by Marcus James
“What the fuck is happening!?” Angelina asked.
“The rest of the Anunnaki are coming!” Magdalene answered.
“Lock arms!” Kathryn commanded.
They all braced tightly to one another, huddling as steadfast as possible while the earth shook beneath their feet and the fires burned.
“Ereshkigal, Inanna, Hecate, desolate queen of the forbidden land, you who bare the title: mother of all witches-you who were withered to a corpse by the Anunnaki-you who resurrected yourself and became ruler of the dark world and the forbidden lands, open the earth!” Kathryn called.
“Take them now! Take them back! Your children-your witches beseech! Take them back into your kingdom!” Magdalene continued.
Arish, Niiq, and Kuri moved onto them, tearing through the air and crying out into the night with their awful sound.
“Take them!” Angelina finished. They watched just in time to see the three of them get struck once again by those electric bolts, sending them into the ground.
“Pazuzu take them! Ereshkigal take them!” the three of them chanted over and over.
The gathered dead had grown in numbers, and the outer circle of spirits seemed to contain the blaze and kept it from spreading, and those ghosts drained all the warmth from those flames, using that heat and energy to solidify to the point that they all could see them like living people. Their skin marble-white and their eyes just pits of endless black.
The pool split open and the force of the quake brought Arish, Niiq, and Kuri closer and closer to the edge as the dead began to descend upon them.
“Take them!” they shouted again, just as two more strikes of lightening hit Arish and Niiq, sending them into the pool, their cries growing fainter as they fell.
“You think this is over?!” Kuri shouted. “You think this will stop?!” he was struggling hard against the piling dead, digging those talons into the earth, desperate to stay above ground.
Kuri and Kathryn were locked eye to eye. The fires blazed behind him and the dead were above him and below him, pulling on his wings and shoulders, using all of their strength to bring him down into the pit.
“You have won nothing. This is only the beginning and you have no idea what is to come, what He wants! When He rises to claim you, you will wish that you had died by my hands, and your child that you will one day bear, will be born into a world that will not be safe, and every dark thing and every witch that had pledged loyalty to Him will come for your child. They will be as aware of your child just as your child is aware of them.
“A knowing Blackmoore is a dead Blackmoore!”
A great earth-shaking scream raged from the pool and shook the canyon, and a great and terrible wind-a wind filled with the breath of death itself-came behind them and pushed into Kuri, sweeping him from the earth along with those spirits who clung to him, falling deep into the pit.
The ground stopped shaking and the claws of the other Anunnaki that had been reaching through the soil slipped back down and vanished as if they had been pulled away from the surface and the fires began to die away and the winds slowly grew still.
“Is it over?” Sheffield asked.
“Yeah,” Kathryn answered back, watching the dead quickly fade and vanish into the night. “Yeah it is.”
“Well, what do you want to do now?” Angelina asked. The three of them all looked at her and began to laugh. It felt good to laugh. It was better than crying, which they all felt they were close to doing.
“I need a fucking drink!” Magdalene answered back.
“You know, I think I work at a place that provides just that.” Angelina said with a smirk.
They all took one last look around, seeing the ruins and the smoking earth and the glowing strip behind them. Kathryn thought about everything that had brought her to the City of Angels, and what it was she had hoped to find.
There had been eight years of heartache, a lifetime of rumors, superstition, and deities that demanded appeasement. She had hoped to gain friends who didn’t care that she was a Blackmoore, and she had hoped to gain a sense of herself. All of which she had.
She had thought that the only way she would finally know who she was would be by getting away from everything she had ever known, away from creaking old mansions filled with ghosts and faces of loved ones taken by the Legacy staring out from behind glass hanging on walls and sitting on credenzas in hallways.
On the Strip Kathryn had discovered her strength. She had learned her truths, and in the end the past eight years had come full circle. Sheffield-the person she had come to LA to try to accept that she would never see again-came back into her life as a man ready to face the challenges of that life, instead of the teenager who had allowed himself to be chased off by fear.
Kathryn didn’t know if she would ever have this child. How could she? There was too big of a price to pay. But if she did-if by some chance-some bend of the universe-this child came into being, then she would protect that child from this world and the truth of the Blackmoores.
If being aware meant that this prophesized child would be forever hunted and in danger, then Kathryn would do everything in her power to shut it out.
She would bury it away as deep as she could, and she would swear every other Blackmoore to the same promise. If one day this child did come, then she would make sure the coven that was her family would do all that it could to keep it protected and safe for as long as possible.
Secrets never stayed buried forever, and in the end the Legacy would have its way, she understood this. She just watched it play out in her own life, and when the truth comes to light for that child, everything would change and the world would become a dark and terrifying place where the monsters under the bed would slither out from the pitch in horrific solidity.
She would keep that child-if it ever did come-as innocent as she could for as long as possible; sequestered far away from this terrible world.
As they walked slowly back towards their cars Sheffield stopped and brought Kathryn’s lips to his own, dipping her back like an old Hollywood movie, while the ground smoldered and the weakened dead moved about them on their way back to wherever it was that they had come from.
“I love you.” He said to her. That wonderfully deep southern drawl like amber honey, and Kathryn smiled at the way it made her body quiver.
“Forever and always where not even death and time will be able to lessen it.”
As the five of them walked down the hillside, Kathryn overheard Richie asking Magdalene out on a date and she felt his sadness when her cousin turned him down; explaining to him her own path.
Kathryn felt sad for them both. She cared for Richie and wanted to see him happy, and she knew that her cousin had feelings for him, but she also understood Magdalene’s commitment. Every Blackmoore had a role to play, and New Orleans and the call of Ogou was hers.
There was a war coming and they all needed to be ready. Magdalene had never fought against his calls and she wouldn’t begin now.
But that was all in the future. Further down the line and this battle was won. For now they wouldn’t worry about all of that. For now they would laugh, and drink, and listen to another metal band thirsty for success play late into the night.
She would hold on to that strange book that was back in her safe at the Marmont and she would hold on to the band’s first and only record. Nephilim would go down into the pavement of Sunset Boulevard as another legend that would eventually become a whisper of this debaucherous decade. They would be the band that simply vanished right as they stood on the precipice of stardom.
It was for the best. Whatever their intention, whatever their music, there was something powerful and diabolic behind it. Perhaps it was intended to create disciples or willing sacrifices for the Dark God of the Wood, or simply to be willing food for the Anunnaki.
Either way, it was best never to find out.
As they reached the base of The Pines Kathryn turned and took one last look at the ruins, knowing she
would never see this place again. It was being torn down anyways. Perhaps homes would be built here, or it would be running trails; in the end it didn’t matter, as long as it was gone.
For a moment, so brief and dim that it was missed by everyone else, Kathryn was sure she heard the distant song of an opera tenor singing in the night and she remembered the tale Richie had told her the first time he had brought her up here about the famed singer who used to live in The Pines and who still haunted the place and could be heard singing out in the still nights.
Kathryn looked at her cousin, her new friends, and the bright and loving stare of Sheffield’s eyes and she grinned.
“Are you okay?” Sheffield asked her.
Kathryn slipped her fingers into his own and gave his hand a squeeze.
“Never been better.” And it was the truth.