** RAVEN'S HOLLOW – Part XIV **
=== STARFALL ===
Storm clouds rolled in from the coast, leaving the accumulating ravens restless along the hotel roofline.
Mordechai and his younger yet ancient companion enjoyed the last, chilly evening sun with a postprandial stroll through the Japanese garden behind the resort.
Mordecai was used to the northwest fall weather. The chills along his spine were the work of Orion, who showed no sign of giving up his hostage, acting like he hadn't robbed Mordecai of a grandson to hold captive.
"You know," Orion said after a long, silent gaze on a Zen stone formation, "I had really hoped to be able to act my age once I was back among the living. My soul was tethered to the portrait at 35, but every time I hear one of the younger servants speak-"
"Employees, Orion."
"Yes yes, every time they speak, I feel so much closer in age to you. How do you deal with..." he gestured past the hotel, to Raven's Hollow where streetlamps had just activated, "modernity? It's only a small town but has so much worth owning nonetheless. Once we have the Sanguine Unrotting brewed in sufficient quantity to drive out those pale... things, we can again be the oligarchs of this area. Perhaps move our influence to Portland, even."
"You know," Mordecai said in his most grandfatherly tone, "the nocturnals are not what they once were and the family was doing quite well cooperating with the coven. I suppose, since you broke off our relationship with them, we'll have to reconsider our revenue options, but you should at least visit the city before you plan a take-over."
"True. It may not even be worth retaining holdings there with all those degenerates around. Alone the music they listen to these days. Dreadful. Though, that little box that plays every opera ever written right into your ears is a marvel."
"It is," Mordecai said and allowed himself to chuckle. Sometimes Orion seemed so childlike it was difficult to remember the threat he presented.
"I enjoy less modern music, too," Mordecai continued, now somberly looking into the swaying tree tops, "though her works ranged from the classical to the outrageous."
Orion gave him a pat on the shoulder. "I'm eager to hear it, once our work is done. And it will be done."
"Thank you," Mordecai said, and wondered how much he could allow himself to mean those words.
"I know your pain," Orion said, glancing up at the circling birds. "Bloodlines are a burden much of the time. But the ritual is nearly ready."
Having been the patriarch until Orion's arrival, Mordecai was broadly acquainted with the affairs of the supernatural, though he had not taken his duties as heir seriously until his father's unforgivable actions.
As a result of working against his father, Mordecai was thoroughly familiar with maledictions, curses, bindings – though only in theory - and their adjacent matters of augury and summonings. This made him an ideal conversation partner for Orion, whose similar specialty had brought him into contact with the painter who had ultimately preserved his soul on canvas.
The hotel manager allowed himself to ponder their scheme seriously. However, Orion had made sure the ritual required his own presence by withholding information. Mordecai would be forced to choose between indebting himself to the new patriarch and sacrificing his grandson, or giving up on breaking the final burden his father had left him.
And so he chose.
A smile crept onto Mordecai's face, more genuine than his smiles had been lately.
"This calls for a celebration, I think," he said. "Just a small one. I'll have a bottle of wine opened that I've been saving for some time."
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Jasper looked at his latest text. "Okay, this is it. Grampa says he's feeling drowsy."
Orion was paranoid enough not to pour from a bottle he hadn't seen someone else use first. The family had soon noticed as much but never commented on it.
If they wanted the wandering soul to imbibe sleeping pills, Mordecai would have to drink the same liquid.
"Get ready, he's coming up from the backstairs," Lazaro said.
The beefy guy in sweatpants, hoodie was back at the Raven's with a duffle bag of toys after Jasper had needled a security hole into the basement entrance. Keying somebody into the building had been tricky but Jasper was still a family member and Lazaro had left of his own volition, thus never being officially banished.
Beside Jasper and Lazaro, only Kamron and Sammy were in the northeast corner of the upper floor, positioned in front of the portrait of the Siren of Portland singing from the heart, partly obscured by rosy peonies on a walnut counter.
"Here we go," Jasper said. "For Alec."
"For Alec," came two responses, plus a nod from Lazaro.
"Take positions."
Storm clouds stretched over the courtyard's glass roof, darkening what light fell in from the interior windows. Wings fluttered overhead, the tapping of clawed feet outdone by the wind.
Orion scuffled up the stairs into an empty corridor, steps slightly unsure as expected of someone with a sudden onset of sleepiness.
He dragged his feet past the door to the Raven family apartment where two men hid, toward his grand suite, toward the corner.
Just as he turned, Jasper and Kamron rose from the floor, holding the old portrait of Orion's blurred form ahead of themselves like a shield.
The patriarch stumbled back one step and caught himself. He glared with disgust.
"You found it, huh?" He spoke with words slightly slurred and noticed his strange speech. "Wh-what have you done to me? You think I'm that easily defeated?"
Jasper and Kamron stepped forward. "You're getting back in there, asshole."
Orion scuffled back with a mad grin. He dragged his thumb across his chest. "By treacherous hand was I envenomed. By my own hand I expel tainted gift and ill-favored offer."
A drop of blood fell from the ancestor's nose. It turned into a small stream. Then his eyes became bloodshot and red tears ran down his cheeks.
Orion blinked the blood-tears away and winced. "I'm not that easily subdued," he said with clear, steady speech. He raised his hand in a sudden motion, gesturing right at the duo. "Gale of Abraxas, my foes are before me!"
Force shoved Jasper and Kamron, like a storm that wasn't there, but they kept from falling backward and leaned against the impossible wind.
"By the Raven name," Jasper yelled, lacking more specific knowledge of spellcraft, "I undo your summon. Whence you came, return, wandering soul."
The roof rattled in the gusts outside and hemlock branches whipped the walls. A hundred cawing voices resounded across the town in a cacophony of birdsong.
"By the Raven name," Orion yelled back, "I disinherit you, forswore descendent."
"By the Raven name, fuck you!"
The family apartment door burst open and Lazaro came out, carrying the Mirror of Janus with Sammy.
Orion had to keep the Gale against the portrait up but briefly lost control and the paining-duo advanced a step. The patriarch somehow recognized the danger and averted his eyes from the reflective surface.
He dropped to one knee and placed the free hand on the ground, the other still aimed at the portrait.
"The House is sanctuary. My enemies are not welcome. I name you trespassers and banish you all. I... I said, I banish you all."
Whatever Lazaro had drawn on the underside of the floor runner worked for now.
The blood dripping Orion rose again, stepping back from the advancing mirror and the painting – backing into the alcove. He pulled his arms in, took a deep breath and pushed one arm at each duo of enemies, sending winds against them that sheered icy across Jasper's skin and made the curtains flutter.
Jasper and Kamron were pushed back, sliding on the carpet. Lazaro stood stronger but Sammy tumbled back and the hunk couldn't advance on his own.
The blurry painting screamed.
Jasper felt the vibration of the canvas more than he heard the voice, but there was a voice – no, a Voice. Alec.
Orion flinched and reached for his head before remembering he had to keep the Gale up. Now screaming, too, the patriarch trembled with pain but still managed up push the pincering duos farther away.
"No, I'm not beaten. I invite Ixnay the Unspeakable onto this domicile, I invoke the Maggots of Hell into my body. Feast on my flesh as you must and lend me strength in return. Expel my foes."
Did the building shake or was it Jasper's body? Did lightning strike or was his vision going haywire?
Another sound joined the screaming - whispering, melodic. A voice? An echo? A song!
Something fluttered above the glass roof, brilliantly bright against the rolling gray clouds.
Another faux-lightning strike, right into the center panel of the courtyard's roof. Where it had struck sat a white tern – a bird of pure white feathers, spread in angelic radiance. A bird sent from allies in Hawaii.
Across Raven's Hollow, dark fowl dispersed by the hundreds in a stroke of panic.
With a cry of fear, Orion twisted his spine to see behind him. With an expression of pure terror, he stared at Grandmother Laqueta Brown's portrait.
"No! NO!"
The Gale faltered.
Jasper rushed ahead but Orion dashed away, disoriented and stumbling, bleeding from the eyes anew.
He fell on all fours and madly crawled, his skin now writhing with the Maggots of Hell.
He looked up and the mirror was before him.
Orion duplicated.
Before Jasper knew what was happening, an unbloodied, naked Orion forcefully stomped the beaten one.
"You abomination!" the new, nude Orion shouted.
The blood-dripping one on the ground reached out with his right hand. "I invoke-"
"Nothing!" said the new Orion. "You invoke nothing. You are nothing but a twisted, cursed, dishonorable simulacrum." A right hook into the laying one's face. "I am the patriarch's tethered soul and I reverse your invitations and banishments, by the Raven name, truly. And I declare you vanquished."
The false Orion caught on fire.
With a screech, the burning, twisted version tossed itself at the naked original but Lazaro was already there and rammed the burning abomination into a window, which shattered and saw the flaming creature drop into the courtyard under a rain of shards.
The flaming corpse crashed onto a four seater table and was torn apart in a burst that sprayed fire across half the yard. Flames licked along tablecloths and hopped onto seat cushions.
The white tern above took flight as the clouds broke.
"Shit," Kamron said. "Quick, the extinguishers by the kitchen."
"Wait," Lazaro said, already rummaging in his duffle bag. He retrieved a handful of sand and tossed it out the broken window.
Flame after flame went out as the sand cloud dispersed and so did lightbulbs across the room until the whole manor was bathed in darkness.
The night outside was clearing. Wind still roamed the foliage but the moon filtered into the hallway.
"Anyone got a flashlight?" Kamron asked.
Sammy pulled out his phone. "Uh, it's restarting. Did your weird sand do that?"
Lazaro shrugged. "Maybe."
Kamron looked at his own phone, which was now also off. "I'll... go check the fuse box."
With one man gone to fix the light, the others turned their attention to Orion – the new Orion who was sheepishly glancing back and forth between the men, covering his crotch.
"I guess..." he started. "I never should have had the painting commissioned. Hehe..."
Unsure how to deal with this not-so-arrogant version of his ancestor, Jasper rubbed his temples. "Please tell me you know what's going on."
The new Orion shrugged. "What's not to get? I wanted immortality by having my soul bound to this thing here. And got what I wanted at the price because the painter wasn't quite honest – or maybe didn't know what he was dealing with. I got corrupted and for that I'm sorry. Also for what my simulacrum was doing."
"You were... aware of what was happening?"
Jasper leaned the portrait against the wall. It was no longer screaming but he felt watched.
Orion seemed to ponder the question. "Sometimes. It was... dreamlike. But none of it should have happened. I shouldn't... I will give you your cousin back. Do you know how to treat Balth-"
"Balthasar's Bane-Stroke." Jasper nodded. "Yes. Thank you."
Orion smiled satisfied. "I knew the old Balthasar. He was only trying to protect his writings from eyes who... It doesn't matter. I will go now. Just promise me to purify the painting soon."
"The Silversalt rite?"
"Exactly. You're quite capable. Oh, and tell your grandfather my false image would have perverted the Ritual of Broken Silence for his own purposes but not all is lost. I think your library has a translation of the Tablets of Solomon. Book Six should be all he needs. Farewell, my heir."
Before Jasper could say another word, the naked man was gone from sight.
Something large dropped in front of the portrait leaning at the wall.
Alec was back, curled up on the ground. Naked, confused, shaking with pain of black ink crawling up his arms and crossing over his chest.
The wall sconces and ceiling lights turned back on, shocking the freed Alec to life. "H- Wh-"
"Look at the mirror," Lazaro said.
"Bu- Uh..."
"No time," Jasper said and prodded his hunky cousin. "Look at the mirror and think about getting in. It'll... absorb the poison."
A blink of an eye later, a healthy Alec with his strength returned was throwing his arms around Jasper like he wanted to squeeze the life out of him.
"You... brought me back."
"Course. I still need to watch you turn a dancefloor into an orgy."
Alec chuckled into Jasper's shoulder.
Lazaro threw his hoodie over the quickly dying `clone' on the ground and commandeered Sammy to help carry the near-corpse away before Alec even noticed it.
Left alone, it took mere seconds for both Raven men to start crying.
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To be concluded.