My name is Luisa Rennesslaer, and I walked alongside Tadeusz out of the back entranceof the hospital.  I knew him better as T. Smith which is what I will call the monster.  For you see, I was his prisoner.

No, he did not have a gun pointed at me, nor a knife in my ribs.  I almost wished he had.  Instead, after telling my friend Paul that I was to be a sacrifice–"they think she is my sacrifice", and knocking poor heroic Paul unconscious, he had told me to come with him.  It was humiliating.

There was this absolute confidence that I was no threat to his plans.  It hurt, but I wondered if it was true.  I’d seen him be tossed through a wall, get up, and walk away.  I’d seen the x-ray with the broken bones, and the one a few minutes later with no breaks.  What was T. Smith?

As I got into my three-wheel car in the parking garage, and started it up while the huge man tried to make himself comfortable in the passenger seat, I knew one thing.  He was my captor.

I began to head toward the De Morrissey mansion which is where I figured we were going.  But instead, T. Smith directed me to drive about town in a pattern that made no snese to me.  His directions were curt and harsh, and my lips trembled.

How had I been fooled?  Earlier, I had thought him a nice fellow, but over-busy.  I had considered him manly and mysterious.  Now, I realized he was a dangerous madman.

"What are we doing?"

"Drawing a protective circle, and a couple summons, and singing a song."  He continued muttering.

"Song?" I said glaring at his preoccuplied expression.

"Joshua and the Battle of Jericho."  He replied distantly, and when I began to speak again, he raised an imperious hand which in my sight glimmered with faint yellows, greens, blues, and most of all, reds.

Right. My mad captor believed tonight would bring back the Necromancer Difarge or somehthing.  Every Brazilianan school child knows of Difarge the Horrible.  We read his stories on dark nights, and scare each other.  But, he’s a myth.

The sun was down, and suddenly T. Smith pointed up hill, and so we went.  Sooner than seemed possible, or I liked, we were back at the De Morrissey Mansion.  It still looked like a pastry too me,  with its pink walls and white decorations.  But I remember what T. Smith had said upon seeing it earlier this evening…"Blood and bone."  I shivered as we drove up to the house since the gate hung open.

Before I got out, I mustered a little courage.

"How, how do you do those things with esper?"

He got out, and then leaned back in with a smile.  "Things? Haven’t you figured it out yet?  This is not esper or psionic.  This is the Magick." And then his grin turned especially cruel, and he taunted me.  "You will receive the treatment of Job."

I blinked at him, and he stood up, so I left my car as well. A…man, I guess loomed over me, the car, and T. Smith.

T. Smith smiled pleasantly as we stood on the pavement of the driveway.

"Do you know what happened to the last creature to challenge me?"

There was a very long pause.

"He…died."

"That’s right. He walked away, and then fell down, and his undead heart exploded." T.’s smile was gone, and the words hissed out.

Another long pause, and the giantous thing stepped out of our way.  We walked, I with my hand on his arm, up to the front door. An unwholesomeness seemed to grip the house, like a smear of pschyic dirt. You know the feeling you get when you meet someone who is not right.  Now magnify that by ten-fold and apply it to this innocent looking house.

"You may see some strange things, but you will be fine under my protection."  He said, and put his cloak over my shoulders.  Then as the door opened, he pulled a noosed rope about three feet long from a pocket.  And this he placed over my neck even as I flinched back.

I gathered my esxper sense to strike him.  It was not something I’d ever done before, but I had heard it speculated that it was possible.  And then the door opened, and I saw De Morrissey, naked to the waist, and with symbols tattoed on his chest, over his heart, and above his chakra.  They were counterclockwise spirals, and I felt faint because of this, and because they had been annointed with blood.

"Welcome to my house, T. Smith." De Morrissey said in courtly fashion just as if he wasn’t a psychotic monster who desperately needed a full chemwash of the brain, or a short trip to a wall pocked with bullets.  At this moment, I wasn’t particular about which solution I preferred.  Ordinarily, I’m for a chemwash as its more humane, but De Morrissey in his full regalia with his staff covered with feathers, his bloodied chest, and his crimson leather pants sent my esper sense into full screaming hysterics.

I tried to run away, but my feet wouldn’t let me. We three walked in, and I saw people walking about the entrance hall, but they had worms climbing in and out of their skulls.  And my esper sense could not detect their presence.

"I do apologize to binding your will with the noose, lady." T. said with a small bow as De Morrissey chuckled in delight.  The thing was, the apology sounded sincere to me.

And so as we went down the steps to the basement, I fought the rising sense of madness, the need to cower into a corner, and bang my head on a wall until all the Bad Things Went Away, and let my esper sense try to make sense of what was going on.

It seemed clear I had been mistaken, as had King Ricardo about the existence of magic and necromancy.  I had thought it mere superstition.  But those undead shamblers, and whatever that giantous thing in the driveway had been, whatever they had been, it was not human.

I came to the first landing, and smelled the scent of blood and incense.  So I forced my reporter’s mind onward, trying to take myself elsewhere.  "Job" he had said. "Job"–I knew that story.  It was in the Bible, and I was a believer.  Not a very good one, but I had turned to God at a young age, and with a sense of guilt, I remembered that later I had turned to fame and fortune and flirting to fill my time.  I resolved if I got out of this, that I would mend my ways, and focus on things more important like God, and…like a family with the boy Paul Dumas who had loved me since he had met me at my eight-year-old birthday party.

I cried because I had been so stupid.  And then the time for tears was over because we came to the bottom of the stairs, and a giant room filled with dozens of men, and a ten-hand of women who were mostly dressed in black.  Although red was a very popular color as well.

And then there were the other things in the room.  My childhood tales of what I had thought was fiction supplied their names: vampires, ghouls, boogymen, sulis’s hands, glimmermaids who drowned those drinking from rivers, and a full handful of other frightful things that my eye skittered from because I could not bear to look at them closely.

The room rocked with laughter, and it was all directed at me. No, they were not laughing with me.  A vampire came up, to say something sarcastically sweet, I thought from his false attitude of benevolence, but the Master waved his back.

"T. Smith has done well.  He asks to be admitted into the Pit, and he has brought godsblood."  The Master, De Morrissey roared out, and my heart sank.  There was indeed legend in my family that centuries past we had a god, a pagan lord in our bloodline.  Right now, I’d be very happy if he showed up.

"We will feast." De Morrissey yelled.

"Feast! Feast! Feast!" The crowd chanted as they drew closer in their madness, bloodlust, and general need of a hot shower.  I waved my hand in front of my face, and the crowd stilled.

"Does the sacrifice have something it wishes to say?" De Morrissey purred loud enough to be heard all about the room.

"Yes, haven’t any of you heard of Dial? Or even a nice, cheap soap."

My words froze the room, and then De Morrissey turned red in the face, and his enormous hand came back to crush my face with one blow. T. Smith caught it at the wrist.

The two strained, one hand against one hand, and the boards in the floor rippled.

"She is mine." T. Smith said.

"My house." De Morrissey spat back.

"True, but I can walk out just as well as I came in. And besides, you owe me."

Suddenly De Morrissey stopped striving, and his arm and T. Smith’s came down on both sides of me.  I had been in the center of an arch of arms, arms that I was convinced could have snapped my neck with ease.  But why had T. Smith saved me from a shattered face?

I came back again to the story of Job.  God had given him to Satan to persecute, but had set certain limits on the pain. And in the end, God had given Job twice what he had before. If I was Job, then not a far jump, De Morrisey was Satan, and this was a bit more difficult, that made T. Smith to be God in my metaphor. T. Smith as an agent of God? It was ridiculous, but the problem was my esper sense liked it, and I trust my esper sense.

"I pay what I owe." De Morrissey said, and a man was brought forth.  Black, spiked chains were wrapped around him, and he trembled in fear.  The Master forced him to the ground with one hand, and handed T. Smith a heavy blade suited for chopping more than sword-fighting.

"This one dared to break the peace of my house, dared defy me, of fear of a new member.  He should have feared me. And so I promised the first blow to T. Smith, our newest initiate."

T. smiled, and turned to the crowd.  "This is the night of Difarge, the necromancer, when powers dark and potent stand ready to be raised from the Earth, so I have come to you.  I can promise you that you will receive everything you deserve, all the power you deserve will be yours.  This is my promise to you."

The crowd loved it, and so they began stomping and banging even as De Morrissey watched his new initiate with a trace of fear.  Then, I saw T. look at me with a strange look, and he then raised his sword for quiet.

"I’d like to see the sacrifice see another killed before her eyes."  So he turned the hopeless terrified man toward me so that the vile man rested on his knees and chains before me.  My heart was wrung with pity even before the man began to beg in a whisper.

"Help me. Help me."

And suddenly as T. Smith raised the sword, and began to do a little Irish jig, I bent down to the man in chains.

"Do you repent of your unbelief in the Christ, and turn to him to ask forgiveness of all your sins?" I spoke and it felt like angels spoke with me so strong did my whisper resonate in my soul and I saw in his eyes which are the gateway to the soul, after all.

"Yes, oh, yes, I do.." And the blade came down on the neck while his lips began to form a smile.

I stood and laughed, a wild banshee screech.

"He is in heaven, you pigs!" Okay, it wasn’t my most godly pronouncement, but I’d just had about a gallon of his blood dumped on my shoes.  I was more than a little pumped up.

And then De Morrissee had me by the neck, and lifted skyward.

"Maybe he will, but after the Thing that Chews at the Roots of Heaven comes up to gnaw on your soul.  You will never enter Heaven.  Instead, you will be a bauble about its neck for all eternity."  I tried to choke out a denial, but the certainty in his voice, and the fact that I had no air stopped that.

A mild cheer greeted this rebuttal as they were still dazed at my action, and then T. Smith came up alongside me, and smiled.

"I’m sorry, dear, your soul will not be going to Heaven today."  He laughed, and I shivered even as some part of my brain screamed why?  What had I done to deserve such inhuman cruelty.  So sobbing, I fell, was dropped to the floor, and in the distance I heard them saying words like ‘altar’, and ‘prepare the incense’.

There was excitement and fear in the air.

And it was then that I prayed.  And a question came to me.  Did I trust T. Smith or did I trust my God?  Put like that, there wasn’t much choice. So I sat up, and found myself puzzled.

There was no shoe on my right foot.  This was not surprising since I had been flung about like a ball in a football game, but it bothered me–greatly.  And the noise of the crowd was receding from me, going down to the other end of the room, leaving me along.

I looked up, and saw a Thing, no lets be honest, I saw a Demon.  A creature of black smoke, and living fire hung at the far end of the room over an altar that rose six feet from the floor.  And it gloated.

But this I expected.

And I looked down, and saw that the crowd was gathered around Tadeusz.  But not as hailing him, oh no, they were taunting him as he limped.

I wobbled to my feet, and saw the crowd part enough to see why he limped. He had my shoe on his foot.

"Godsblood, you die now." They carrolled out of harmony, in a dissonance that never came back together but only degenerated into a hateful static.  Trying to say something, I raised a hand, but no words came to my mouth.  None could for the noose about my neck stilled my words, and stopped my feets ways.  So I stood.

They placed him on the altar, and screamed their joy.  When the chains were tied down, they beat themselves with small knives, and the room flooded with the smell of blood, and tightened with the onrushing presence of Evil Incarnate.

De Morrissey climbed up a set of stairs, and held forth the ancient knife made profane by numerous sacrifices.

"Anything to say?"  He mocked.

"Repent, or you will all perish." T. Smith’s voice was low, but strong, and everyone in the room heard it.  They howled like wild madmen, no I do insult to wild madmen, it was worse, far worse with each one pledging himself body, and soul to the forces of darkness. And in that instant, I knew not why, but I felt only pity for them.  I wanted to get on my knees, and beg with them, plead with them, turn back, turn back.

"You will perish, and your soul goes to the Gnawer at the Roots."

The blade flashed down, and blood spattered into the air, and vanished. No one but me noticed in the Power that suddenly filled the room so that the walls seemed to explode outwards and show a cosmos composed of dead stars, and cruel chains, and endless death which released no being from torment.  But the walls were still there, I saw, and part of me felt pity again.

This great Being who had come, and all it had was an illusion.  But I saw the acolytes swaying in joy until it spoke.

"You are unworthy. I was promised godsblood, this is not such."

And the room was still.

What? What? The crowd cried.

"Nope, I’m rather a common sort. " T. Smith said from the altar as the crowd fell back in fear. I could see his neck was cut almost to the spine.  "Now let the first trumpet be blown. And let there be an accounting."

The crowd murmured to itself what this meant until De Morrissey held up a hand.

"An illusion, a…" He paused, and pointed at me. "She was hidden in that cloak. And with this shoe, he took her place, we still have time to rectify…"

"Noooooo." I heard, as shapes drifted out of the floor.  At first they were translucent and fog-like with no definite shape.  But they grew, and became more precise. "Nooo mooooreee timmmeeeee."

Dozens, no hundreds of ghosts came out of the floor, and became recognizable people.  In fact, I think I saw my fourth cousin Davos.  The crowd leaned back as the ghosts came toward them.

"It is time for an accounting. You murdered us.  Did you think we would not remember?"  One ghost spoke, and it was a signal.

Suddenly I saw a young girl, perhaps nine, leap and attach herself to the ears of a man, and then as he batted at her fruitlessly, she pulled out his eyeballs, one at a time.  And then laughing she knocked him to the ground where other ghosts extracted their vengeance on him as well.

This seen, and others like it, and still others more horrible than I can remember were enacted dozens of times in that room.  But finally, there stood a dozen necromancers and their vampire bodyguards next to them.  The strongest of the strong whom the ghosts could not reach.

The rest were dead.

De Morrissey chuckled.

"Well played, but not well enough. You just got rid of our deadwood.  Now we can take the godsblood."  He pointed, and the vampires advanced on me.

"Not done yet. The second trumpet is blown for the parent loves his child." 

And suddenly, I felt an arm about my shoulder, and strength flow into my limbs.

I looked to my right, and there stood a man, no not a man, a god.  His face was like fire, and his eyes were crystal that glowed with an inner kindness.

"My many times removed grandchild, how lovely you are."

"But…"

"I had left this world to the Creator, but I received a special dispensation to help out a relative in need."

"Lugh, Lord…"

"Hush, child, you serve another, and I would have it so, but spare some love in your heart for your old grandfather, eh?"

"Always." I said, folding myself into his arms as light flared about us so brilliant that I could not see. And then I was holding empty air.  With blinking eyes, I turned, and saw a dozen piles of ash stretched in a line halfway across the room.

"Thank-you Grandpa." I whispered, and felt sure I heard a chuckle in reply.

De Morrissey was stabbing T. Smith, and cursing him.

"Have you no blood? How shall I kill you?"

"Turn back." I said, and De Morrissey winced.  I felt like I could float.

"No." He said.

"Then let the third and last trumpet blow."

I heard nothing, and then a servant rushed in.  I could see his mind was enchanted so that he saw nothing unusual in a room with the walls covered in blood and gore almost to the ceiling.

"My lord, there are men, outside, they are trying to break in.  Shall I call the police?"

"No, Hector. Just go to your quarters."  The servant turned and left.

"So, you’ve summoned some army, but its of neccessity outside my wards.  I wonder who they are?  Never mind, those wards will hold as long as I have your body here."

"I know." T. Smith said, and then he died.  I could see it.

"It is finished." I whispered.

And then his body disappeared leaving only a drifting of dust.  De Morrissey’s mouth began to open in horror and shock, and …

All the doors and several of the walls exploded inward.  Flying chunks of stone decapited two necromancers instantly, and a third caught a foot long wooden spear of a splintered door in his left eye.  He staggered about for a bit before he died.

But at the door, I saw a man with a cloak in front of him.  It looked a cloak made of darkest space, and of stars.

"By what right do you come in here? This ground is made sacred to the Nine Who Sit in Shadow." De Morrissey challenged the man, and the ones piled up behind him.  I looked about, and saw others at all the entrances, but none had entered yet.  Each man was well over seven feet tall, and incredibly fair of face and form.     They were dressed in cloaks, and leather jackets, and blue jeans with cowboy boots, and each held in a hand a club, or a cricket bat.   

There was a pause, and I felt fear, but surely God would not have done so great a work to end it here, I thought, and then wondered.

And then the leader of the invaders smiled a cruely smile, a thing inhuman in its viciousness.

"I come in the name of the Logres."

 "But…" De Morrissey said futilely.

"In the name of the Dunamas, He Who Has All Authority In Heaven and Earth."

"There is no such." One necromancer scoffed, but De Morrissey paled, and trembled as he awaited the indictment, for that was what this had the feel of, like a judge coming forth to announce his authority to slay the wicked.

"I and my brethren come in the Name of the Lamb Who Was Slain before the Foundation of the World!" The chieftain of the invader’s cried, and he threw back his cloak to reveal glory.  He blazed with a light that burnt my eyes, and in his right hand, he held a sword formed of lightning, and in his left he held a list of the Soon To Be Dead.

And the whole of them swarmed into the room, stabbing, slicing, kicking, and rending.  In the space of seconds, all the necromancers lay dead, although De Morrissey was the last to fall, and Michael took his head his very self.

While the rest of the angels were tearing apart the altar,and grinding its stones to dust between their fingers, Michael came to me.

"Michael." I said, and he laughed.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I remember. You saved me when I was eight, and thought to play with that fusebox. I never could get mother to believe a strange man had appeared in my house, and warned me not to touch it again, after he woke me from the dead."

"Oh, now you believe. You spent so many years denying it. Claiming it was a dream."

I blushed, and wondered what to do.

"You apologize." Michael said softly.

"I’m sorry." I said weakly, and then I truly was. It had been terribly rude of me.

"Accepted, Daughter of Eve, and grandchild of an old friend of mine, a fellow servant of Him." And then he kissed me on both cheeks. "Be at peace." And I found I was.  Madness had been bubbling below the surface, dreams of blood and bone had threatened, but I felt them recede and disappear.  

"And now what?" I asked looking about the room.

"Now, you are safe. As Tadeusz wanted. You entered the Valley,and the only way out was to go through it, But now, what few necromancers are left in your world will not trouble you."

"Why?" I asked in perplexity.  But he only laughed with gay abandon.

 ===============================

Later, I found out why. I was the sole survivor in a room full of dead ’serial killers’, and it seemed most probable to many that I had torn them up by myself.  I told the truth, but even of those who believed me, the point was clear.  I was the woman who had scoured the Pit, and agents of His Majesty’s government who had sudden reason to re-examine their policy that all necromancy was superstition told me that whenever I visited a country on my book tour, all the necromancers in that country fled to another continent. So, I have lived a life of peace, my children for this last eighty plus years.   

I leaned back in my rocker, and surveyed the fourteen great-grandchildren sitting on the rug who had come today for my um, hundredth or something birthday. Well, no, I was confused, these were the youngest great-grands.  The older ones were outside playing cricket. While my grandchildren were discussing mortages and college prices in the livng room.

"Grandma Dumas, is that a true story?" My one young skeptic asked.

"Yes, yes it is." I heard from the doorway, and looked up.  There was T. Smith, not changed one bit.  He still had the army jacket on, and a heavy duffel bag on his shoulder.

"Do you think I could borrow the cloak, I lent you?"

"And I suppose you want a shoe as well?" I asked with some asperity at the shock he had given me.

"No, I still have the shoe of yours I stole. Sorry about that.  It has been ninety years after all." He leaned in the doorway, and Paul The Bald for the last forty years, walked into the room with a dumbfounded expression on his face.  But, he kept his peace.  

"So is Michael coming along soon?" I asked a bit fearful, and a bit glad.

"He said he will be along for the both of you in a few years."

"Ah." I said hearing the news of my coming death, mine and Paul’s.

And then T. Smith walked over to Paul, and spoke quietl to him for a second.  Paul laughed, and slapped him hard on the face, or as hard as a man of a hundred plus years could. And then T. Smith who had shining eyes which he tried to hide handed him a small book.

"That should answer your questions, sir.  About what I am, and where I come from.  I’ll leave it to your judgement who you show it to. But I’ve got to be off."

"Yes," I spoke up from my rocking chair over the heads of my great-grandchildren. "Monsters to slay."

"Aye, Difarge himself is rising this time." He looked grim,a nd then stepeped out of the doorway and out of my life, at least my mortal life. And then Paul sat down on a stool, and began to read from the book to the children.

This being an account of my various adventures and misadventures in the Multiverse, a thing of perhaps infinite universes, and terrible beauty.  I began my journey in the United States of America, a great power…