Series 1/Chapter 6: THE BATTLE AHEAD

On brilliant summer night in Savannah, Georgia a light breeze filled the swollen juniper trees and pushed the thick perfume of their scent through the city like the smell of an early morning breakfast wafting through a house. 

Downtown, in a candle-lit ritzy restaurant, Gabrielle Loures sat at a table dressed in a strappy black dress made of the softest cotton. Her hair was tied up in a tight chignon like a crown of dark curls. Her skin, a mocha chocolate tone, seemed to sparkle in the light of the candles as her date, Pascal Valmont. 

They looked into each other's eyes and talked over their supper. They made small talk and told stories about their lives before. Each of them hiding the truth of who they really were. Too much was at stake for their truths to be revealed  so soon. 

He was smitten so quickly with her. Her gaze on him too showed that she was enamored with his way of speaking. His quick wit. His megawatt smile.

She had not loved anyone in years. The loss of her former boyfriend was so traumatizing, Gabrielle, the former witch doctor, had given up on love. She had given up on all things that made her happy; all of Caspian's promises to her for joining his coven of witches never came to be and she never again found the love she had with Ashe. 

Ashe and Gabrielle's relationship was as tough as steel. She believed they'd be together forever. But it was not to be.

Gabrielle was enjoying her night. Pascal was a happy distraction from all the sadness in Gabrielle's recent days with Mae's death and with the shock of Caitlyn showing up in Savannah.

Yet--he was a lethal distraction. One connected to the very man she was hiding from and she had no idea. His mission was to find the witches that betrayed Caspian and kill them. They sat there, googly-eyed and filled with excitement of a butting new romance, no matter how frivolous it could be, and in reality were their own enemies. 

Their masks of a doctor at a hospital and a man who came in after a hit and run protected this deadly truth at their dinner well. But for how long?  

After dinner, Pascal walked Gabrielle down a long cobble stone street in downtown Savannah. The ocean air sent a shiver up her back that was not warmed by the thin shall she wore around her shoulders.

"Here." He said, passing her his coat.

"Oh, well aren't you chivalrous?" She joked. "Thank you." 

"It's my thing. I come in to random towns and quickly woo the town's most beautiful medical official." he joked back.

"Oh? Well Dr. Jeffery Jinkins' wife won't be too happy about that!" Gabrielle joked back about a handsome doctor at her hospital. 

As the two walked down the street arm in arm and continued to make small talk, the shadows behind them of buildings and street lamps seemed to slowly morph into one large black mass. The mass of blackness slowly followed the pair down the street as the giggled and talked about their pretend lives. Pascal telling Gabrielle of his former life hiding the fact he was a soldier from the great deep darkness below and Gabrielle giving Pascal the story of her own life carefully curating the reality that she was a witch who's coven had betrayed the sinister master in hopes of find salvation.

The shadowy mass continued to follow as the pair finally came to their destination, Forsyth Park in the center of town. They cuddled while the large fountain dribbled away and they watched some of the sleepy ducks waddle and wade in the shallow waters.

"Savannah is a gorgeous city at night. In good weather like this I think its even more beautiful than in the day." Gabrielle said as the water reflected bands of blue light of the moon in her eyes.

Pascal smiled at her. Gabrielle was stunning. She made his heart feel warm again. Gone was the cold rigidness of what he had been living in while under Caspian's rule in the dark place. Gone was the cynicism and the anger. Gabrielle's presence took that all away. It was a feeling Pascal never wanted to lose again. 

"Nothing is as beautiful as the woman standing before me right now." Pascal said, to Gabrielle's shy scoff. "No, no, I'm serious!" He replied to her. 

"You don't have to compliment me to get me to like you more." Gabrielle answered.

Pascal stepped a little closer to her, he grabbed her around the waste and pulled her close and whispered "Than just accept it." 

Then he kissed her.

The mood night bathed them in blues and grays. Wide awake geese jumped into flight from the soggy grassy knolls and flew into the air just as the mass of shadows began to take shape again just over in the same area.

Gabrielle pulled away from the kiss and looked at Pascal. His green eyes seemed to look through her. Something....something about him. She couldn't tell what was happening. The kiss felt like a shock, like a spark on the lips. Was it good? Was it supposed to feel that way? 

"Its late. I think I should get back." Gabrielle said surprising Pascal.

"It's only 10." Pascal noted.

"I have rounds at the hospital early in the morning." Gabrielle replied, the strange spark as they kissed still stinging her tongue. 

Pascal sighed but understood and walked her back across the street from Forsythe Park where Gabrielle's car was parked and kissed her goodbye. The tiny spark came again. It wasn't a good feeling. Gabrielle didn't like it. It almost tasted like she had licked a AAA battery. It was bitter and sharp. Nothing she had ever felt before was like this kiss. 

Gabrielle smiled politely and said she'd call him tomorrow. She gave him back his coat and drove off, still trying to piece together what she had felt in that kiss. It turned her stomach. 

As Pascal began to walk back to his hotel room, the shadows behind him once again began to form a large mass of blackness. But this time, the following shadows morphed into a large standing object that suddenly leaped over Pascal and stood in front of him. The black mass began to slowly change shape from a oblong blob to a large shapely thing with a smaller blob on top. Shoulders. A head.

Pascal gasped in shock and backed away. He knew exactly what...or who...it was.

The mass of shadows began to transform into the man of darkness, Caspian Casador. 

"Good evening." 

"Caspian." Pascal replied in shock.

"You've been on the surface a while now, my friend, where is the coin! You've had a job and I've been waiting for you." 

"I've been searching for the coin, Caleb. But I haven't had luck." Pascal said.

"And Morgan?" Caspian asked of the witch he had reluctantly to also find his son Caleb, but with less trust.

"She's still in the same place as before. I would not worry about her I can take care of her." Pascal replied.

Caspian's eyes narrowed. He felt as if both of his minions were slowly turning against him. He'd sent them both to the surface and neither had returned with any kind of progress on what he wanted. His son. His only son, that he knew of. There was much more happening and Caspian was beginning to feel if he needed something done, perhaps he needed to do it himself.

Slowly, Caspian began to step up to Pascal who began to back away. Behind him, Caspian's feel left black marks on the side walk made of thick black tar. Step by step, the steaming tar marked his path to Pascal who knew his own life was in danger.

Caspian reached out and grabbed Pascal by the collar and dragged him close and lifted him in the air and began to take deep breaths into his devilsh lungs. Caspian could smell the woman. Gabrielle. He could smell her blood as if she were standing there with them only because Pascal had made the mistake of touching her and kissing her. Her life force had graced his lips and left her scent. 

"Ahh....so you have been busy." Caspian said breathing in Pascal's air.

"Caspian please..." Pascal answered, wiggling in Caspian's large hands.

"But who is she? Who...." And as the question Caspian was asking left his mouth the face of Gabrielle Loures appeared in his mind. The face of one of the witches who had betrayed him. It was like a moment in the sun after a dark raining day. Pascal had inadvertently found one link to Caleb. 

Caspian's cruel face suddenly dawned a smile, sinister and evil as it was. He dropped Pascal to the ground into the blobs of tar left from Caspian's feet. 

Caspian knelt down and looked into Pascal's eyes.

"Well my friend, perhaps I should apologize." the evil one said.

Pascal got up, his hands sticky from the tar. "I told you I would find what you needed and I'm doing it as fast as I can. I'm sorry about the girl. I won't see her again." Pascal replied not knowing Gabrielle was part of the three who had vanished years ago.

"Of course you will! You will see this woman and find out where she goes and there is where you will find My child! You've been out of service too long Pascal, when you do well you still don't know you've done well." Caspian said cryptically.

"What? You want me to see her again?" Pascal asked.

"Why wouldn't I? She...wait....don't you know who she is?" Caspian asked genuinely confused.

"She's a doctor that helped me the day I arrived. I was hit by a car and she..." Pascal was then interrupted. 

"Open your eyes my friend! Open them and see what you've done and who you found. She is Gabrielle Loures, a witch who vanished with Cressida and Mae ...AND MY SON! Find her again. She'll tell you were Caleb is. She is a key to all of this. I'd say you did job well done but you've clearly no idea how to even compete something. I really thought more of you Pascal, but it seems the surface air cheapens your mind." 

"She's, one of them?" Pascal asked, his heart sinking at the thought of Gabrielle lying to him all night about who she was even though he did too.

"Yes. And when you find her again, Cressida won't be far behind. Find them all---take my son. Then kill them. All of them. I don't want Cressida or Gabrielle to breathe another day of life after what they've done, do you understand me? Take Caleb away from them and kill Cressida and Gabrielle. Easy come easy go." Caspian said as the shadows began to pile on him again pulling the dark lord back into their black mass and sucking back to his own subterranean world to await his son Caleb. 

Caspian's orders hit Pascal like a bullet to the heart. Gabrielle had been a quick light in his dark world and he was hoping that when all was said and done he could sort of start a fresh life and perhaps she'd be there too. Now, the truth, the horrible truth was that she was exactly who he was supposed to find. It wasn't by chance. It wasn't by accident. It was by design that they meet. But now he had to kill her instead of love  her. His job, his penance towards Caspian aske for her life to be taken and Pascal had to obey. He had no choice. Gabrielle, the woman he had so quickly taken a liking to and that felt like a breath of fresh air in a life filled with cold darkness would now have to be snuffed out like the dimming light of a candle. 

****

The following morning John Barrett awaited in the front garden of Mae Watanabe's house. He stood next to a giant oak tree dripping with Spanish moss while plumes of cigarette smoke circled him like the fog of the Savannah morning.

A taxi cab soon pulled up and Mae's son Khai Watanabe jumped out with his single suitcase fresh from his studies in Tokyo. Khai's face was serious. His heart heavy with the death of his mother weighing on him. He unlatched the front gate and carefully walked up the front path to the house he hadn't seen in 10 years. 

"Welcome home." A smoky voice said from under the tree. Khai turned and smiled recognizing the old family friend.

"John." Khai replied kindly. 

Inside, Khai looked around his mother's former front room. He picked up various pictures of the two of them and looked at them fondly. It was as if he could still smell her perfume floating around the warm colored room. 

"Here we are." John said, setting down two cups of warm black coffee.

"She wasn't even sick." Khai said of his mother's sudden death.

"That's whats got everyone so spooked. It just came out of no where. Gabrielle said that the medical examination said it was something  more physical like a heart attack but, none of us are very convinced of that." John explained.

"The others think that too? Gabrielle and Cressida both?" Khai asked unsure of what to make of the mystery.

"That's the thing, kid, I don't really know what's going on. At first of course they were both really upset about her dying. Understandably. Your mother was like their mother. They've all been so close for as long as I've known then." John said.

"Right." Khai replied, wondering if there was more to John's tale.

"But at the funeral....there was just this very strange energy. A vibe. Something I don't really know how to explain. Cressida and Gabrielle weren't the same. They... they almost seemed panicked. And then there was this strange woman who showed up and made them even more weird." John explained.

"What do you think that's about? What would make then worried or panicked?" Khai wondered.

"I don't know kid. I don't know. It has me a bit unsettled. It wasn't just that they seemed panicked but almost like they were trying to purposefully keep something from me. Whispers. Lots of whispers." 

"Did you ask about the other woman?" Khai wondered.

"I didn't. It all just felt like none of my business, but that's where I went wrong. I should have gone with my gut and asked because I haven't been able to get it out my mind since." John noted. 

Khai sat back in his mother's great chair. His stomach was in knots. He had come back home to hopfully mourn his mother's passing, that was indeed sudden and out of no where, only to be given news that perhaps something was afoot. Foul play. Strange behaviors that were  not at all like the two women they both knew. 

The truth was, Cressida and Gabrielle had a very good reason to be whispering. They knew the truth of what happened to Mae and the danger they were all in now that Caspian had found them in Georgia and had killed Mae. The monster the three witches had been protecting everyone from for all these years was close, so close that he was able to reach through the separation between his world and this and choke Mae to her death.

But John didn't know any of this about the woman. And Khai too had been protected from his mother's past and connections to the supernatural. The son of Mae Watanabe had no idea his mother was a powerful coven leader AZIRA in another life.

"I thought about confronting them, asking them what's really going on because I swear I can feel something is going on, kid. Something that I can't put my finger on. And I'm worried." John added

"Why don't we look around the house? Maybe there's something around here that can tell us what happened around the time of my mother's death. Something had to have been left behind." Khai said.

"I looked sort of around the surfaces. I didn't want to go through drawers and things without you here. From just what I could see, I really didn't find anything that would make sense, but maybe having you here we can sort of cover more ground." John said.

Khai put his coffee down and stood up. He looked around his mother's living room. So many memories. So many things of hers that he hadn't seen in years and years. He missed her. His heart ached for one last moment with his mom and the reality was he was going to have that moment and touch---but it would only be the touching of her things. 

"Alright. I'll start in this corner of the house and you start on the other. We'll meet in the middle. Don't leave any space untouched. We're going to find out what's really going on if it's the last thing we do." Khai announced. 

John smiled and stood up. 

"Let's figure this out." John replied. 

The secrets that Mae held were deep and dark. Her only son's whole life was kept in a locked box of lies so that no one from the underworld could come for him like Caspian was coming for Caleb. He was protected, he was guarded by a curse his own mother placed on him when he was 15 years old and sent to Japan to study. This spell kept him alive all these years and safe.

But now all bets were off, it seemed. He would do anything to find out what really happened. John's certainty that Cressida and Gabrielle were hiding more than they said about Mae's death was all Khai needed to flip his mother's house upside down and find the truth once and for all.  

Hours and hours passed. 

Mae's house looked as if a tornado had hit it. Papers were strewn all over the floors. Stacks and stacks of books from the many shelves around the library were pulled down and opened hoping a loose secret paper with something of evidence would fall out. 

But nothing. Nothing came of this search.

Mae had hidden her life well. In face she was a very good liar to protect Khai and even John, who never knew of any of their secret back stories.

Just as the two were going to give up and resign the idea that anything strange had happened to Mae and that perhaps it really was an unfortunate heart-attack that took her life, Khai noticed that in their search one of them had brushed up against the wall and tilted a large painting. 

Khai went to straighten the painting and noticed that the back of the painting was false. There was a part of the wall cut out and filled in with a secret door. 

"Well, well, well." Khai said pulling the frame down and seeing the secret door.

"A safe?" wondered John.

Khai looked at John with a funny reaction and pulled the wall open revealing John's hunch was correct. A safe was behind the wall. 

"Why would my mother have a secret safe hidden behind this painting? I mean she was very old fashioned but this is pushing it." Khai said.

"What could be in it?" John wondered.

"I just came imagine her leaving money or jewels there." Khai noted that this whole safe seemed out of place for her in the first place.

John came back from the bathroom with tweezers and a long twisted needle that he slowly slipped into the lock of the safe. He twisted and turned pulling at the small bits of the lock hoping the tugging would unlatch it and pop it open.

An entire hour passed, and all that time picking at the inside of the safe's lock: CLICK!

"Holy hell, you did it." Khai replied, his confidence wavering over the hour.

"Boy scouts." John said with a grin. 

The two men stood in front of the safe and took deep breaths unsure of what exactly they'd find inside the safe behind the painting. John turned the knob and the safe opened inside a large thick black book with golden pages.

Khai grabbed it and pulled it out. His face turned white, he grimaced, and his blood ran cold. 

"What is it?" John asked just as Khai turned the book over to show him what had made him so pale. "What the hell?" John replied.

The cover of the book, made of thick leather and black as night had a large deep cut pentagram on it with words written in a strange language that neither of them understood. 

"There's more." Khai said as he reached into the safe.

He then pulled out a photo of himself when he was 15 tied around it was a single strand of Mae's own hair and a dried up rose. Her spell of protection, then Khai reached in one more time and pulled and another bag filled with human hair and teeth.

"This...this is.....not what I expected." John said, his heart beating deep in his chest.

"I need to see Cressida. I need to see her right away." Khai replied knowing the one person who knew his mother better than he did was Cressida Craine. She would know the truth, good or bad, she would know.

But would Cressida be willing to finally reveal the truth?--that would be a different story. 

****

Standing beside a roaring fire in the late afternoon in her beautiful home, Cressida Craine sipped on a dark liquor with swirling cubes of ice that calmed her nerves. She felt as if she were holding on to all control by a thin thread. A thread that if broken could spell disaster for everyone latching on to it and with it's break would usher in the return of the most evil man in all the universe. 

She had to continue her battle against him no matter the dangers to herself. She had to, for her son's sake, for her friend Mae's sake and even for Caitlyn's sake: the young woman who'd come all the way to Savannah to find her family: Cressida's family. 

Cressida's story of being the last known heir of a wealthy Savannah shipping family was not at face value. She truly was the heiress of the long dead Craine family. All of Savannah society was surprised when Cressida returned with a small boy back in the early 1990's with two others whom she called her closest friends: Mae and Gabrielle. In those days, no one in the city had heard of a living member of the Craine family since George Melbourne Crane, Cressida's uncle, who died childless in 1903. In those years, Cressida had already given herself to the most powerful monster in the universe: Caspian Casador, her soul was his and together they'd bring a new world order on the planet. Cressida, the other witches in her coven who had given their souls to Caspian, Mae and Gabrielle, had eternal life so long they followed all of Caspian's cruel and wicked rules. 

But when the children were born, Cressida's own humanity took over her greed for powers and immortality. She could not give the twins over to a man possessed by evil. She freed herself along with Mae and Gabrielle, hoping for a better world free of Caspian's control and together returned to Savanah.

Since her return, the town had barley checked to see if Cressida's story of a life in Europe checked out. All of Savannah high society was just in a tizzy with the return of a Craine back then. And they left her alone, alone to keep Caspian's child secretly under a spell in sleep so he'd never find her. 

Her own family's extension now reversed, and now hunted.

As she looked into the burning fire in front of her Ashe Evans walked into the room freshly showered and dressed. He had been asleep for two days after Cressida awoke him from his death sleep. She needed him. She needed him desperately to free them all of Caspian's threat of return. 

Only he, someone who had already passed through the vail of the dead could do it. 

"Where's Gabrielle." Ashe asked from behind Cressida of his one true love who had not known he was back.

"You're awake! How does it feel?" Cressida asked as she turned to him and then walked over to a small wet bar to pour him his own drink.

"I don't really feel right. Maybe not yet. I feel sleepy, sort of out of it. Where's Gabrielle?" Ashe asked again.

"I haven't told her, Ashe. Not yet." Cressida replied handing Ashe his drink.

"I want to see her." He said softly. 

"Ashe, that isn't a good idea. We don't know how she'll react. And besides I didn't bring you back from where you were for Gabrielle as much as you wish that. I actually need you. We all need you." Cressida explained.

"Need me for what?" Ashe questioned as he sat on the sofa settling in for a description of events he had was not expecting.

"There's a man---I don't even think we can call him that--more like a creature. A demon. A powerful monster that wants to hurt not just Gabrielle and myself, but the whole world. Everyone. He wants to control all of us with seriously dark powers. But he can only do that if he is able to embody his powers in a seed, like a child. A long ago chanted prophecy allows this dark return to earth if and only if this demon creature can pass his seed into a future generation, sort of like an insurance policy that the darkness will always have a next if kin." Cressida explained.

Ashe was transfixed. It was a surreal story. A strange and bizarre story that came from a woman he once trusted and loved like an older sister. When he was in real-life he knew just how close his former girlfriend Gabrielle and Cressida were, but he had no idea that they were involved in something so strange so occult and twisted. All the darkness and all the supernatural monsters that Cressida was explaining just seemed like a fairytale gone wrong. He didn't want to believe it no matter how much he trusted Cressida but, he knew she wasn't lying. Something in him, something inside of him told him to listen and listen well. After all she was powerful enough to bring him back from beyond the grave. She had to be telling the truth.

"But why me? And why can't I see Gabrielle?" Ashe asked.

"You've been to the other side in a natural way, your death was not at all connected to any of us or magic or anything like that. I can help you get to where Caspian is and you can..." She paused unsure of how to explain her hope in the project.

"I can what?" He asked.

"Not, can.... you need to...you need to kill him Ashe. Kill him, a dagger to the heart a deep deep dagger cut to the heart killing him instantly will destroy him and save all of us." Cressida explained.

Ashe stood up, anxious about what she as asking him to do. She wanted to magically transfer him to where-ever Caspian was so that he could kill her. Drop him in the depths of hell so that he could assassinate the devil! 

It seemed dangerous for obvious reasons...except his intuitions again were telling him there was something else she wasn't telling him. 

"I don't know if I can do this, Cressida. I mean you're telling me I'd have to go and find this thing and make sure it dies to save the world? That sounds crazy, you sound crazy right now! None of this makes sense!! He doesn't have a kid or anything does he? I mean you said this prophecy requires him to have some kind of child seed to come back, he can't without it and so why...." Ashe paused when he looked passed the living room door where Caleb's room was. 

He knew who Caleb was. He had known of him when he was alive, Gabrielle's favorite patient the only patient she'd only do house calls for. Caleb, the sleeping boy as the town called him. 

Cressida turned to see where Ashe was looking and when she realized the story was clicking in his mind she stepped up to him and put her hand on his shoulder.

"Now you see." she said as the fire crackled in the background. 

"Caleb?" He asked.

Cressida nodded her head yes indicating that Caleb was the key to Caspian's return...the seed, the Coin.

"I don't know what to say. You'll help me then? You'll help me do this?" Ashe asked.

"We both will." A distant voice said coming into the room like an echo. The voice bounced off the walls and an energy filled the room and suddenly, the ghost of Mae Watanabe appeared.

"You're our only hope." Cressida said.

"He killed me, Ashe. He killed me and plans to find his son and take over this planet and that cannot happen. We've been able to thwart his plans for over centuries and and over two decades of Caleb's mortal life but now he's found us. We can help you. Will you help us?" Mae asked, her body seeming to be made a mist, flog and light but then slowly seeping into real colors and then like a blink of an eye, she seemed to be solid blood, bone and flesh. 

"Mae...." Ashe said, his eyes large like saucers. He knew her in life too, but had not known she was now a spirit. He had not known she had gone to the other side. His heart, the sleepy little beating heart of a man back from the dead, beat slowly and sadly for her. 

"Ashe...will you help us?" Cressida asked again. 

Ashe looked at them both. Knowing there must be a reason Gabrielle was not present. His love. The woman he loved more than anything on the planet. 

He looked around the room again, for some reason it all still felt like a dream. His return from the dead. Cressida's story. Mae's ghostly apparition. But it was real. It was all real.

"Gabrielle. Does she know I am here?" He asked turning away from the women.

"She doesn't know. She can't know. We're afraid of how'd she react. Having her know could put the plan in danger and we want to make sure Caspian is gone before she knows." Cressida said sounding as if she were warning him. 

"And if I do this, will you tell her, that I am back or will I have to go back?" Ashe asked.

"We...." Cressida began to speak before being interrupted by Mae.

"We don't have time to bargain, Ashe, we need to know if you can help us. We need you!!" Mae said in a sudden spirt. She sensed his intensions. 

"If I do this I want to be reunited with Gabrielle. That is my only condition." Ashe said, confirming Mae's suspicions of a bargain.

"Ashe! We can't guarantee that! What you're asking us is to reunite a person in the living world with someone of the world of the dead, we..." Cressida began before again being interrupted by Mae.

"Fine." She replied softly to Cressida's gasp.

"What do you mean fine?" Cressida asked.

"We can do it. There is a way. I know of a way and we can make Ashe a permanent life force again, but....it will cost us something. What that is, won't be revealed until the spell is underway. But we can do it." Mae said.

"Then I agree." Ashe said.

The two witches, one alive and one dead looked at each other and felt a small twinge of hope but there was yet another added layer of danger. If Ashe's request for life unbothered by his first bought with death meant that something had to be given away to keep him, there was no telling what the fates would demand in return. 

But Ashe, being his own creature from the beyond was truly the only person that could go into Caspian's layer and kill him once and for all. Mae was desperate and Cressida was too. They'd agree to anything.

No matter what.....at the end of it all Caspian was the one who'd have to suffer most. He had to die. 

"We'll start tomorrow. The process will be short but it will begin at sunrise tomorrow." Cressida said. 

And with her words Mae lifted an eyebrow and vanished. 

"Sunrise." Ashe said, allowing the words and the plan to seep into his psyche and ready him for the battle ahead.