Authors: Jonah Hewitt
“Moríro!” she said triumphantly, and smiling said the whole name one last time.
“Lazlo Moríro!”
The Secret Epilogue
The Master in the Woods
Amanda Tipping stood concealed just beyond the edge of the woods surrounding the Holveda home. She watched Lucy retrieve the elegantly wrapped package she had left at the foot of the stairs to the rickety old porch. She saw Lucy scan the yard and woods in all directions but she couldn’t see her. Then she saw Lucy hesitantly pick it up, open the box, and then go quietly back inside and close the door to the massive house. From inside Amanda saw the silhouettes of the four occupants against the drapes. Despite the fact that there were four occupants she could only hear two sets of heartbeats. The first belonged to Tim, the orderly. She narrowed her eyes and rubbed a spot on the back of her head. Though it no longer stung, it was the memory of the indignity that hurt the most. The second heartbeat belonged to Lucy. At first it was bright and happy sounding, if beating a bit quicker out of excitement.
She listened to them all laugh and eat and then eventually they danced long into the night to her mother’s old vinyl records. “Boston.” Thought Amanda. Eventually, after midnight, Tim, the orderly and the two vampires left, though reluctantly. Lucy took the longest time to say goodbye. They watched her from the porch until she finally went back inside. When she did, the orderly and the vain strutting peacock were already in the car. The third one, the brooding red-haired one lingered the longest until he too left.
Amanda watched the car with the orderly and two meddlesome vampires that had caused her so much trouble disappear down the driveway, out of sight.
“In time.” She thought.
The rabble gone, Amanda turned her attention back to Lucy’s heartbeat. She concentrated on its rhythm and then eventually heard Lucy’s bare feet on the creaky wooden treads of the stairs. She waited until the light came on in the second floor window. Lucy’s heartbeat slowed…then quickened to a frightening pace. After a long pause she heard the sound of the package hit the floor followed by the sound of Lucy throwing herself on the bed, crying.
Amanda looked up at the lit window in the second floor and whispered softly, “I’m so sorry Lucy.” Amanda watched for a minute more then turned back to the woods and walked away into the darkness.
She placed her hands into the deep pockets of her long leather overcoat and shuffled slowly across the forest floor. It wasn’t supposed to have been like this. Lucy was supposed to be hers. She was supposed to be Lucy’s adopted mother and mentor. Now Lucy was entrusted to the care of incompetents, undead creatures and a delusional megalomaniacal corpse with a misplaced sense of loyalty to a desiccated monster intent on the destruction of all life and meaning. She walked for a while, pondering what might have been, the life she could have had; the birthday parties and summer picnics, and long nights of quietly reading together.
As she walked away a breeze blew about her, displacing the leaves around her feet. It wasn’t a natural wind. She stopped and stared into the woods. She couldn’t sense the presence of anything, living or dead, which for a necromancer was of course…impossible, unless there was another presence masking them from her. The moonlight overhead quavered and disappeared and soon she couldn’t see or sense anything past ten feet into the woods. A swirling darkness had surrounded her. She felt little fear but elegantly lowered herself down to her knees and then lowered her forehead to within a few inches of the ground and placed both gloved hands palm down on the soft earth.
“Master.” She uttered quietly.
The swirling darkness coalesced into a compact human form just beyond sight. It instantly began working some dark magic between its hands, weaving the power like electricity, but it said nothing.
“Master, forgive me.” Amanda said at last. “I have failed you.”
There was silence, but eventually the figure spoke in a quiet far off voice. “Arise Amarantha. Arise. There is nothing to forgive. You have failed no one.”
Amanda slowly rose up to her feet but maintained a respectful deferential downward gaze.
“Thank you Master.” She said in sincere gratitude.
“No thanks is necessary. You did everything that was asked of you. You sought out the girl and protected her. You performed your task exactly as you should, and when you encountered troubles, you overcame them. When I led the necromancer to Amanda Tipping, you compelled her to join us.”
The figure was about to go on, but Amanda and Amarantha felt the need to clarify something. “I did not compel her, Master, she joined willingly. She is here now…
we
are both here willingly. We both pledge ourselves wholly to you and your cause.”
The figure stopped his hands for a moment, then began again.
“My thanks then, to
both
of you. It is especially appreciated at this time, as it appears loyalty is in short supply.” The figure stopped his hands again for a moment, as a large and hulking figure with the top of his head missing emerged from the woods nearby. The battered and bloody corpse looked first to Amarantha and then to the dark figure. Then it quickly kneeled before the dark personage, who seemed pleased. “But it has not yet totally abandoned us.” The dark figure commenced working his hands again to weaving magic.
“Hokharty will pay for his treachery.” Graber grumbled through a throat of blood and phlegm. Amarantha knew this voice, but Amanda had never heard him speak in person before. It was far more unsettling than it had been on the cell phone at the hospital. If Death himself had a more terrifying voice she did not want to hear it.
“Calm yourself Graber. Hokharty always had his own motives.” The dark figure replied casually. “I just thought I had carefully manipulated them to our advantage. I misjudged him. I misjudged
everything
.”
“You must not blame yourself master.” Amanda broke in. “Who could have known that Hokharty would have changed his mind?”
The dark figure’s hands stopped again.
“Who indeed?” There was a long pause and then the dark figure resumed weaving the magic with new intensity between his hands and began circling the two of them as he spoke. “And who could have guessed that Margarita could have sent a note back to her daughter from the underworld, hmm?” He started to work his magic weaving all the more furiously. “I worked so hard to make sure that Margarita died in such a way that she would be sent instantly to the marsh of lost souls, a place where,
I believed
, that only
you
, Amarantha, could find her. Who could have known that anyone else could have
ever
found her there?” The magic was a spinning ball of black fire now. “
And
who could have known that the child who had found her would be the very child that Hokharty would chose to return the stone to him in the land of the living?” The darkness swirling around his hands was so dark, it made the black woods behind him look like daylight by comparison. “
AND,
who could have known that that very child would have a beast of shadow in tow who would throw all of our plans into chaos.” His voiced was only tinged with anger but it was more than Amanda had ever heard before. “AND who could have known that
that
child would be the only one that could persuade Hokharty to finally relent.” A galaxy of darkness was spinning out of control in those hands, almost obscuring the figure from sight.
Amarantha had never heard the Master ever betray any emotion, let alone anger. That was why even this slight touch of rage in his voice now was so terrifying. There was another sudden halt to the weaving. The figure held his hands together, clasping the magic he was working tightly between them. The darkness around his hands grew darker, fiercer until Amanda could feel it tugging at her insides like a black hole. Amanda could feel Amarantha’s soul being ripped away from her by the all-consuming darkness and she audibly gasped for breath, terrified she was about to be torn apart from the only force keeping her alive against the cancer. Even Graber looked dismayed.
“Master!” She cried out.
The figure, which had been distracted by his own magic looked at them, then he clapped his hands together. The darkness immediately ebbed and Amarantha and Amanda snapped back together and were one again. Idly the Master’s hands began weaving again, but less intensely, as he spoke to them all.
“Or do any of you still believe these events to be mere coincidence?”
Neither Graber nor Amanda spoke. They both knew that their master already knew the answer.
“Someone is working against us from the other side.
Someone
in
Hell
has betrayed us.” His voice consumed all the sound in the woods, like an anti-echo, it ceased all movement and collapsed it in on itself to utter silence.
“Who?” After that silence, Graber’s one-word guttural question was like an owl from hell. It seemed to take forever for the Master to answer.
“I don’t know yet, but I have my suspicions.” There was another pause as the hands worked the dark threads of the magic black fire between them. Suddenly the figure stopped spinning and spoke again. “We will have to change tactics. It’s time to start working the equation from the other end.”
“You don’t mean…” Amanda began, but it was more Amarantha speaking than her and Amanda was confused as to what exactly this meant. The union between the two was still tenuous. She knew Amarantha trusted her but there were parts of her psyche she had walled off, even from herself. For his part, the small figure ignored her plea and spoke directly.
“Graber, return. Play the role Moríro wants you to play. We will need inside information of our own. It's time for your little
treasure
to be found. You know what to do.” Amanda narrowed her eyes at the word "treasure" but thought it wise not to ask. Graber arose and directly left in his usual unceremonious manner. After the sound of him trudging off through the woods and back to the house had subsided the figure turned to Amanda.
“You will stay close to the girl. Watch her. Protect her. I don’t need to tell you she is critical to our plans.” The darkness had already begun to disappear, when Amanda called out.
“Master?”
“Yes?” The darkness replied.
“And what about that
boy
?”
“What of him?”
“His powers are unusual…
like yours
.” She suggested.
“Yes. They
are
unusual.”
“They could be of service to you…or a
threat
.” Amanda added helpfully.
There was another long pause.
“We would have to bring him to the other side. Once there, he may be
useful
to us.” The figure paused in thought. “Watch him, and the girl…closely.” There was another desperately long pause before the Master spoke again. “In time, we will need you on the other side as well Amarantha.”
Amanda and Amarantha nodded their consent together, but they struggled to contain a shudder. Both of them feared a return to Hell more than anything.
The figure began to disintegrate back into the living darkness Amanda had first sensed. She decided to brave one last question before he departed.
“Master?”
The figure and the cloud of darkness surrounding it stopped mid-transformation and turned to look at her.
“Did you…did
we
…have to kill Margarita, Master?” Amanda asked plaintively.
The figure stopped working his hands furiously for a moment and focused all his attention on Amanda.
Amanda bowed from the neck and deferred her gaze. “I only thought that her skills were exceptional. She despised Moríro. She might have been turned. She could have been of great use to our cause.” The darkness began to dissipate and the moonlight started to return. The voice was softer and less distinct, but it made itself heard.
“It was a regrettable sacrifice, true, but she made her choice long ago, and would never have made a suitable vehicle for our plans. It was better to use her in this way to manipulate the girl. Margarita was always too….” He paused as if recovering a memory, “stubborn.” He said bitterly at last. “But the sacrifice of one to save the whole of humanity and all those in the afterlife would be worth it, don’t you agree?”
Amanda nodded once in consent, but looked on anxiously.
“Do not worry Amarantha, the child has all the talents of her mother…
and
her father. Soon, she will free us all. Death will be conquered at last, and all the prisoners in Limbo and Hell will be set free.”
The figure dissolved and the remaining darkness began to depart, but Amanda had one last thing to say.
“You should know that I will not harm Lucy, Master.” The darkness was gone. The forest noises of crickets and rustling leaves returned.
“Do you hear me Master? I will
not
harm her.”
For a moment she thought the Master hadn’t heard her, but then gently on the breeze came a chilling voice, fainter than a whisper and spoken not to the ears, but to the mind.
“All will be set free.”
But that didn’t really answer her question.