by Rex Baron
“You're overstressed, Elizabeth,” Marc reasoned with her… “not seeing the possibilities for us here.”
“You are a fool,” Elizabeth snapped. “Even now, you don't realize that you have had the power to do whatever you wanted all along. You never needed me any more than you wanted me.”
Marc dropped his pretense of comradeship, and his face twisted into a smug smile.
“You’re right. You know now that I never wanted you, but I needed what you could give me,” he said cruelly. “I never loved you, but you were starved for affection and easily convinced. It didn't take a genius to manipulate you from the first day… to disconnect the cables of your alternator so your car wouldn't start and you would have to ride with me. You even called me that first morning for a lift. Do you remember?” He threw back his head and laughed wickedly.
“You lied to me,” Elizabeth answered angrily. “You took away the life I had and left me nothing. My boring little life was worthless to you, but you took it anyway. You're evil and I can't let you continue to go on hurting people.”
Marc caught sight of the white cord that lay on the table with the other objects of ritual, just behind Elizabeth. He had been told that strangulation with such a cord was one of the only true ways of killing a member of the Kraft. He inched toward Elizabeth, carefully steering her backwards toward the table. His voice softened as he came near her.
“You must believe that I care about you,” he said, still confident that he was irresistible. “I admit I didn't at first, but I do now,” he whispered seductively, reaching out his hand to try and touch her face. “I want you to know that I really am grateful, that I know I wouldn't have this chance without you.”
Elizabeth felt his hand stroking the length of her arm as he repeated her name hypnotically again and again. He leaned forward to kiss her as his right hand reached out for the silken rope. Elizabeth pushed him away and moved toward the doorway. She turned on him angrily.
“You needn't bother to tell me that you care for me or any of the rest of your shit. You're right. I have been lonely and I've been a fool to listen to you. But I'm not an idiot, and I'm not the love-starved female you think I am... who needs you for your pretty face and a kind word twice a week. It might do you well to remember that I'm the one with the power. You've said it yourself often enough, and even though you thought you needed me, I never needed you.”
Marc shrugged his shoulders and sighed in a condescending way, as if trying to reason with a child.
“Suit yourself,” he said, turning to refill his glass of wine.
As he turned his back, Elizabeth quickly produced the gun from her bag and carefully trained its muzzle on the man she once loved.
When he turned his smug attention back to her, his mouth dropped open in disbelief.
“So, I finally have your undivided attention,” Elizabeth stated coolly.
“Good God,” he whispered.
“Hadn't you better call upon your own god, the god of murderers,” she added, as she stared into his colorless face. “You are right. It was my fault as well as yours. I did help you call up the forces of evil, but I can't let you use them for your own unprincipled purposes.”
Marc stared down the barrel of the gun. He tried to make his voice light and convincing.
“I swear to you, I had nothing to do with that other artist's death. I only burnt a few candles, that's all, harmless nonsense. I swear it.”
“But you wanted him dead, didn't you?” Elizabeth insisted, “just as you wanted me out of your life... to just go off somewhere and blow my brains out. That's what you planned, isn't it? And since I wasn't very accommodating, you've cooked up this pitiful little charade to try and get rid of me.” She waved the gun menacingly toward the circle drawn on the floor and the burning candles. “I can't let you do that to me,” she said. “Maybe before... I could let myself be a victim for you, but now that I realize who I am, I can't let you kill me. In fact, it's my duty, my responsibility, to kill you first.”
“Then I guess we've reached a stalemate, my dear Elizabeth,” Marc said with a smirk, as he toasted her with his glass and brought the wine to his lips.
Suddenly, in mid-motion, he tossed the liquid from the glass into her eyes and lunged for the gun.
The chorus of voices wailed in Elizabeth's head, as the gun flew out of her hand and skidded across the ceremonial circle drawn on the floor. Marc wrestled her to the ground, pinning her arms to the concrete floor, as he arched his body over her and reached for the cord.
“You know, dear, you've been nothing but trouble to me,” he whispered, as he brought the smooth length of woven silk next to her throat.
The light of the twelve candles across the room flashed a warning in the reflection of Marc's eyes. All Elizabeth could hear was his voice, the voice she once waited for and longed to hear, whispering his scalding words between uneven breaths.
“You know how difficult you are being. All this nonsense about good and evil,” he hissed. “I don't give a damn about that. I only know that I've waited all my life to have what I want, and I'm not going to let some pitiful excuse for a woman, like you, keep me from having it.”
Elizabeth felt the cord tighten against her flesh, pressing down on her windpipe, blocking the air. The weight of his body, on top of her, made it impossible for her to fill her lungs, and she felt her mind slowly going blank as the face of the demon before her faded into blessed darkness.
The voices from all around her grew louder and louder, lamenting that one of their own was in such peril. In the midst of them, she could sense the presence of Miss Auriel. Her words swam toward Elizabeth through the song of the collective, like a flower on the surface of a rippling lake.
“Your duty is not to seek revenge,” the frail voice echoed above the others in Elizabeth's brain. “Your duty is to reclaim the honor of your murdered aunt, and to make right the wrong that you have done in helping bring the Power and the Wisdom into the hands of the unworthy.”
Without warning, Elizabeth felt the cord at her throat slacken and the weight of Marc's body lifted from their struggling embrace. She opened her eyes to see him flung across the room, propelled by the force of her mind's fury, and dashed against the nearby concrete wall. She watched in horror as the breath was forced from his body by the unseen power of her angry Will. His mouth moved, trying to call out her name as he hung suspended, helpless, a few feet above the floor. His eyes bulged in their sockets, as he struggled to break free from the invisible force that crushed him in its grasp.
She felt the same current of electricity pass through her body as that day in the lab, when the coffeemaker crumpled in payment for her fury.
As she watched Marc's face distort and wither before her eyes, the concrete floor beneath her began to tremble on its steel underpinnings, and a loud rumble from underground, like the roar of an angry beast, filled her ears. The narrow table under the window tipped forward and fell, tossing the twelve colored candles, extinguishing their flames and scattering the photographs of Helen across the floor. The metal framework of the window twisted and went limp as the building shifted on its axis. Dozens of small panes of glass shattered and rained down across the floor, like a thousand precious stones, as the silver disc of the moon peered through, its face covered in blood.
Elizabeth scrambled to her feet and tried to steady herself against the heavy leather sofa, but the concrete floor pitched it on end, sending it skidding across the open space, and Elizabeth sprawling to her knees.
She pulled herself up and pushed the hair back from her face. She looked on in amazement as a massive crack opened in the wall where Marc hung suspended, snapping the steel support rods inside with the sound of a thousand shattering bones.
She thought she saw an expression of pitiful pleading on the face she had once found so beautiful. But Marc opened his mouth and cursed her in a loud voice.
“I damn you for eternity,” he shouted over the roar of the earth's angry movements.<
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An uncontrollable fear gripped Elizabeth at the hearing of his words, and her solar plexus tightened for battle. Her eyes had no sooner caught sight of the white silken cord that it flew, as if of its own Will, and wrapped itself tightly around Marc's neck.
His face seemed to collapse in on itself and his mouth opened to his throat, producing a deafening shriek unlike any human or animal cry she had ever heard. His body went limp before her eyes as the vengeful cord tightened, crumpling into a twisted mass of flesh that lay lifeless on the floor at her feet.
Slowly, the violent movement of the room began to abate, and Elizabeth stared in disbelief at the shattered creature that lay on the floor in front of her. She crouched there, waiting until the floor below her regained its equilibrium. The atmosphere of evil had begun to dissipate, and only a few yards from this place of unnatural horror, in the street below, she heard the welcome sounds of human voices.
Wearily, she pulled herself to her feet and stared down at the man she had killed.
“I was more powerful after all,” she said, pushing her hair away from her face with her hand. “Together we made an ungodly bargain with the forces of evil. You asked for power and success. I wanted you, and wished that you would never be with another woman. I suppose I got my wish now.”
“You were on opposite sides, as I told you.”
The voice came from behind Elizabeth. She spun around to see the frail form of Miss Auriel framed against the darkened doorway.
“What are you doing here?” Elizabeth gasped.
“Keeping an eye on you, as they say,” the old woman said, her sparkling blue eyes now fired with excitement. “I knew there would be a nasty confrontation of this kind. There always is in these cases.”
“But how did you know I was here?” Elizabeth asked in disbelief.
“The voices told me where you were. They are the same voices you hear, my dear. You must realize that any of us who has the power can hear them. They have been guiding your unconscious mind and protecting you all along, my child.”
Elizabeth was tired and listened to what the old woman told her as if in a dream. She buried her face in her hands and sighed with exhaustion.
“I suppose I ought to call the police and tell them what happened,” Elizabeth said, looking at the body on the floor. “I just couldn't let him go on hurting people.”
Miss Auriel put her fragile hand on Elizabeth's shoulder.
“I know dear,” she said. “It's all too confusing. You've had a frightful shock. Why don't you pick up your gun and come along with me.”
Without question, Elizabeth located her revolver under a heavy upholstered chair and slipped it back into her handbag.
“What about the police?” she asked.
Miss Auriel patted her arm.
“The police have more than enough to do, tending to victims of the earthquake, like your friend here. We really mustn't bother them with things they can hardly understand. They're really much too busy.”
The Art Therapist's eyes shone with the sparkling clarity of youth, and they smiled at the younger woman with kindness. She put her arm around Elizabeth's waist and led her out over the fallen rubble down to the anonymity of the bustling street.
It was as if the walls that had isolated Elizabeth for years had fallen away with the earthquake, and she welcomed the vitality and purpose of the people all around her.
Miss Auriel patted her hand in a motherly way and revitalized her with her radiant blue eyes. “You simply did what you had to do to make things right. You'll be all right,” she whispered close to her. “You're one of us now.”
END OF BOOK SIX
Author Notes
Rex Baron
December 2019 - Fountain Hills, AZ
HEXE: ... Ghosts and Paranormal Activity. Are they figments of an overactive imagination or are they messengers from another dimension, revealing the truth about their past?
Greetings!
First off, I’d like to thank you for reading HEXE and want to share some background on how the series came to be and some of the elements of research or personal experiences that have become a part of it.
There is plenty more to read if you want to explore unseen worlds, and experience a foray into the unsettling realm of the paranormal.
What is Considered Paranormal?
One Google source states the definition of Paranormal or Paranormal activity as: Events or phenomena such as telekinesis, clairvoyance or Extra-sensory perception that are beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding or empirical measurement.
The study of all things that do not fit squarely into the confines of what constitutes our modern idea of “Science”, and are considered paranormal are grouped together into what is referred to and studied as Parapsychology... and that includes GHOSTS.
Now we all enjoy a good ghost story and there have been countless television shows and You Tubes over the years recounting terrifying tales of haunted places. Many of these places are famous hotels and grand estate houses, all over the world, where one can actually sleep in a room that is purportedly visited by ghosts.
My Experiences as a Ghost-Buster
If you have ever come face to face with a ghost, you’ll know just how unsettling it can be. A number of years ago in Los Angeles, I had just such an experience. My friend Loretta and I had been taking a course in Parapsychology at U.C.L.A. It was more of an evening class, continuing education kind of thing, rather than a formal clinical study of the paranormal. We started out with exercises in guessing what other students were thinking and projecting with their minds and then moved on to controlled card “reading” (trying to visualize a playing card someone held in their hand). But in the final weeks of the class, the interest turned away from the study of perception to lectures on the possibilities of dis-incarnate beings and vibration energies that could disrupt an environment and make it feel decidedly spooky and uncomfortable.
In recent decades, the vibrational disturbance of a space, causing it to feel unsettling, is now sometimes recognized as being a result of bad Feng Shui. Feng Shui is an ancient Chinese concept that states that energies in spaces are meant to flow freely, and that by having the sofa obstruct a flow pattern in your living room or having your front door look down a hallway directly to the back door allows the energy of the house to literally come in one door and out the other, without moving through and nourishing the livable space.
But back to the ghosts. In the last weeks of Parapsychology class, we read case studies of supposed hauntings in the LA area and were encouraged to visit the sites of some of the more infamous disturbances. We had learned in class that most of the time the person who claims they are being haunted is reacting to a “feeling” of uneasiness and the idea that they were not alone... that a presence of some kind lingered around them making them feel spooked. A huge percentage of the time, that uneasiness is caused by stuck energy in a place... kind of like the idea of Feng Shui that I already mentioned.
Most of the time paranormal researchers, acting as a task force of sorts, would go out, at the request of a nervous caller, and investigate the “haunting”. If they determined that it was not in fact the ghost of some long dead silent movie star from old Hollywood, or the site of a famous serial killing, as the homeowner insisted, the research team would set up a number of devices that would allow the stuck energy to be cleared.
According to paranormal research of that time, bad energy and lingering vibrations from sad or violent events could be shaken up and cleared away by the use of four things: SOUND, LIGHT, COLOUR and VIBRATION. They would set up a source for music (usually a boom box in those days) a bank of bright lights that could change colours or be shown through a rotating full spectrum colour wheel, and a plethora of objects that could create changes in vibration... from a small drum, a high pitched whistle, and a low pitched, strongly vibrating instrument like an Australian didgeridoo that could be played with the mouth to produce deep resonating sounds.
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sp; Almost always, once the spooky space, filled with unsettling energy was blasted with this quartet of everything from John Phillip Sousa marches and purple light, to an hour-long serenade on a tympani drum, the energy would dissipate and the space would suddenly feel comfortable and nonthreatening. I have seen this first hand. On one occasion, after an energy cleansing, a dog that continually barked at an unseen menace in a bedroom corner, immediately entered the room and fell asleep on the bed while we packed up our gear to leave.
HEXE and Elizabeth Winslow as a Parapsychologist
If you have read books five and six of the Hexe Series: Bargain with the Beast and Alchemy of Murder, the subject of ghost hunting and hauntings are seen as part of Elizabeth’s work, lending verification to events covered by the news media and her journalist friend Tom. In one instance, we see Professor Winslow and Marc staked out in a house in the Hollywood Hills that is plagued with paranormal activity in the form of a haunting. They have a camera set up and await the appearance of the ghost of a young girl that appears to walk through a room occupied by the housekeeper. In the story, a girl about sixteen years old appears nightly, out of nowhere, and walks across the room grasping a butcher knife dangling at the end of her lifeless arm. There is a build-up of events, beginning with the room growing cold and the temperature drop recorded on a thermal device. Both Elizabeth and Marc feel a change in the atmosphere, with the addition of a sulphur-like smell and a sound like the buzzing of a hive of bees.
What’s is interesting to note is that the entire sequence described in the haunting of the gallery owner’s palatial home was, in fact, my own experience that I adapted for use in the story.
A friend of mine had invited me to stay with him for an extended time while he house sat for a famous movie director who had a house in the hills overlooking Hollywood. I was given an upstairs bedroom that was rarely used… and within days, the girl with the knife began to appear, just as described in the story. She appeared to be walking on a surface below the current level of the floor and it was explained to me that she was re-enacting an event from another time when the surface upon which she walked was different than it was in the current house. She stared straight ahead and floated along, unaware of my presence, crossing the space of the room and disappearing through the wall. I was TOTALLY unnerved. My friend told me that the owner of the house always scoffed at the idea of the ghost and called it a load of bull. I did not know what to think, even though I had witnessed the apparition a half dozen times in the course of a few months. Until one day, late in the summer, a cinematographer, who had come from Scotland and was staying at the house, came to the breakfast table rumpled looking and tired. When we asked him why he was so disgruntled, he replied that he had got very little sleep.