Dark Avenging Angel (15 page)

“So you lost touch then? After you both married?”

Mum shook her head. “We carried on writing to each other. I still used my friend’s address until she married and moved away. Then, I took a risk and had him send his letters here. The mail never arrived until after your father had gone to work, and at weekends, I always made sure I was the first up. Mario used his sister’s address so his wife wouldn’t get suspicious. I told him about you. He always said he wished you were his child so that he could protect you. Our love just refused to die and we were determined that, one day, we would be together. He told me about Carlo’s birth. He even sent me a photo.”

She took the album from me and slid her fingers behind the photo. She drew out a small, black-and-white studio portrait of a laughing, dark-haired baby playing on a rug, with his teddy bear in his hands.

I felt a shiver shoot up my spine as I touched it.

I handed it back to her and she replaced it behind the picture of Mario.

“You know, you don’t need to do that anymore. Father’s dead.”

“Force of habit.” She smiled, but left the photo concealed.

Now that she had told me, I needed to know everything. “Mario died?”

Mum sighed. “His sister wrote to me. You were six years old. I can remember it all so vividly. The envelope. The unfamiliar writing. His sister spoke reasonable English, and she told me Mario had died in a car accident. She also told me there were some suspicious circumstances. She said Mario had become interested in what she called the dark arts. I took that to mean communing with the devil. A few weeks before he died, he had told her that he suspected agents of the Roman Catholic Church were out to destroy him and others who regularly met to try and contact the spirit world. He said if he should die, his sister was to tell me that he would find a way to contact me from the next world…”

Mum’s voice trailed off and we stared at each other.

“It looks like he did,” I said.

Mum let me borrow the photograph album so I could take it home to show John. By Sunday, she was almost her old self again, although both of us felt shell-shocked over what happened on Friday night and I had plenty more questions for Neville. I kept looking at that photograph—Mario and Mum together. They looked so happy and in love. How could I have forgotten that picture? It explained so much.

She could tell I was eager to get back and show John Mario’s picture. I didn’t want to try and explain it all over the phone. So I decided to surprise him by going home a day early. Maybe I could persuade him to leave his work alone long enough to take me out to Sunday lunch.

The sun shone on a beautiful spring morning. I parked, opened the front door and found all the curtains still drawn downstairs. I dashed up the stairs and threw open the bedroom door.

I froze.

John opened his eyes and sat bolt upright. The color drained from his face.

“I wasn’t expecting you back until tomorrow. Why didn’t you phone?”

Next to him, Lucy raised her head and glared at me as if I had invaded
her
territory. She clutched the duvet to her almost certainly naked body.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t feel anything except a numbness that paralyzed my emotions. A hundred questions filled my brain. “How long has this been going on?”

“Only this once. I swear,” John said.

“Oh come on, John,” Lucy said, “who are you kidding? Jane, I’m sorry you had to find out this way, but it’s been going on for months. We’ve been searching for a way to tell you. But, now, I suppose we won’t have to.”

I stared at her. How could I have known this woman, worked with this woman, for so long and never really known her until now? The vivacious friend had been replaced with the ruthless virago who seemed to lack even one grain of remorse for her actions.

John pushed the duvet aside and I averted my eyes. The last thing I needed right now was to be confronted with his nakedness.

He stood up and Lucy let go of the duvet. Incredibly, a slight smile turned up the corners of her lips. How could she? How could they?

The two of them ignored me and spoke to each other while I stood there, still unable to move.

“I’ll get dressed,” Lucy said, reaching down to retrieve her discarded bra off the floor.

“Yes,” John said as if he were discussing the day’s agenda, “I’ll pack my things.”

I stared from one to the other. Uncomprehending. This was another bad dream. It had to be. The man I loved more than any other had turned into a stranger right before my eyes.

Lucy turned her smile on me. “Sorry you had to get hurt, Jane. But that’s just the way of things, isn’t it? You can’t deny your feelings and when John and I finally acknowledged what we’d been denying all these years, we realized we had been in love all along. No one even comes close, for either of us.”

John, now fully dressed, came round to her side of the bed and kissed her nose.

How could he do that in front of me? Had he no shame? No pity?

“Sorry, Jane, but Lucy’s right. I can’t live without her. What you and I had was great at first. I really thought I was in love with you, but I couldn’t stand all the craziness. And you’re so thin these days; if I touch you, I’m scared I’ll break something. You really need to eat properly. I’m sure you’ll find someone else very soon, but if I were you, I’d keep quiet about dark angels and try and get some treatment for that sleepwalking habit of yours.”

Lucy giggled. “Yes, freaky or what?”

So he’d told her. The ultimate betrayal. As if it weren’t enough he’d been sleeping with my best friend, he’d told her every little detail that I’d confided in him.

Anger raged. I found my voice, “Get out! Get out now, the pair of you. I never want to see either of you again for as long as I live.”

“Bit awkward,” Lucy said, “as we work together. Are you thinking of resigning? Probably best. I can’t see us being able to carry on after this, and I’ve been there longer than you so…”

I wanted to lunge at her and get into the catfight of all catfights. The paralysis had gone. My anger had given me mobility, but I knew I had a much better way of avenging myself.

“Just get out.
Now
!”

John grabbed his hastily packed and bulging suitcase. Did I imagine the shadow of fear that darted across his face? He knew what the angel had done to him that day was real and he blamed me. He saw me as a freak he had to exorcise from his life.

In a flash, I was back in the hated playground, only this time my tormentors were two people I thought genuinely cared about me. Their betrayal was complete.

“I’ll be back tomorrow for my other stuff,” John said. I could tell he couldn’t wait to get out of there. “Just bung it all in a black bin bag and leave it out for me, will you? That way we won’t have to run into each other.”

I didn’t tell him there would be nothing for him to collect. Maybe the bonfire would still be smoldering and he could rake through the ashes to retrieve anything not scorched to a cinder.

I watched them through the window as they laughed. John smacked Lucy playfully on her butt. They looked like they hadn’t a care in the world and didn’t give one thought for the pain I now felt. They drove off out of my life.

It tore at my guts and sent me racing to the bathroom to throw up. I washed my face in cold water and sank my face into the soft towel.

In the living room, she was waiting for me, her ledger open and her pen poised.
Which soul is to be forfeit to me?

So she hadn’t written a name after all. “Can’t I have both?”

You know the rules. You have one more and then our arrangement is concluded.

“And then what happens to me?”

Her eyes blinked and I realized that this was the first time I had seen her do that. In that split second, a mist cleared and I saw what was reflected in those translucent pools of black light. Me. I stared, but not at a perfect image of myself as I knew me to be. The person who stared back was the one I had always wanted to be. Confidence shone in my eyes. My whole face radiated a glow of youth and vitality I had never possessed.

In seconds, the vision dissolved and my angel opened her mouth again. But this time, Carlo’s voice spoke the words in my head,
You can have anything you want. Everything.

“I still don’t know what that means.”

My angel’s voice was back,
You will.

“Neville said his clients disappeared. He never saw them again.”

You should not listen to the prattling of those who have no business in our world.

“Will you take my soul as well?”

If we conclude our arrangement now, your soul will not be mine to take.

“But it
will
be taken, won’t it?”

Your soul will remain with you.
A note of impatience had crept into her voice.

“But I won’t be in this world?”

She waved her hand in a sweeping gesture.
No more questions. Give me the name.

But which one would I pick? Who was the most deserving of my vengeance?

The boyfriend who had coldly conducted his sordid affair behind my back for so long?

Or the best friend who had introduced us in the first place, only to steal him from me with no conscience?

One way or another, both should suffer. Both were equally to blame.

My angel waited. Her patience wouldn’t last forever.

Now, these many years later, it is finally done. It will have been a blessing in the end. My angel has tortured them for so long, their careers and lives ruined by scandals and unexplained illnesses until she finally drove them mad.

Yes, they will have welcomed death like a friend. Until she showed them the full horror of it. Of course, she will only have taken one soul. She only ever takes what is hers by right. The other would simply be cast out into the void where all the unwanted go.

But which one? In the end I let my angel decide. But I think I know her well enough to guess which one she chose.

Today, I am avenged. For the last time. The dark angel that Mario signed a pact with has moved on. She has taken her souls and kept her promises.

Now, I can have anything I want. Everything.

There is nothing I want here. So I shall rejoin the party. This time, Mum will be there with Mario. There’ll be champagne, sweet Alpine strawberries dipped in chocolate.

And Carlo.

Afterword

From the
Midwest Times
, May 14,
2014

Sad and Lonely Death of Jane Powell

Former
Midwest Times
Advertisement Manager Jane Powell, aged 60, was found dead at her home in Coombsford on Monday. It is believed Ms. Powell had been suffering from
anorexia nervosa
, and at the time of her death, weighed an emaciated 90 lbs.

She was found after police broke in to her house following a neighbor’s concern for her well-being. Swarms of flies had been spotted through downstairs windows and it would appear Ms. Powell had been dead for up to a month.

She was wearing a long, black cloak and a white face mask, and was surrounded by burnt-out candles. In her hand, she was clutching a sheaf of papers reported to contain an account of the murder of her father, an ex-boyfriend and a former employer, by alleged “satanic forces”.

The police are not looking for anyone in connection with her father’s death. Mr. William Powell died in 1980 as a result of a heart attack. The former employer—Stuart Campbell, ex-Advertisement Manager of the
Baileyborough Evening Telegraph
—disappeared from his home in 1979. No trace of him has ever been found and he was officially declared dead in 1992. The ex-boyfriend alluded to in Ms. Powell’s papers—architect John Dudley—was found dead of gunshot wounds earlier this year, in an apparent suicide pact with his wife of twenty-five years, Lucy. The two had suffered serious mental health issues for a number of years and were living in assisted living accommodation.

A post mortem has, so far, failed to establish conclusively the cause of Ms. Powell’s death and a full toxicology report is expected within the next three weeks. It is, however, thought to be linked to her anorexia, which would appear to have been longstanding.

Jane worked for the
Midwest Times
for twenty-nine years, until she took early retirement in 2009. She lived alone and never married.

Her widowed mother, Mrs. Jocelyn Powell, also died last month at the Coombsford Nursing Home where she had suffered with dementia for many years.

A date for Ms. Powell’s funeral has yet to be set.

About the Author

Catherine Cavendish lives with a longsuffering husband in North Wales. Her home is in a building dating back to the mid-18th century, which is haunted by a friendly ghost, who announces her presence by footsteps, switching lights on and strange phenomena involving the washing machine and the TV. Cat has written a number of published novellas, short stories and novels.
Dark Avenging Angel
is her fourth work for Samhain. When not slaving over a hot computer, she enjoys wandering around Neolithic stone circles and visiting old haunted houses.

You can connect with her here:

www.catherinecavendish.com

www.facebook.com/CatherineCavendishWriter?ref=hl

www.goodreads.com/author/show/4961171.Catherine_Cavendish

www.tsu.co/CatherineCavendish

www.twitter.com/#!/cat_cavendish

Look for these titles by Catherine Cavendish

Now Available:

Linden Manor

Saving Grace Devine

The Pendle Curse

Coming Soon:

The Devil’s Serenade

Four hundred years ago, ten convicted witches were hanged on Gallows Hill. Now they are back…for vengeance.

The Pendle Curse

© 2015 Catherine Cavendish

Laura Phillips’s grief at her husband’s sudden death shows no sign of passing. Even sleep brings her no peace. She experiences vivid, disturbing dreams of a dark, brooding hill, and a man—somehow out of time—who seems to know her. She discovers that the place she has dreamed about exists. Pendle Hill. And she knows she must go there.

But as soon as she arrives, the dream becomes a nightmare. She is caught up in a web of witchcraft and evil…and a curse that will not die.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
The Pendle Curse:

Rain whipped my hair, lashed at my thin top and streamed down my face. I struggled to keep my eyes open against the force of the howling wind that pushed me back down the hill I seemed to be struggling to climb. Ahead of me, through a billowing mist, a much larger hill loomed, colored charcoal by the storm, naked and exposed to the elements.

Where am I? What am I doing here?
I looked down at my soaked jeans and T-shirt.

I fought against the force of the gale and kept trying to turn around and see where I’d come from. How had I got to this unfamiliar place? What had happened to the apartment? If I called for help, would anyone come—or even hear?

“Help me!”

But the wind caught up my words and turned them into little more than an agonized squeak.

My clothes were plastered to me like icy swaddling. My teeth were chattering. I had to find shelter, but I couldn’t see any anywhere. Not even an old shed. In a distant field, sheep, huddled together by a hedge, while I stood here, exposed to the elements in the middle of this field. The animals had the right idea; a hedge had to be better than nothing. At least I could crouch down beside it.

I tried again to move, but could only manage a stagger. I kept being blown off course and my skimpy sandals were hardly adequate for this bleak, muddy ground.

I heard a male voice behind me. I pushed my dripping hair out of my eyes, turned and saw a dark shape moving closer. I couldn’t distinguish his features, but he seemed to be telling me not to move any farther. How did I know that? I couldn’t hear him speak, but somehow I sensed his thoughts. I stopped struggling against the elements and waited, swaying slightly as the wind gusted and threatened to blow me over.

The gale didn’t seem to bother him. His voice drifted over on a gust of wind. “At last I have found you. After all these years.”

I awoke in the same position in which I’d nodded off, the dream crystal clear in my mind. My watch showed ten past two and a gnawing pain in my stomach reminded me I hadn’t eaten.

As I went through the motions of buttering two slices of bread and slapping a slice of ham between them, the dream wafted back—so real I could have been there, except I hadn’t smelled anything. But then you’re not supposed to smell anything in dreams. Everything else had been as if it had really happened. And I would know that hill again if I saw it. Assuming it existed. An involuntary shiver reminded me how cold and wet I’d been.

I looked down at myself. I saw the same jeans, top and sandals I’d been wearing on that hillside. I half expected my clothes to be wet and clinging to me, but that would have been ridiculous. Wouldn’t it?

Back in the living room, the Philippa Gregory lay where it had fallen. No matter. I could find the page later. Besides, I no longer felt in the mood to lose myself in historical fiction. Maybe I’d watch some TV, but ancient reruns of
Diagnosis: Murder
, talk shows, old films, and comedies that hadn’t been especially funny the first time around reminded me why I rarely switched on the TV before the news at six.

I sat on the settee and memories swam into my mind. Rich and I curled up together, watching our favorite old films like
Casablanca
, or even a football match. We fitted so perfectly together. I couldn’t imagine ever finding anyone I could feel so
alive
with. Hell, I didn’t want anyone else. An old saying drifted into my mind: “Why go out for chopped liver when you’ve got steak at home?” Well my “steak” might not be at home anymore, but he still filled my heart and soul.

Always and forever, Rich.

I hit the Off button and tossed the remote onto the settee beside me. Now what?

I should go out. I could go for days without leaving the apartment, until an empty fridge forced me into action.

“You and I used to enjoy our walks. And the exhibitions we went to. Do you remember the
Titanic
centenary? Of course, that was before we moved here. Do you remember…”

Talking to myself again. It had become a habit. One I couldn’t break. I picked up the broken frame and removed the photograph. An old photo of a group of friends sacrificed its frame, and Rich was once more restored to smiling out from behind a small sheet of unbroken glass. I stroked it and Rich sighed in my mind.

Now, how about that walk?

The sunshine tempted me but the thought of squeezing into the milling throng on the city streets didn’t appeal in the slightest. Antisocial. That’s what I’d become. Not that I’d ever been what you might call a party person.

Then my latest dream swirled back into my mind, along with a clear vision of that distinctive, glowering hill I’d seen in the distance, dominating its landscape.

What if that hill existed? Maybe I’d seen it somewhere and my mind had retained the information in my subconscious. Here, at last, was something that grabbed my attention away from my grief.

I crossed over to the desk and booted up my laptop, entering my password when prompted.
Richgirl79
. I sighed. It had been funny at the time. A little play on words.

My home page appeared and I clicked onto Google. I hesitated. What the hell should I search for? A hill? I hadn’t the faintest idea where I would find it, even assuming it really existed. Okay, I could narrow the search down to pictures only, but even so a massive search engine like Google would probably throw up hundreds—if not thousands—of entries. Why not try something smaller? I selected a more obscure one from my menu of search engines and typed in “big hill UK” in the query box before clicking Images.

The first of what appeared to be two pages flashed onto the screen. Some of the pictures weren’t even of hills, let alone big ones, but I recognized the Neolithic, man-made Silbury Hill in Wiltshire before moving on to page two. Only a few images here. I dismissed each of them before settling on one—just an artist’s representation. But…

I hovered my cursor over it and clicked. A website appeared, with different landscape paintings, and I found the one that had caught my eye. It looked familiar, but I needed to see photographs. The caption read
Pendle Hill.
Somewhere inside me, a distant memory stirred.

I returned to the search engine, typed in “Pendle Hill” and clicked. As the page filled up in front of me, I gasped. Image after familiar image flashed up.

I stared at them. It
did
exist.

I had found the hill in my dream.