The Crone's Stone

by S E Holmes

after you. We would try to conceal the infant.”

  “This is the only way forward, Enoch. I am Keeper until my end, and the Crone beholds the Trinity closer now than since the loss of her accursed possession. My daughter would never be safe. That wretched witch would hunt her down, stopping for nothing. Wherever she goes, love dies.” Raphaela forged on briskly. “My hope of a child was a dream unfit for harsh reality. I should have known. I am responsible now for the greatest danger we have ever faced. The occasion of my own death has been too long coming.”

  “So be it.”

  “Have I doomed the new Keeper?” she whispered. “The very last of us.”

  “Her path is more winding and difficult to read than any before. I do not know.”

  She offered Enoch the diary and it disappeared in a twitch of his finger. He grasped her hand. “Courage, Raphaela. Your sacrifice is unheralded in my vision. I cannot distinguish the outcome of your actions.”

  “I know this is the right thing to do. I just know.” She nodded goodbye.

  And then, Enoch was gone from the room. Raphaela moved quickly now, determined. She stepped through the gap in the triangle to sit cross-legged on the floor. Taking care not to dislodge the contents within, she withdrew a lighter and lit the black candles that sat outside the red wax, beginning a soft chant. I could not make out the language. With a red taper, she completed the complex designs of the triangle, closing the breach, and snapped the crayon in pieces.

  Constantly murmuring, she daubed the dagger’s blade with clear fluid from a vial, tipping the remnants over herself and crushing the glass in her palm. A sweet smell invaded the space. Blood trickled from her hand but she continued the ritual undaunted. Raphaela sprinkled ash within the triangle and broke the saucer it had come from. Carefully, she hid the dagger in the V of her legs. And then she visibly calmed herself, and waited, the incantation never ceasing.

  Her patience was soon rewarded. Or penalised. A sinuous black vapour slipped under the office door, gaining momentum. Writhing tendrils of mist coiled on the air, until they solidified into a teenage girl of such startling beauty she halted breath. She wore a tight, red, patent-leather dress that revealed her magnificent voluptuousness. Shiny black stilettos enhanced the length of her shapely legs. Silken black hair tumbled down her back, falling below her waist. Her skin glowed, her complexion flawless.

  I was transfixed by the youth of her face. Try as I might, I could not drag my focus from her alluring almond eyes, as black as night, and rimmed with lashes long and thick enough without mascara to stir envy. Her full lips were as luscious as models in magazines. But the perfect smile that stretched her mouth on sighting Raphaela was as cold as ice, and did not reach those entrancing eyes.

  Eleven

  “The Keeper! We meet at last.”

  The beautiful newcomer’s girlish voice resonated like tinkling bells. She managed a cultured facade even while clapping excitedly, as though applauding an opera. Raphaela persisted with her chants, sweat running down her face and plastering locks of hair to her cheeks.

  “You have done your job well. Up to a point. Remind me … Running and hiding is your way, isn’t it? The coward’s route. Where are my manners? I am Finesse Apollyon! You know the origin of that last word. Biblical Greek for ‘the Destroyer’. Poetic, don’t you think? Oh, and I brought a guest! I hope you don’t mind?”

  I wanted so much to save Raphaela, to reach out and brush away the annoying strands, but I was only a fleeting observer of this past horror. The girl called Finesse spun lightly, swinging an ebony curtain of hair, more graceful than a dancer. The door opened to her silent command. She gestured with one hooked finger and the figure of a man flew through the gap, catapulting across the room. He smashed into a glass cabinet, shards raining down and slumped to the ground against a far wall. He made no noise and I doubted he was conscious.

  “Oops,” Finesse giggled. “Overdid the entrance! A bit theatrical, aren’t I?” Although Raphaela did not falter in her chanting, her face contorted in anguish. “Over here, mongrel! At my feet, although that privilege is more than you deserve.”

  Finesse’s musical voice somehow amplified her vicious actions. She skewed her head and the limp bundle slid back across the room to a halt by a pointy-heeled black shoe. Unimaginable torture bloodied and bruised the man, his clothes ragged. But as I watched in mute horror it became clear: he was the sublime mirror of Finesse. Adonis to her Aphrodite. They were possessive of the same dark glamour in all but one aspect: his wide boyish eyes slowly opened, bluer than the Mediterranean Sea. I’d never had a full view before, and his beauty sucked the air from my lungs in a single glance.

  I started with shock – Seth was young, maybe the same age as Smithy. He stared at Raphaela with ancient sadness and longing, a sharp contrast to his youthful appearance, and mouthed, “Sorry, I love you,” through badly split and swollen lips.

  “I see there is no need for introductions. Traitor meet betrayer. Pathetic pair you make.” Finesse ground her stiletto into the back of Seth’s outstretched hand and his jaw tightened. He was clearly unwilling to provide her the satisfaction of hearing his pain.

  “Now, down to business at last. Where is my Stone?”

  She slashed the air with a finger and a jagged gash ripped the man’s chest from shoulder to hip. Blood rapidly spread the once-white front of his shirt. Raphaela’s distressed voice increased in volume.

  “Leave her, Finesse,” he gasped. “She will never tell you where the Stone is. No matter what you do to me. And I welcome death.”

  She laughed and bent down, clutching his shirt in her fist to raise him close. “Silly, naive, hopeful, Seth!” She slapped his face to punctuate every word and then propelled him forcefully to the floor. “Whoever said anything about dying? No martyred end on the horizon for you. Non placet. Your penance is to live forever by my side, doing my bidding as always. Only now, we add pining for another lost love to spice up proceedings. No second chance at fatherhood for poor discontented Seth. A thrilling climax!”

  He grimaced in confusion. Finesse watched him curiously, her face gradually lighting up. “Oh, it is too precious. You didn’t know about the life squirming in her belly!”

  “What?” Seth risked a glimpse Raphaela’s way. Tears streaked her cheeks and she conveyed her apology to him with pleading eyes.

  “Yes, my dear Seth, your whore is with child.”

  At this, his control crumbled. “No, no, no! Kill me, please! Please. Take me instead.”

  Finesse tisked. “Hmm, begging. You know how arousing I find that! But I like to linger over such things and there is no time presently. Where’s the fun without the suffering? We’ll save it for the celebrations. My Stone, thieving harlot!”

  Raphaela’s chanting reached a crescendo, her throat rough with exertion. She glared at Finesse with bottomless hatred. And suddenly, her voice boomed out as though from the heavens, a separate disjointed strand echoing about the room, even as her lips continued the incantation.

  “I have opened the Delta Gate. Come to me and receive your prize.”

  It was an order, impossible to disobey. Finesse’s arrogance vaporised, replaced by an expression of disbelief. She stumbled towards the triangle. Awareness dawned as she failed to fight the summons, shaking her head.

  “No! You can have Seth, blubbering little liar. I don’t want him. I discharge him from my service!”

  “Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin! Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin!”

  Raphaela’s smile was triumphant as the words tumbled forth. Seth sagged to the ground in a faint, sapphire eyes no longer seeing.

  “Come to me!” Raphaela sneered with loathing. “To me.”

  Finesse stumbled inevitably towards Raphaela’s trap. She attempted to back-pedal, waving her arms uselessly in search of a solid anchor, before reaching the tip of the red-wax triangle and teetering on the edge. The dagger materialised between Raphaela’s hands. Her invocation ended with an unyielding declaration.


  “I. Did. Not. Steal. Your. Stone. Join me in oblivion, repugnant hag!”

  Finesse snarled – a deep, otherworldly sound. Then, she overbalanced and one foot slipped inside the triangle. The candles blew out, wrapping the two women in a dense haze. With all her might, Raphaela plunged the knife through her own heart. Finesse collapsed and dissolved into a column of pitch smoke.

  Raphaela used the last of her failing energy to open her mouth and suck the evil mist into her body, as blood poured from the gaping hole in her chest. There was a ghastly howling moan and the furniture shook. A sulphurous reek tainted the air. Raphaela’s lips slammed shut, followed by a crackling noise, as though plastic shrivelling in flames.

  A pearlescent shell travelled over her and, at its completion, Raphaela sat encased in a cage of her own making, imprisoning Finesse within. A thick silence descended, interrupted only by the quiet sobs of the broken boy.

  “No,” he whispered. “Why? Why did you not tell me? WHY!”

  My eyes flew open with the sound of his anguished scream ringing in my ears. I surged upright from the kitchen floor of the warehouse. I did not recall falling down.

  “Raphaela! Seth!”

  I glared wildly about, clutching at my sternum. I had to work to steady my frantic breathing. Bea prised my hands from my chest and Fortescue handed me a glass of water. Mrs Paget hovered in the