Veil of Night

“I’ve said too much.” Caroline exclaimed. She snatched her rain-soaked, black denim jacket from the chair and turned to go.

“Caroline, wait!” Hank caught her hand. Her slender fingers felt chill and damp against his. “You can’t expect me to believe…”

“No,” she murmured. “No one would. And that’s the point. It was useless even coming here. I don’t know why I did.”

Hank squeezed her limp fingers, giving them a shake. “Please, let’s start over,” he said, motioning for her to sit again. “This cult—”

“It’s a coven. The Sisterhood of Unhallowed Light.” She fidgeted with a lock of damp, auburn hair stuck to her pale forehead.

“Right. The Sisterhood. So…a few women who get together and play at witchcraft?”

“There are twelve. They wanted me to join. And I thought I wanted that too.” 

“But?”

Caroline caught her bottom lip between her teeth. The midnight hue of her black lipstick was a stark contrast to the pallor of her skin. She took a breath and the words tumbled from her.

“I feel seen by them. Like they really get me. They accept me. They celebrate me. Just as I am. And what they offer—the sense of belonging, the knowledge, power. I thought, why shouldn’t I?”

A flash of lightning lit the rain-spattered window with a crack of thunder following close behind. Caroline’s eyes grew large with panic and she twisted in her seat to look outside.

“There are things we shouldn’t play with,” she whimpered. “I know that now. I’ve completed two of the three initiation rituals with the Sisterhood.”

“And you’re saying this torrential rain we’ve been having these past three days is part of that? That’s awfully biblical, isn’t it?”

“This isn’t hurricane season, Hank.”

He shrugged and twisted his mouth in a half-ways grin. “With weather patterns these days, who can tell what season it is anymore?”

“It was me. It was the Sisterhood. It’s part of the ritual. Part of the summoning.”

“Coincidence, that’s all.”

She clutched his arm where the sleeve of his t-shirt ended, digging her cold, clammy fingers into his bicep and pleaded, “You wouldn’t say that if you knew what I’ve done—what I’ve gone through—to make this happen.”

“Caroline…”

She let go of Hank’s arm and fumbled with the top buttons of her black shirt. Yanking one half of it to her left side, she exposed part of her chest. A long vertical slash was bisected by a shorter one, forming an inverted cross over her heart. The two slashes stood out as angry purplish-red marks on her otherwise smooth, pale flesh and were knitted together with black stitches.

“They made me promise my heart to Valthyss, the formless entity of writhing darkness whom they worship.”

Hank stared for a moment, then sputtered, “Valthyss? Your heart? Come on Caroline! What? Am I supposed to believe they’ve cut out your heart? Isn’t it usually the soul these sort of fanatics are after?”

Caroline grasped Hank’s fingers in her trembling hand and placed his palm over the wound on her chest. Her skin was unnaturally cool. He held his hand there for a moment, then brought his fingers up to her throat, feeling for a pulse. 

Another clap of thunder startled them both.

Hank pulled his hand from Caroline’s neck. He stared at her in disbelief, saying, “This’s some kind of joke. A prank. It’s not real. How could you be here telling me all this if they’ve taken out your heart?”

“I don’t know,” she sobbed. “But I think I’ve made an awful mistake. You’ve got to help me. Promise you won’t let them take me.” 

“No. Of course, not. Where would they take you anyway? A hospital?”

“It’s an abandoned old church, Blackthorn Chapel. They want to take me there for the final ritual,” Caroline said. “To complete the summoning of Valthyss, they need to make an offering of the heart.”

“But aren’t you supposed to be joining them? Becoming one of their coven? This sounds more like a sacrifice.”

“Yes, it does. They told me it was my initiation, but…” Caroline trailed off, turning to stare at the rain beating against the window. In a low whisper she continued, “Now I’m not so sure. That’s why I’m frightened.”

The blinding flash of light lit up the nearby window and a deafening roar of thunder shook the house. A loud crash followed. Nearby, a car horn began sounding, repeating its alarm annoyingly. Hank leapt to his feet and crossed the room to look outside. 

“Christ, that was close. The tree next door has split nearly in two. Some of its limbs have fallen over a few cars on the street.”

The lights inside the house flickered. Once, twice, and a third time before plunging them into darkness.

“I’ll get some candles,” Hank said, cursing as he caught his toe on some piece of furniture. He fumbled his way to the kitchen. “Just need to find my phone so I can light the way.”

One more thunderclap boomed overhead. A sudden blast of wind swirled through the house.

Footsteps pounded across the floor. Caroline shrieked. And there were sounds of a struggle from the other room. 

“No!” Caroline cried out. “I won’t go! Hank! Don’t let them take me!”

Hank stumbled from the kitchen and could see down the hallway to the front door. It was swung wide open and the wind and rain swept through in howling gusts.

“Caroline?” Hank called out. 

He heard glass shattering all around him. The back of his head felt like an explosion had gone off and the world tilted and shifted into slow motion. Hank sank to his knees. His vision was filled with a combination of swirling stars and inky blackness. The sounds of frantic struggle moved away from him, as his hands slapped the carpeted floor. He struggled to breathe and clear his sight as he held himself from pitching forward onto his face.

“Caroline!” He shouted. His head throbbed viciously and he thought he might be sick. From outside he heard car doors slamming and a vehicle roared to life. He struggled to his feet and made it to the front door. Through the sheets of rain he saw the burning glow of red tail lights receding down his street.

----

Pursuit wasn’t an easy option. The tree limbs which had fallen over several cars were blocking Hank’s car as well. He slashed at them with a hatchet he had stowed in his camping gear. The rest of the fallen limbs tore at the side and undercarriage of Hank’s car, but he managed to break free.

He swore and cursed some more. The lousy cell service the storm had left him with made searching the internet difficult. After several minutes he found directions to and a description of Blackthorn Chapel on a website promoting ghost walks in the city. Once a place of worship, the old chapel had fallen into disrepair and the ground beneath was, so the locals claimed, cursed.

It took nearly an hour to detour around storm debris and reroute past streets that had been rendered impassable before he arrived at his destination. If he’d paid the fifty dollars for the ghost walk tour, Blackthorn Chapel would have rated five stars.

It was surrounded by an overgrown and tangled hedge of blackthorn shrubs. Buffeted by the wind and rain, the gnarled limbs seemed to claw at the twilit sky as though grasping at something unseen. 

The crumbling stone walls were cracked and weathered. The roof was partially caved in, showing an outline of jagged edges that looked like the jaws of some wild beast snarling or snapping at the heavens. And the heavy wooden doors were worn and splintered and hanging slightly ajar on great, rusted iron hinges. The jet-black gloom beyond the entrance seem more of warning to sensible folk, rather than an invitation to step inside.

But, if there was any chance he might save Caroline, inside was where Hank needed to be.

He passed through an opening in the rough hedge, careful not to let the thorns sink their barbs into him. Walking in through the front entrance, he’d decided, would be courting failure. He might as well put his head through a noose. Instead, Hank crept around to the side of the run-down property searching for another way into the chapel. 

Lightning lit the horizon several miles off. The brief flash revealed to him that he was creeping through a graveyard which was part of the chapel grounds. Most of the headstones were crooked, sinking into the ground. Some had fallen or been knocked over. Many lay half-buried in tufted humps of wild grass. 

With a sense of dread he picked his way carefully through the tangle of ancient stones and grass until he was out of the graveyard and could lean against the chapel wall. His heart was pounding as he panted silently, trying to catch his breath.

Above the howling of the storm a sound caught his ear. Soft at first, but regular, insistent, and coming from inside the chapel. Hank strained to make out what he was hearing, it was definitely chanting of some sort.

Hank edged along the stone wall to the back of the crumbling old building. The ground sloped down, revealing the foundations of the chapel. He spotted a break in the wall, and rushed to it. It was a narrow space, but large enough, he felt, to squeeze inside. 

Before he did so, Hank hefted the hatchet in his hand. He couldn’t imagine actually using it to hack away at some unseen coven member. That would be slasher-movie extreme. He twisted it in around in his hand so that the square end faced out, becoming his weapon.

He sucked in a few deep breaths, questioning his sanity. Then he scraped and squeezed his way through the narrow space.

Feeling his way around in the dark, Hank discovered a series of long, wooden boxes. Great, he thought. Could this night get any spookier? He’d found his way into the crypt.

It took him a few minutes to pick his way around, but he eventually found a set of stairs leading to the proper part of the chapel. This was one of the cloisters, or side chapels. 

The chanting was more distinct. He could make out the words:

"Valthyss, Valthyss, veil of night,

Drown the stars, consume the light.

From the Maw where silence dies,

Open now your thousand eyes."

He edged carefully toward a gap in the wall which entered into the chapel’s nave. There were broken pews scattered throughout the space, casting long shadows from the candles which lit up the altar at the front.

"Shadow deep and shadow wide,

Stretch the fold, let worlds collide.

What was whole, let it decay,

Let the void now have its way."

He saw Caroline, bound and gagged. She was wide-eyed and frantic, struggling to break free of her bonds.

"Unseen horror, whispered breath,

We call you forth, we offer death.

One by one, we fade, we kneel,

Take our names—unmake us real." 

A quick count revealed only eight figures in hooded robes surrounding Caroline. He thought she’d said they were twelve in number. But this would be better odds.

Hank hefted the hatchet in his hand one more time, feeling as confident as a person could ever be faced with such a scene. He took one step forward, but that was as far as he got.

He was grasped from behind, his arms, legs and even his torso in the grip of unseen talon-like hands. With swift force they pulled him backwards, throwing him off balance.

A ragged cloth was pressed over his nose and mouth. He struggled and tried to scream. Then blackness engulfed him.

----

When he came to, Hank found he was now stretched out over the altar. His hands and feet were bound. Looking up he could see eerie shadows playing across the vaulted arch above.

“I’m sorry, Hank,” Caroline said. “I had to do it.”

He snapped his head around in the direction of her voice and saw she was standing to his left. She held a long, curved dagger in her hands. The other coven members, all twelve of them now, were surrounding him.

“I—we…needed a heart to complete my initiation and call down Valthyss.”

He thought he’d known fear earlier in his pursuit of Caroline’s attackers. Now, a choking sensation that felt like ice was spreading through his chest. In his head, Hank shouted Caroline’s name, but the gag in his mouth prevented him from getting that, or any other words that followed, out. 

The coven members began to chant once more.

"Valthyss, Valthyss, veil of night,

Drown the stars, consume the light…”