in the orchard, and that he had come very close to killing her and Sheffield. The only one who had known besides Jonathan Marker was her mother, Annaline, and that was only because her mother had divined it all on her own.
“The Campus Slasher...”
“What about him?” Magdalene made her way to the chair opposite Kathryn and took another hit, passing it back to Kathryn, who took hold of it, but kept it resting in her lap.
“I killed him.”
Magdalene’s eyes grew wide and her mouth fell open. “What do you mean you killed him?”
“The week before graduation... he had broken into the house and came very close to murdering Sheffield. I ended up slitting his throat and burying him out in the apple orchard.”
Magdalene shook her head. “I can’t believe you never told me-that you kept this from me for all of these years!”
Kathryn had anticipated her anger, her sense of betrayal, and she immediately felt guilty for it. “I was trying to protect you. You were fourteen then. There was no reason for me to tell you. To scare you like that.”
“Does my mother know? Has this been some big secret that I have been shut out from?”
Kathryn shrugged. “I haven’t told her, and unless my mother told her-which I doubt-then I can’t see how she would... though there doesn’t seem to be a thing on this earth that Queen Mab doesn’t know.”
“That’s really shitty Kathryn.” Magdalene got up and walked over to the bar to refresh her glass. Kathryn could tell by the heavy pour that her cousin was extremely pissed.
“I’m sorry Mags, but what would you have me do? I was eighteen for fuck’s sakes. I didn’t know what I was doing half the time.”
“Bullshit Kathryn. You have always known what you were doing. There isn’t an action you don’t take that doesn’t have some sort of calculation. Just like you killed that priest with the full knowledge and intent of what you were doing.”
Kathryn was immediately stung by this. Yes, she had summoned her power to kill that man, but she had not plotted it ahead of time. She had decided i
t in the moment.
“That’s not fair!”
“I’m not saying the man didn’t deserve it, because he totally did, but to say you don’t calculate every single action and decision before you act on it would be a lie. And your secrets are no different. All you do is keep secrets. You have more secrets in a family full of secrets than anyone other Blackmoore!”
Kathryn grabbed the pack of Camels that were sitting on the coffee table from the night before, grateful there was one left inside. She hadn’t wanted to get up from the sofa.
“Here, let me get that for you,” Magdalene said harshly, looking at the cigarette hanging from her lips and sparking it to life with the force of her power.
“That’s bullshit,” Kathryn responded. exhaling that first draw of smoke.
“Oh, really? What about that man?”
“What man?”
“The man in your house? The ghost. The man you never talk about but I always glimpse whispering in your ear. The ghost who won’t speak to anyone but you. The ghost who communicates nothing!”
Kathryn didn’t want to talk about Jonathan Marker. Ever since he had first come to her as a little girl, he had done things for her, brought her gifts, flowers, chocolates late at night, and had been her spy, traveling distances to be her eyes on people she didn’t trust. All of this had been promised to her as long as she never spoke of him, and never asked him to speak to others in her family.
She had spent a lifetime keeping that promise, and even though her trust in him had waned as she had gotten older, Kathryn had always been determined to keep that promise.
“He’s just a ghost. My ghost. In my house. You don’t see me talking to that violin player do you? You don’t see me asking you questions about him-”
“Because I’ve never hidden him from you!”
“It’s just a fucking house ghost Mags, just like all the other ghosts. He is nothing special and he barely communicates with me. I swear.”
She hated lying to her cousin, but she knew she had to. She had made a promise. One she had kept her whole life thus far, and she couldn’t betray that now.