Series 1/Chapter 11: THE BOOK OF ENTRY
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| The Immurement of a witch |
At Cressida's home, the silence after Caleb's death was defining. Ashe and Mae sat in the quite sitting room in a wash of glowing candle light in deep thoughts waiting for any word from Cressida and Gabrielle. The ticking of the grandfather clock marked each passing minute of silence like a long winded sigh of time groaning on and on until finally the front door cracked open.
But no one stepped in.
Ashe stood up, Mae too behind him as he lifted his arm out in a straight line to protect the spirit of the coven leader Mae. They stood there, in a frozen state unsure of who was about to walk through the door.
Outside, still holding on to the front door was Cressida and Gabrielle.
"When you go in, I just need you to know that I love you and I would never do anything to upset on purpose." Cressida said to a confused Gabrielle.
"You're scaring me. What do you have behind that door that is going to help you get to Caspian and save Caitlyn? What haven't you told me Cress?" Gabrielle wondered as she tightened the warm coat around her body pushing away the late night cold air.
Cressida took a deep breath. The only way Gabrielle would know what she meant was to just show her. Show her the man she brought back to life to help her go back deep in the depths of the black space to find Caspian, kill him and free them all.
Ashe Evans, Gabrielle's long dead lover from the past.
Cressida pushed the door open that lead directly into the sitting room where Mae's ghost and Ashe were standing. She stepped aside so that Gabrielle could walk in and in a quick moment of confusion and shock Ashe and Gabrielle's eyes locked.
"ASHE?" Gabrielle gasped.
He didn't know what to say. He stammered. Should he hide? Did Cressida expose him on purpose. Mae stepped out from behind Ashe and rushed over to the pekid looking Gabrielle who grabbed on to a side chair to sturdy herself.
"What have you done?" Mae asked Cressida who stepped into the house too. "Are you ok? Sit down, Gabrielle, please sit down." Mae said, rushing Gabrielle to a sofa closer to Ashe who backed away.
"Caspian has Caitlyn in his clutches. I have to find her where he's taken her. The only way I could do that was with Ashe's help. I could no longer keep him a secret from her. I had to tell her otherwise I wouldn't be able to get to Caitlyn without her known. I'm so sorry Gabi. I had to."
Gabrielle, her eyes frozen in fear of seeing her beloved Ashe whom she saw die years ago now alive and well right in front of her didn't know what to say. She was a doctor, a scientist and knew things were not possible but at the same time she was a woman of supernatural abilities and powers and understood that in the right circumstances one of her coven bring back the dead.
But it was almost always a forbidden ritual to do so. Witches like them were to never use their powers in such a way. It was sacrilege. An abomination to their oaths to nature and to all things living.
"Is it really you?" Gabrielle asked, slowly getting up from the sofa with Mae's help.
"It's me." He said softly
"Ashe." She replied softly back as she came closer to see his face glimmering like a bronze statue in the light of the candles.
He smiled sweetly.
"He doesn't remember everything. Just the good years." Cressida spoke from behind.
"But, its him?" Gabrielle asked, now standing only inches from the man she once loved and mourned.
"Its him." Mae replied. "Don't blame Cressida, Gabrielle. It was me. I made her bring him back to life to help us. Only someone from the other side can travel to where Caspian is to find him and destroy him. Now that he has Caitlyn its even more important that we have him on our side. He was the only one we could trust."
"Why didn't you tell me?" Gabrielle said, still locking eyes with Ashe as she spoke.
"We knew how much you loved him and how much you already moved on now with the new man in your life. We didn't think it would be fair to you." Cressida answered.
"I should have known. I should have been there when he woke up! I should have been the one to bring him back if that's what was needed. ME! You kept me out of that. You didn't let me help and I should have been there." Gabrielle shot back with an angry voice that expelled out like a hurt animal.
"I know, honey, I know. All I can do now is say I'm sorry. But we didn't do it to hurt you or to make you feel betrayed. Please believe us." Cressida begged.
"They really wanted only to do what was best. I believe them." Ashe spoke.
Gabrielle, her eyes filled with tears, her cheeks sopped turned to him and touched his face. She could feel he was just like he was before. Warm. Flesh. Bones. Human even. But dead.
She suddenly reached for him and pulled him close and hugged him tightly. He hugged back. Their bodies intertwined, locked together and then, Gabrielle, the stoic doctor who had seen it all, broke down and sobbed into the chest of the man she loved so much.
"I missed you. I missed you so much Ashe." She cried.
He placed his head on her's and closed his eyes. A single tear fell from his eye and he smiled.
"I know baby. I know."
Gabrielle composed herself and turned back to Cressida.
"What now?" She asked.
"We have to use the energy in Ashe's lifeforce to now go to where the dark place is. There, Ashe will be able to use himself to block my energy because he is apart of the dark work of the dead. We'll be able to find Caspian. And ill destroy him and save my daughter." Cressida explained.
"We don't have much time." Mae answered.
"I'll do whatever it takes. There's nothing I want more than to make sure this creature never walks this earth again. I've seen everything he's capable of and it's time he's destroyed once and for all." Ashe replied.
"I just have so much to tell you. So much to explain about who I am. Does he have to go? Does it have to go now?" Gabrielle asked, noting that Ashe had died not knowing she was a witch.
"In time." Mae said smiling. "But now, we have to let them go."
Still crying, Gabrielle agreed and hugged Ashe one more time. She then went to Cressida, her best friend, the woman who she looked to as a sister but had betrayed her and never told her Ashe was back from the dead from a spell of her own doing.
Gabrielle grabbed hold of both Cressida's hands and squeezed. "Please come back." She said.
"They'll be back. There's no other option." Mae said.
Gabrielle and Cressida hugged and Ashe looked at the clock, still ticking away the time.
"We have to go. We have to go now." Ashe said.
Cressida nodded her head and took Ashe by the arm and interlocked hers. Together they the closed their eyes and Cressida opened her mouth releasing a wild wind inside the house. A wind that blew everything onto the floor. A wind that knocked over plants and ripped books from the shelves, a wind so powerful it was like three tornadoes wiping the inside of Cressida's home upside down.
Gabrielle and Mae fell to the floor, debris covering their bodies.
When they lifted their heads the entire room was as if it was untouched. Nothing out of place and Cressida and Ashe were gone. Vanished into the dark place of the beyond in search of the monstrous Caspian Casador.
He knew there was something going on and he was going to find out exactly what it was, if it was the last thing he did.
"Why are you staring at this wall?" John asked.
"Do you remember anything from the last couple of weeks? The things we found here in your mother's things? Do you remember our conversation about confronting Cressida and Gabrielle?" John asked.
Alone in her hotel room at the hotel St. Filipe Morgan Isles, the witch Caspian sent to Savannah to find his son Caleb, the witch who then betrayed him by killing Caleb and becoming pregnant with a child she'd attempt to give to Caspian in turn for powers beyond her belief stood in the mirror naked and caressing her pregnant belly as her dark hair cascaded down her peach toned skin.
She saw herself as the mother of a new wave, a new generation of the future of those like her. She saw herself as a queen that would inherit the most powerful abilities through Caspian's graces and lead through the most darkest of shadows to get what they all deserved.
Power.
But her plan was not fool-proof. Her plan was flawed and she had made mistakes along the way. Morgan's thought process did not include the fact that Caspian and Cressida did not have only one child, indeed, they had two. Caleb was one of a pair of twins and now Caspian was in possession of his daughter Caitlyn, thus nullifying the legitimacy of the child Morgan created with Nick to hand over to Caspian.
Morgan was not aware of Caitlyn. But someone else was. Someone more in tune with the history of Cressida's family and children.
As she continued to stare into the mirror smirking at her beauty and patting the belly that was growing at an incredible pace, a shadowy figure appeared in the back of her room. Morgan saw the figure in the reflection of her mirror and she did not flinch.
"If you've come to punish me Caspian, you'll be wasting your time. I'm too pleased with what I've done for you. Caleb was tainted by Cressida. She would never allow him to take over for you and the rest of us. This child will. This child growing inside of me is all yours. I will raise it in your image, in your law. This child is yours. Forget Caleb." Morgan recited to the figure.
The shadow mass then slowly began to float over to where Morgan was. She watched through the reflection of the mirror as it came closer and closer to her. As soon as it was just behind her she turned to look at the mass of black smoke and air and stare Caspian right in the face.
Except it wasn't Caspian.
The black smoke began to dissipate and the face of Caleb Craine appeared to the woman who killed him. The undead spirit of the son of the darkest creatures on earth and beyond had come to find the woman who took his life.
Morgan gasped and stepped backwards, bumping up against the wall where the mirror was hanging. The mirror fell and shattered at her feet.
"What are you doing here?" Morgan asked as the glass from the mirror crunched under her feet.
"You think we're so different. You think that perhaps you and I have nothing in common and that we don't want the same things. Is that a fair assessment?" Caleb asked.
"I don't know what you mean. I did what I had to do. You should go." Morgan replied sternly.
"Caspian will never accept your child, Morgana." Caleb replied using Morgan's witch name. "There is so much more than you realize. Together we could do more than apart. You foolishly and selfishly never thought of that."
"He will accept my child, I know he will. I've chosen the perfect man to conceived with and Caspian will see this baby as his own and raise him the way you should have been raised. Your mother took that away from him but I wont." Morgan said.
"What about the other one? Have you thought of how Caspian feels about her?" Caleb asked.
"The other one?"
"My sister. You never thought to check your sources and dive deep into the history the way you should have. You just ran rogue and went to find me, kill me, remove me. But I have a sister Morgana, a twin. She is now in the hands of our father. Your baby---will mean nothing." Caleb added/.
"You're a LIAR!" Morgan screamed. "My child WILL be the most powerful, the most beloved, the most---" she continued just before Caleb reached out and grabbed her by the arm.
"LISTEN TO ME WITCH! You're wrong. I am telling you the truth. I'm not here to rub it in your face either. My mother kept me in a deep sleep almost all my life. She took my birth right away. She took my freedom away. There's nothing I want more than to get back what is mine. You can help me and I can help you. Together, if we are truthful with each other we can take down Cressida and gain Caspian's love again." The dark spirit said.
Morgan grabbed Caleb's tightly wrapped hand and removed it from her arm. She stepped over to a lamp and twisted the rigged nob illuminating the room that revealed Caleb's body standing in a puddle of black tar. His legs covered in this thick black grease that locked him in the dark world but allowed him to travel to the surface as he did inside Morgan's room.
"I can't trust you." Morgan said, holding her belly.
"You can. I need you to trust me. Together we can make both of our dreams come true. You took my life but you can give it back and together we can do things that will turn the world Caspian wants into a world that is ours." Caleb explained.
"How?" She asked.
"Take me. Absorb me into your body. Give me life again in the child you're creating. I will grow. I will be alive. I will be the true child of Caspian and together we can rule all. But we have to do it before Caitlyn signs." Caleb added.
"The book of Entry." Morgan whispered.
The book of Entry was the book Caspian used to get his minions to sign over their lives and souls to him. Once the name was signed and recorded in this mystical book there was no turning back. The signer's life would be in Caspian's clutches for all time. And Caitlyn was on her way to doing this. Once her name was recorded in the Book of Entry Morgan and Caleb had no chance of getting the powers they so craved.
"We have to do it now before it's too late." Caleb said.
Morgan didn't know what to do. How could she trust him? Caleb could be tricking her. In the thicket of her doubts she did know the truth, that if Caitlyn was indeed his twin and she was close to signing her name in Caspian's book it would be all over for her.
Morgan had to make a decision, and quickly.
"Do it. Do what you have to." Morgan said as Caleb grinned evilly.
He then closed his eyes and the black smoke began to swirl around him. It covered his face and created a whirlwind of black plumes that began to swirl into a cone-like shape that filled the air around the top of the hotel room.
Morgan opened her arms and the black smoke swirled into a point like structure and began to come down onto Morgan's chest filling her body until all the black smoke was inside of her. The strength of Caleb's entry knocked her to the floor. Her eyes flashed back, her hair turned white, then her eyes went back to blue and her hair back to black.
Caleb was now inside of her. He was now the child she was carrying. He was now going to be reborn via Morgan and quickly. His reincarnation would soon be the nightmare Cressida and even Caspian would never seen coming.
****
The dark place was not a place Cressida ever thought she'd find herself again. It was a place in the depths of the unknown where Caspian reigned as lord and king. It was a place where all the lost souls found themselves and never left. It was a place Cressida escaped with her life, and her unborn children many, many years ago
And now--she had returned, with Ashe, to find Caitlyn.
The duo walked the long and seemingly endless corridors of black walls that felt like they lead to no where. The sounds of groans of moans from unknown sources floated around the air like ghostly sounds, disembodied from the creatures or the people they once belonged to.
Ashe felt uneasy. He wasn't even sure how they got there. Witchcraft was a powerful mystical thing that Ashe could not wrap his head around. It was the force that brought him back to life and now it was the force that allowed him to travel to the dark place with Cressida.
He looked over at her. She was stoic. Determined. Focused.
"I don't see the end of this." Ashe said of the black hallways.
Cressida didn't reply.
"It just keeps going." Ashe added.
"It will end." Cressida replied finally, in a whispered tone.
"Where?" Ashe asked, his heart pounding in his chest.
"When Caspian decides. Once he realizes we are here." Cressida replied.
In his hidden lair, Caspian awaited Pascal's own return with Caitlyn Frost. His daughter. His heir. His true Coin. The half mortal woman that would take the world by storm in his name. He sat on his onyx throne and closed his eyes feeling the entrance of two bodies in his world. A male and a female.
He smirked. She had arrived. His daughter, but as his unconscious mind filtered through the world he had created two faces appeared and they were not the faces of Pascal and Caitlyn. Intruders!
His angry boiled over. Cressida had used the life-force of a man who had once died to enter the world of the dead, his world, and she was now in search of Caspian to hopefully save Caitlyn.
Caspian leapt from his throne and raged. He knocked over a large candelabra of red candles that spilled hot wax onto the onyx floor of his lair in strange shapes that looked like claws and faces screaming as it hardened.
He closed his eyes and vanished only to reappear in front of Cressida and Ashe in the corridors of darkness.
"Well, well, well. Look who's come home." Caspian said to Cressida.
Ashe stepped in front of Cressida.
"Caspian, just give me back Caitlyn. Please." Cressida asked.
"Why would I do that? She was born for a reason and as soon as she arrives here that reason will begin to come true. You knew that when you made her. When you conceived her. You knew the risks of being with me Cressida and you betrayed me. That is on you---not Caitlyn. You should give her up, before its too late." Caspian explained.
"Just give her back." Ashe said, his hand extended keeping Caspian at a distance.
"Who's this?" Caspian asked.
"Don't say your name, if he knows your name he can attempt to take you into his world. Never tell him your name." Cressida told Ashe.
"Witch." Caspian replied. "It doesn't matter. Neither of you can do anything, don't you understand that? It's over. You took the children you promised to me and lied about their lives to me. It's done. Caleb, well I can't get him back. But At least I have my daughter. And Ill have her forever."
Cressida's eyes began to glow, her anger was boiling over. She lifted her hand and a powerful bolt of energy raged from her fingers and over Ashe's shoulder and shot at Caspian who quickly lifted his own hand allowing an invisible shield to go up and block her energy burst as if it was where a wisp of wind.
Caspian laughed at her attempt. She was a powerful woman but not as powerful as him in a world of his own creation.
He then raised both his arms and creating a loud and powerful rumbling sound as if the earth were shaking. Ashe grabbed hold of Cressida as everything around them began to shake. Then, in a split second, giant walls began to form around them where the blackness was. The walls began to grow from the ground up and began to raise. Giant walls. Giant brick looking walls. Ancient looking. From another time.
Then Caspian himself began to grow. He began to get larger and lager until he was towering over Ashe and Cressida as the walls around them enclosed them inside and they were looking up at him as if they were two little insects trapped in a child's ant farm.
Ashe rushed over to the walls and and touched them. They were real. Thick.
"Cressida!!!" Ashe screamed in shock. "we're trapped!!"
Cressida began to lift from the ground, her powers lifted her up high, high up in the place they were in but it was as if the walls were growing higher and higher as she flew to reach Caspian only laughed at her attempt. She began to recite a spell, hoping her powers would break the walls Caspian had built around them but it was no use.
"This is where you'll stay Cressida. A cell for all time. You've betrayed me for the last time." Caspian said.
Then he waved his hand over the opening of what was now a circular tomb ceiling Cressida in, and when she looked down Ashe's was disappearing.
"CRESSIDA!!!" he screamed.
Cressida dropped down to the ground and Ashe was gone, sent back to where he came from, the surface, leaving Cressida to rot in Caspian's cell for all time alone. Punishment for her betrayal.
She fell to her knees and began to cry. He soul was now his. Locked away as Caspian's prisoner forever immured in a stone-walled cell in the dark place, in the realm of the world where souls go to rot.
Caspian walked over to them, and he looked down at his daughter and stroked her hair.
"Finally." he said.
Pascal did not say a single word.
"You've done well. Place here here." Caspian said pointing Pascal to lay Caitlyn down on a black onyx alter.
"Free me." Pascal said, hoping his job well done was a freedom card.
"Why would I do that? We have so much more to do." Caspian said.
Caitlyn began to wake from her sleep. She moaned and rubbed her head and came to.
"Who's there?" She asked hearing the voices around her but unable to see as her eyes adjusted to the dim light.
Caspian stood over her and stroked her golden hair. He smiled at her and grabbed her hand and squeezed.
"This will be a hard thing for you to understand Caitlyn, but you have found what you've been looking for all this time. You've found your family." Caspian said.
"What? Who are you? Where am I?" She asked.
"You're in a place that you should have known and understood since you were a child, but there were forces that took you away. This is your home. A place you will one day inherit. My name is Caspian. I am your father, Caitlyn." Caspian said.
"My father?!?" She gasped then suddenly stood up. Her head dizzy from the strange feeling of being in the dark place.
"I understand it's confusing, shocking even. But I promise you, this is the place you belong, a place you have always belonged in. I can give you so much more and all your dreams will come true. Ive been waiting for you all your life. I'm so happy to finally have found you." The dark man said.
"I, I don't understand. How can you be my father. How did I even get here?" She asked.
"In time things will make more sense. I promise you, but for now I'd like you to come with me." Caspian said helping her down from the onyx alter.
The two walked through more black strange corridors that seemed to be made of black smoke flowing upwards to no where and creating a dome around them as they walked. Caitlyn clutched Caspian's hand tightly fearing for herself, and Pascal, reluctantly, walked behind them like a bodyguard watching for their safety.
After a few minutes of walking and hearing the sounds of the souls floating all around them they came to a door that seemed to be floating in the middle of nothing. In the middle of black smoke. Caspian smiled at his daughter and stepped aside.
"Open the door." He said.
Caitlyn wasn't sure what to do. She had no idea where she was or who she was with or if anything that was happening to her was a dream....or a nightmare.
But she did it. She stepped up to the door and turned the knob and opened it.
On the other side of the door was a room, beautiful with normal looking furniture and windows facing a glowing sunny day. It was a home in Savannah. A small townhouse that was glittering and beautiful. It was Caspian's home. Now that he had Caitlyn he could live as a real person on the surface.
Caitlyn stepped inside in awe of the beautiful room and as she became enamored by the beauty the door closed behind her. She turned back around and Pascal and Caspian where there. They had entered. Caitlyn's mortal life had allowed them to enter the world of the living as fully formed people without any of the drawbacks of having to be reborn. Caspian's life was returned to him thanks to his COIN. She was the key her had been waiting for generations for.
It had finally happened.
"This is our home now. This is all yours too." Caspian said.
"But How?" She asked.
"Its a long story and I now that it's strange and confusing. But it's real. It really is real." Caspian said. "You have all the money in the world. You have all the things you want now and I can give you more. Don't you want that?" Caspian asked.
Caitlyn pinched herself trying to wake from the strange dream.
"It's not a dream my love. Come...." Caspian said as he walked over to a large oak desk that had a beautiful leather book on top of it. Caspian sat at the desk and opened it, flicking through the pages of thousands of names and dates.
"What is that?" She asked.
"The book of ..." Pascal began before Caspian interrupted.
"It's our family book. Every name in this book belongs to our family. Every single one. We're the last of it. Perhaps, or until you have a child of your own. You're a very important part of this family Caitlyn and because you were taken from me before I knew you existed I had no idea just how important a daughter would be to me. You see your birth mother took you and your twin brother away. She lied to me. She told me you had died. She took you from your birth-right and all that comes with being my daughter. This book, once you sign it, will enter you back into the fold, the right way and you will have access to all you've ever dreamed. This is your homecoming." Caspian said.
"Wait wait....brother? I have a twin?" She said.
"Had." Pascal replied. "He passed away."
"Oh." Caitlyn replied softly not asking any further question on the sore subject.
"That's why when Pascal found you I knew that it was meant to be for us to finally connect and he brought you to me. We're finally together! Here! Sign the book, sign it!" Caspian replied sliding the old book to the other end of the desk and handing her a pen.
"But...I still don't understand. This is so confusing. Please, can I call my boyfriend Nick. I....I feel strange about all this. I was with him and then all of a sudden I wasn't. There was a fight? Or ...I was taken? I'm so confused." Caitlyn said her mind spinning from her abduction.
"YES! You were taken! FROM ME! This is retribution for that wrong. You are now here and this is what was meant to be. Please. Sign the book and let's begin to patch together all the time we lost. Caitlyn, my darling daughter.....please...sign it."
Caitlyn looked around. She could see Caspian's eyes were strange. He was strange. The house was strange. But it was beautiful. She wanted a family. She wanted it so bad. Was he really her father? Was he really all that he said he was? Was this a dream? She didn't understand what was happening. But she did feel a strange closeness to the man saying he was her father. He looked at her with truly loving eyes but at the same time they were eyes that told a story of hunger and anger.
The book he wanted her to sign was The Book of Entry. The powerful book that when signed the person gave their soul to Caspian. Even his coin needed to sign it to secure his power of them, and thus Caitlyn would be his forever and ever. For all time. It was the book Cressida signed. It was the book Mae signed. It was the book Gabrielle signed. It was the book Morgan signed.
Caitlyn stepped closer to the desk. She saw the page open to her name, in beautiful writing. She saw the words under her name explaining who she was, her family connection. Her history. It was all so intoxicating and it was everything she had ever wanted.
A family. A real family with a history and a past and a home.
She grabbed the pen and placed it down on the page and took a deep breath and her father Caspian smiled an evil grin the sent chills up Pascal's spine, he knew what was to come, he knew the dangers in the heart of the man from hell, he knew Caitlyn might live to regret this moment.
He screamed in pain. He screamed with all the pain. It was killing him. His mind saw Caitlyn. She was in a room. A bright room. Her eyes staring down at the book. He screamed in pain again.
Gabrielle rushed over to him. His mind was seeing Caitlyn with Caspian. The devil
"What is it?? WHAT IS IT?" Gabrielle asked.
"Caitlyn!!!" Nick said in pain.
"Nick! NICK! Wake up! WAKE UP!!!" Gabrielle screamed slapping his face.
"Where is she? WHERE IS SHE?" He asked of Caitlyn.
"We need to get them back. We need your help." Gabrielle said. "What did you see just now?"
