I I

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I launched myself from the wall with vigour, in a manner intended to elicit both shock and confusion in my quarry; a graveyard at night, shrouded in London’s habitual fog, is a disquieting milieu enough without being suddenly beset by a masked figure in black and scarlet attire, one would imagine; but the level of fear that veritably erupted from these men was unexpected. Three of the four in coats and hats shrieked and cowered like children, or perhaps fellows of devout faith abruptly confronted with their Devil, not a reaction I would have anticipated from hardened criminals. Up close I also detected a marked refinement to their apparel, and a softness of complexion that suggested either a measure of affluence or comfortable servitude to such. Abandoned to their own devices these three would have offered no resistance; fortunately for my bellicose temperament, their colleagues – the two men now clambering from the burial plot, and the fourth fellow who appeared to be orchestrating the migration of the coffin – rallied hastily.

“She’s one of them!” the leader barked, gesticulating frantically towards me. “The heart! The heart is her weakness!”

The two men emerging from the open grave were distinct from their associates; brawn as opposed to elegance, stripped to mud-stained vestments and slacks, they were the low-class labourers in this enterprise. I arched an eyebrow and adopted a casual yet aggressive stance. “Many a man would take argument with your diagnosis, sir,” I quipped, my voice purposefully dropped to a menacing whisper far removed from the dulcet tenor of my true identity, that of the aristocratic Lady Jessica Wilhelmina Drew. I said, “Though passionate and romantic in spirit, I keep my heart well-guarded; as cautious to a charmer’s smile as ‘tis fortified against hostility!”

I moved swiftly as my antagonists sought to outflank me, e’er light upon my feet and an instinctive study of an opponent’s gait. The fellow on my right was a brute, perhaps slow-witted, whilst his companion adopted a degree of prudence; the first lumbered forth, all fists and chin, as the other arrowed for a perceived blind spot to my stern, armed with a dirty shovel. I ducked beneath a flailing blow, twisting in one movement at the waist and lashing out a booted foot, all with exquisite balance. My kick landed square in my first opponent’s gut, shunting him into a stumble; I twisted again, spinning in place; and within a breath of striking my initial blow I planted the heel of the same boot beneath the oaf’s jaw, causing his head to snap back upon his neck. The boor flew backwards, exhaling a grunt of pain, then vanished – not only into the fog but back into the open burial plot from which he had climbed moments before!

There was no opportunity to admire my own handiwork, for the second fellow was already leaping for me, swinging his shovel. I shifted my weight to one side, carrying me clear of his attack with nary an inch to spare; I felt the whistle of his implement pass close to my face, slicing dangerously through the loose, black smoke of my hair. Grimacing beneath my mask I snatched the scruff of the man’s neck before he could re-establish his momentum and thrust down upon his head with a strength one might not have expected such a lithe figure as myself to be capable of. In the same instant I flicked up a knee into the passage of the man’s face, and the resulting crunch of bone was a sound that – likely to my ignominy, for as I have said, the Spider-Woman is not a lady of decorum – was one that I enjoyed immensely.

“The heart!” came the cry of the gang’s chief once more, now my solitary foe with the desertion or incapacitation of his allies. “Through the heart! You godless fiend, you and your kind have caused my family torment enough!”

I turned to see the man surge from the lantern-lit mist, wielding an incongruous pair of weapons – in one hand there was a stonemason’s mallet, and in the other a wooden shaft of some three feet in length, one end sharpened to a cruel point. A stake! The fellow was middle-aged I now observed, mouse-faced and likely kindly under better circumstances, tho’ his expression was currently livid; he seemed gripped by that same foreboding I’d witnessed earlier, and by more than a tinge of grief; and in that instant I began to suspect that I had misread the situation. This was no simple case of grave robbing – it was something far more awful.

What the man lacked in finesse he substituted with sheer determination. I slid beneath the thrust of his attack, my body supple, but I failed to employ his own impetus against him as I had intended. An elbow caught me across the clavicle and numbed me; a ducked head rebounded against my shoulder; the iron head of the mallet clubbed me in the stomach, winding me momentarily. It was a grappling contest shamefully lacking in flair. When the point of the stake dug into the material of my scarlet corset, tightly laced beneath my black leather jerkin, I gasped in the fleeting belief that I would be impaled… but no! At the last, I twisted free of the man’s fevered grip and touched my gloved fingertips to his face. I unleashed my Spider’s Kiss then, an uncanny electrical discharge that caused my assailant to wail and convulse, and then collapse to the ground at my feet, the stake and mallet spilling from his grasp. There he stayed, his resolve dispelled.

“Martine!” the fellow croaked. “Oh, Martine, my beloved…”

“I fear you have me confused with somebody else, sir,” I murmured. “Better for her, then, if the typical demonstration of romantic proclivity on your part involves such violence! Mayhap the local constabulary will be able to unravel your fevered bewilderment and - ”

I was halted then by a sudden crunch of splintering wood close by, followed close by a cry – no, a scream from the fog! O, such terror, such blood curdling fright! I whirled, ignoring the alarmed bray of the horses at their cart and dashing forth to the source of the howl. My senses were bright as if with flame, my every nerve tingling. I glimpsed flashes of movement in the fog, too quick for even my eyes, a thoroughly unsettling detail. I then saw before me the ruined coffin these men had been attending, an interior lining of burgundy velvet clearly visible where the dark wood outer casing had been ruptured – from within not without!

“Impossible!” I heard myself splutter, unordinarily astonished by this turn of events. “Corpses do not seek freedom from their confines! There must be some explanation - ”

I faltered again, then, for now I witnessed another terrible sight some twenty feet distant from the shattered coffin: a body. A corpse, indeed, but not the missing occupant of the grave. This was the cadaver of one of the resurrectionists, familiar to me even though I’d only glimpsed him briefly before his taking flight earlier. Whilst his fellows were likely halfway to Leicester Square by now, he had remained, perhaps with the intention of aiding his companions in their struggle against me. Whatever his reasoning he had paid for it with his life – and in such gruesome fashion! I could not help but gasp as I knelt at the victim’s side. I observed a pair of deep puncture wounds in his throat, then upon studying the face saw that his skin had seemingly perished, ashen pale and withered to husk like parchment, as if -

“Drained of blood.”

I turned at the voice behind me and saw the mouse-faced man who, a minute earlier, had been hell-bent on driving a wooden stake through my heart. My eyes narrowed and I tensed, expecting the recommencement of our fray; it seemed, however, that the combination of my Spider’s Kiss and the sight of this perpetrated obscenity had exhausted his hostility.

“The aspects of these circumstances suggest a certain conclusion, sir,” I said, softly, “one I am loath to credit at face value, despite the evidence. I assure you that despite my mask and apparel I am no godless fiend, and my belief is that we are not at odds in this matter after all. If you can offer me clarification, I pledge my aid in whatever strife you are facing.”

The man’s eyes welled with tears, his expression one of naked sorrow. Did he comprehend my words, or even hear them? I wasn’t sure. But when he spoke it was with words that caused my heart to flutter in my throat.

“My name is Victor Morbius,” the fellow wept. “This grave was that of my brother Michael, buried this morning past. And he has returned from the dead to reclaim the woman he loves – the woman I have shamelessly stolen from him! – and to gain revenge on the kin who has betrayed him…”

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“My brother and I are – were – physicians,” Victor related to me, yelling so that his voice would carry above the clatter of cartwheels and the relentless rush of wind at our ears. “As close as blood can be, friends as well as kin, no rivalry between us over two score years save for good-natured banter. That all changed six months past, when Michael received a spate of patients to his practise all with similar complaints; fatigue, hallucinations… and identical wounds to the throat, the peculiar but unmistakable mark of a bite. Michael learned that each of the victims had been in recent contact with a clan of gypsy drifters who, at the time, had made their camp out on the moor lands of - ”

“Blackheath.”

Victor glanced across at me, but only briefly, preferring to keep his eyes upon our path. “You’ve had dealings there?”

I was silent. Pale. O reader, what was I to reply? That Blackheath – that accursed region, just south of Greenwich – was a location well-known to me for certain events that had occurred there, events that had resulted in the Lady Drew becoming something so much more than human one year before? I could not help but dwell momentarily on images from that night the previous winter; on those strange lights in the sky, and my subsequent, foolhardy investigation upon the fog-enshrouded moors; on what I had discovered, out there in the eldritch mist; on how I had learned such terrible secrets and was now perhaps the only person who might save once-fair London from the tragedy destined to befall her in the near future. No. No, this was neither the time nor place for revelations, and Victor Morbius not a man with whom I might share my burden, despite the uneasy truce we had established between us. I simply stared ahead, into the gas-lit fog, and bade him continue with his own account. My own story would be told in time, but not this night.

“Ever the reckless sort, Michael deemed it his responsibility to visit the gypsy camp, to try and solve the mystery. What exactly transpired there I do not know, for my brother could never bring himself to tell me; but upon his return he was already ailing with sickness himself, worse still than any patient he’d treated. He took to his bed, but in the weeks to follow his malady showed no signs of improvement – rather his condition worsened. His flesh was ever pale and cold to the touch; his curtains remained closed and tied throughout the day for sunlight upon his skin caused an incomprehensible but all-too heightened pain; and for a significant time he refused food and drink, to the extent that he became frail and feverish from starvation. Then, one night some two months after he had taken ill, he vacated his bed and was discovered by his fiancée in the gardens of her residence, feasting upon a deer beneath the light of the moon…” Victor shook his head, disgust etched upon his expression. “A deer! A wild animal! And Michael, devouring it, raw flesh and blood - ”

“His fiancée,” I interrupted. “This Martine, of whom you spoke back at the graveyard?”

Victor shuddered, as if beneath a physical blow. “Martine Bancroft,” he said, his voice falling low so that any companion not blessed with my enhanced senses would have had difficulty hearing his words. “The daughter of Lord Charles Bancroft, who died two years’ past, bequeathing his estate to his only child. Michael adored Martine, and she had loved him in return - ”

“Had?”

Victor bore the expression of a guilty man. “Unable to sustain his practise, Michael had no funds to pay rent for his own lodgings. Martine bade him dwell at the manor, thus the incident with the deer occurring in her presence. Caring for Michael in his state, she… it was a thankless task, exhausting for body and mind. I helped where I could, but his personality during the day had worsened from erratic to vulgar and his nocturnal habits became increasingly vile. Both Martine and I understood the other’s anguish. We supported each other. And, spending so much time in one another’s company, united in our despair… we couldn’t help ourselves. We fell in love. Do you understand? We couldn’t help ourselves! And by now, Michael, he… he was no longer…”

“Human?”

Victor ground his teeth. “And now we approach the nub of the matter, yes? You are familiar with the folklore, and have reached your own conclusions as to this matter, I’m sure,” he snapped. “I refused to believe the evidence; I attributed Michael’s symptoms to some rare and exotic blood disorder that remained un-catalogued in the medical texts; but now I accept the truth. Michael’s nighttime wanderings had been invariably confined to the westerly manor grounds, adjacent to a wooded copse where he was most likely to snare deer or foxes setting foot onto the property. We typically left him to his own devices, for all these months he had shown neither Martine nor I anything but a scant regard; however, one week ago he had cause to pass by the open windows of the bedchamber we now shared and he espied us, together, in a fashion that could ne’er be explained away as misinterpretation. Michael… was enraged.”

“I can imagine.”

“He attacked us – so fast, so fierce! Similar to yourself, lady, when you came upon us in the cemetery. So preoccupied was he with Martine, my brother presented his back to me… and I clubbed him to the floor with a hearth-iron, beating him until I collapsed in grief and exhaustion, and ‘til he lay unmoving, eyes wide, skull shattered.

“A physician was summoned, as were the constabulary. Michael was pronounced dead, killed in self-defence; the authorities were content to accept Martine’s version of events without query, such is her standing in the community. Michael was buried this day past. And, tho’ Martine and I both shed tears beside his coffin, we were each of us relieved in our hearts. Such treachery, yes? Such perfidy. Perhaps that is what roused him as he lay there, in the confines of his darkened box in a rough excavation surrounded by dirt and mud…”

The lane we now travelled was dark, illuminated only by a single lantern affixed to a hook on the cart’s brow and by the moon filtering pale and silver through the branches of trees overhead. Then, abruptly, we rounded a corner and I saw the gates of Bancroft Manor some hundred yards ahead, with a scattering of lamp-lit windows flickering in the night beyond. The horses slowed, perhaps recognising home. Alongside me, Victor clutched at himself in a riot of agitation.

“I heard him,” he uttered, huskily. “I heard him. After Martine and the other mourners present had departed his graveside, I remained – and I heard Michael’s voice, cursing me, muffled inside his box. I heard a sound that could only have been nails scrabbling at wood. I almost yelled for the sexton and the attendant gravedigger, momentarily believing my brother somehow still alive… but then I realised it wasn’t so. Instead, the impossible was true. Michael had been dead for a week. There had been no mistaken diagnosis. The fact that I was listening to him could only mean that the legends were accurate: Michael had become… a vampire. For six months a living vampire, trapped in some metamorphic state, but now, finally, dead – and thus fully-fledged.

“The voice and the scratching then both ceased as the gravedigger arrived to fill in the plot. I stayed awhile to watch him shovelling earth into the hole, a sickness crawling in the pit of my stomach to know that this wasn’t the end of it, that Michael would find some way to return for me – and for Martine. Numb, I found myself searching through books on folklore and superstitions at the city library, probing for a solution…”

“A stake through the heart?”

Victor tapped at a cloth sack presently wedged on the rider’s plinth between us. The stake and mallet he had been brandishing earlier were inside, gathered before we had taken leave from the cemetery in the direction of the manor. “Most of the tales I read were inconsistent, filled with fancy,” he grunted. “But the idea that one can destroy a vampire by obliterating its heart, with a weapon that can’t be hastily removed as a simple blade might… it was all I had to cling to. I gathered a party of workers from the estate and parted with a small fortune to convince them to exhume my brother’s grave this night. They all likely believed me mad, but I didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was to ferry that coffin out to some deserted field where we wouldn’t be disturbed, lift the lid and hammer that stake into Michael’s chest.”

“A plan that may have worked if I hadn’t interfered,” I mused, “or perhaps not.”

Victor urged the horses to a standstill then, just outside the manor gates. I looked at him, noting the gleam in his eyes and the beads of perspiration upon his brow. “I saw the shattered coffin with my own eyes,” I told him, “and the bloodless corpse so callously discarded. I also know what creatures might seed and grow from contact with Blackheath, and I believe your tale. But be conscious, sir, that the confirmed existence of a beast of fable does not necessarily equate to sanity on your part. Whether your own malady has bloomed in concurrence with that of your brother or has transpired more recently, it is clear to me that you are quite mad – and that I fear the events of this night will not end well.”

My companion seemed about to offer a retort – mayhap even to laugh hysterically, thus proving my judgment wholly accurate – when the quiet night about us was rent by a piercing scream. It was a shriek that emanated from beyond the gates, towards the black husk of the manor itself, squatting upon the crest of a shallow rise like a carved jack o’ lantern, light flickering in its windows as would a candle through the carve of wicked, crescent eyes.

“Martine!” Victor cried, despairing. “God in heaven, we’re too late! Such witchery, that the fiend has arrived here before us despite our efforts…”

I grimaced, my gloved hands clasped. “To my mind, sir, a full-blooded scream is indication that said blood has not yet been spilled,” I said, sternly. “Come now – for we may still be in time!”

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As Victor Morbius fumbled with a ring of iron keys, searching for the correct implement with which to de-secure the padlock and chains that fastened the gates, I sprang forth and scaled one of the flanking walls without delay, vanishing into the darkness without a backwards glance. Once returned to solid ground beyond the wall I made for the manor house with an unearthly swiftness, carried half upon my own legs and half upon the wind, a spectre in black and scarlet. When the scream came a second time it cut like a knife, such was the impassioned terror contained within, yet it also bolstered my sense of hope. I was experiencing a wrench of guilt that I’d chosen to ride with Victor – if murder was to be committed because I had tarried, I would feel the breach of responsibility keenly – but at the same time I remained convinced that knowing the true nature of my quarry and being privy to recent events would stand me in good stead.

It was as I drew within twenty yards of the double doors that marked the manor’s entrance that all my thoughts and doubts were concentrated into a single, blinding instant: up above, a third floor window suddenly erupted with a crash of splintering glass, shards of which proceeded to rain down upon me as I froze, eyes wide, my jaw slack beneath the scarlet silk of my mask. I found myself looking up at two figures, silhouetted against an amber wash of lamplight: a man, spindle thin, perched upon the narrow balcony in the window’s shadow; and, cradled in his arms, the struggling form of a woman. She was clad in a gossamer, ivory gown, whilst her aggressor was carved in express contrast, plastered with tatters of black cloth – the remnants, I assumed, of his funeral shroud, a reminder that I was dealing with a foe freshly awoken from the tomb. Michael Morbius, and his captive – his love, his betrayer, Martine Bancroft.

The man turned his head then and moonlight fell with a milky kiss upon alabaster skin and jet black hair, a pair of burning red eyes… and a mouth, twisted wide in a lunatic smile, revealing a glint of razor teeth. Dear reader, I confess a definite hesitation to be confronted with such a ghastly visage! I could only imagine the wretched terror coiling in poor Lady Bancroft’s chest, like a woken serpent – but worse was to come. Victor and I had both presumed our quarry to be seeking his lost love with abduction in mind. In truth, his own desire was retribution!

“You coveted my beloved, dear brother?” the vampire named Morbius screeched, his voice akin to the scouring rake of stone against glass. “Take her then, for I have no use for such a harlot! Take her in one final embrace… and then, in blood and hate, we shall all of us traverse the passage to Hell!”

I became aware of Victor behind me, stumbling forward from the shadows, having taken this long to catch up with me. Then, above, Michael flung out his arms with a cry – and the flailing body of Martine Bancroft was released into the night with a desolate scream. Victor roared, incoherent with rage and despair; a macabre mirror image of his brother. Michael Morbius laughed the rasping cackle of lunacy. Only I, in that moment, possessed the presence of mind to react, but even I did not fully trust my ability to avert tragedy; I could only give my all and hope it was enough. No – no hope. I must. This night had remained elusive enough, and it was time to take the initiative!

As Lady Bancroft tumbled, her skirts white and feathered about her like an angel’s wings, so I leapt forward and planted the sole of one boot firm against the oak of the manor doors. I then propelled myself backwards, gaining a significant measure of elevation in the process, arms outstretched so that I veritably sailed upon the breath of the wind. My hair was black and wild about my face; my eyes were afire; I fancied my mask and corset burned bright with reflected lamplight whilst the rest of me faded into the night, leaving little more then a scarlet curve in the dark, the tail of a comet. Trusting to instinct I twisted at the waist as I glimpsed Martine hurtling towards me – and then, with a grunt, she slammed against me as I passed beneath! I wrapped my arms about her, continuing to twist, aware that my job was only half done. As we both fell the rest of the short way to earth I managed to duck my head and instigate a swift roll; I bore the impact upon one shoulder, hunching the other to protect my companion; I whipped out one hand, fingers splayed, and pushed down at the ground to execute a half-cartwheel; and then, finally, my feet landed hard against soil and grass, whereupon I gathered my balance with a simple jut of the hip.

Eyes wide, Martine Bancroft slipped from my arms with a gasp. I know not whether she saw a masked interloper or a supernatural saviour, but that was not my immediate concern; as Victor rushed forward to gather his love to him, so a dark shape passed across the moon above and the chill night air was rent with a piercing shriek. Morbius!

I glanced up – but too late. Claws raked across my chest with such force that I was hurled backwards off my feet, blood loosed from my torn bodice like threads of crimson smoke. I rolled once more upon striking the ground but my adversary’s speed was barely credible, and he was upon me before I knew it. I felt one set of claws slice through my hair, just missing my eyes above the line of my mask, then the other slashed my right thigh, shredding my leathers and the flesh beneath. I screamed. My wounds burned, as if laced with poison. It was then that I saw Morbius’ eyes, looming close, and I realised the full horror of them: his pupils had burst, like blisters, and there was now only a wash of blood behind the thin membrane. Not human. Nothing human left at all.

“I detect the stink of evil about you, stranger,” Morbius hissed. “You too have been touched by the devilish one, yes? Truly we are kin, of blood and destiny.”

“As they say, sir,” I breathed, “one cannot choose one’s relatives.”

“But our mutual master did stroke your soul betwixt horned thumb and forefinger like a black rose, yes?”

I shuddered, overwhelmed with revulsion. “He tried,” I spat, through clenched teeth. “But I assure you, sir, he failed most utterly – as will you.”

Overriding the agony of my wounds I angrily slapped a gloved palm against the vampire’s face then, and released a healthy dose of Spider’s Kiss – a greater measure, I would wager, than I ever had before. The air between us positively crackled, exhaling a sulphurous residue, and Morbius staggered backwards with a cry. His white hands were clutched to his eyes, smoke trailing from his fingers. I smelled the odour of scorched corpse flesh, and it pleased me. I made to scramble to my feet, intending to finish the fray, but now the pain in my chest and leg caused me to swoon and left me momentarily helpless. I saw Morbius begin to advance upon me -

“Michael!”

The fiend whirled at the bark of his name, spitting and snarling. He saw Victor approaching at a run, an empty cloth sack discarded in his wake – and the sharpened stake and mallet in his hands. I saw the vampire smile, revealing once more the glint of fangs.

“Of all the misery fate has seen fit to bestow upon me,” he snarled, “your betrayal stings worst of all, brother. Your blood shall taste as venom upon my tongue, yet still I’ll swallow most greedily…”

Victor lunged then, but it was with more desperation than hope; he’d witnessed Michael’s preternatural speed and surely recognized that his gambit had no chance of success. Was he simply attempting to protect Martine? Was he sacrificing himself as penance? Whatever his reasoning, the end result was bitter and brutal – Morbius batted away his brother’s attack with disdain, his fist a blur, and than his claws were about Victor’s neck, pulling his head back to expose his throat.

“Perhaps,” Morbius whispered, “you’d care to experience the suffering I have endured these past months whilst you have been stealing away everything that made my half-life worth suffering for…?”

And with that the monster ducked his head and sank his elongated canines into Victor’s throat, holding him close in kindred embrace to quell his struggle. I heard Martine scream and I felt a thrill of fury at my abject failure – but then I saw Victor weakly toss the stake and mallet towards me where I floundered, out of Morbius’ sight, and I realised that there had been a singular glimmer of artifice amidst the madness in the man’s final act. I steeled myself and rose, trembling, to my feet. On the way I retrieved the items gifted to me from where they lay. Lady Bancroft saw my movement and for a frightening moment I was convinced she would expose me; my intent was apparent, and I saw that she understood the inevitable consequence; but then her gaze fell away and I heard only her keen of heartbreak, a cry more affecting then any of terror she had previously uttered.

“I’m sorry,” I breathed, although for whom my supplication was intended I myself was not entirely sure.

I lunged forward and – with a cruel irony, considering the catalyst for this grim state of affairs – stabbed Michael Morbius in the back. Even in spite of my injuries, my strength was such that I speared a good three inches of honed wood through my victim with my bare hands, enough that the tip would have been pressing into his tender, undead heart from behind. He reared back, swift and wild; yet I was swifter. Holding the stake in place I slammed the mallet against the flat crown; the echoing force of the blow shunted the wood another ten inches through my adversary’s torso, bursting his heart and rib cage; and, as I knew it must – as he knew it must – the point plunged on through Victor’s chest, pressed as it was against his brother’s. Two faces shone bright in the moonlight – one porcelain of skin and red of eye, the other that of a broken man forced to confront horrors no fellow should ever encounter in his life, despite his crimes – and two screams pierced the night. And then…

And then…

A sight I shall ne’er forget: Michael Morbius simply disintegrated before my eyes, and Victor collapsed, punctured upon the end of the wooden stake and leaking blood in a pulsing gush. All about him the moon lit upon a sudden cloud of smoke and dust, and the residual ashes that marked the end of an inhuman fiend; once a beloved brother; once a lover and a friend; now simply a nightmare that, for the solitary survivor of this miserable endeavour – poor Martine Bancroft – would never fade.

I staggered forward, seeking support against the oak doors of the manor. I watched Martine now, oblivious to my presence, crawling to Victor’s side and taking his already lifeless body in her arms, her beautiful gown stained dark with his blood. By the time she recalled my part in this and looked up – if she ever did – I would be long departed, faded into the night. I was not responsible for this, I consoled myself; without my intervention Morbius would have slain his betrayers, but his unnatural thirst would not have been slaked by vengeance and many innocents would have perished in the nights and weeks to come. Still, my sense of melancholy was not salved. This was, I readily conceded, no victory for the Spider-Woman, and the night would linger long in my memory because of it – and, in truth, because of one other constituent of this affair.

Tonight I had been reminded of Blackheath, and of the events one year ago that had seen me evolve from a commonplace woman of the aristocracy to an extraordinary and uncanny individual filled with secrets. There was a dark cloud upon my horizon, moving slowly but ever closer. One day soon I would be forced to face my demons as poor Martine Bancroft had already done.

I could only pray that, on that fateful eve, I would fare better than she on this most frightful of nights…

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