The Price of Power

Prologue

Let me start by making this statement.

This book is not completely a work of fiction.

During my senior year of high school my best friend Michael Stratford, and his fifteen-year-old girlfriend Heather Crowley, vanished without a trace. This happened on the same night that Heather’s uncle was brutally murdered, just a few days before Christmas of nineteen seventy nine.

It is considered one of the most bizarre cases in Illinois criminal history.

The scene of Abraham Crowley’s untimely demise was reportedly very grizzly. Authorities quickly clamped a lid down on the whole thing for fear if the news hounds got a hold of the story they would turn the investigation into a media circus. Later, when I was older, I managed to see pictures of the room in the basement of the Crowley house, and it was like something out of a movie, a bad movie.

While Detectives were questioning me and all the rest of Michael and Heather’s friends, right after the murder, they repeatedly asked if I had known Michael was into witchcraft. It was then we learned that Heather’s governess had also been murdered, strangled some days before Abraham Crowley’s death and hidden away. For weeks the detectives kept coming back, talking of black magic and satanic rituals, all stuff I had no knowledge of or interest in.

The police had no clues as to where Heather and Michael, the prime suspects in both murders from the start, had gone off to. It was literally like they had fallen off the face of the Earth. They could be traced to the house in Elk Grove where the homicides had occurred, and there the trail ended.

The case was never closed.

Michael and Heather were never heard from again.

I put it all out of my mind. The unsettling events galvanized me and I finished up High School and went to college to become a freelance writer. I have always had a flair for words, and working for various magazines and newspapers paid well. In my heart I was convinced that Michael and Heather were dead. Those days in high school with my vanished friends faded into pleasant, nostalgic memories.

Then ten years to the day after his disappearance Michael came back.

I was working late at home; I had a light fluff piece for the holidays due in at the Chicago Tribune the next day. I was just putting some polish to the piece, a quirky little blog about Christmas Family Traditions when the doorbell downstairs began to chime. I got up from my chair and went to answer its summons.

I had bought my parents’ home in Hoffman Estates from them after they had decided to move down permanently to their condo in Florida, so basically I have been living in the same house all my life. When my doorbell rang that night I thought it was the pizza I had ordered for dinner arriving in record time. I suppose that was how he knew how to find me after so much time. I was digging a twenty dollar bill out of the pocket of my jeans when I pulled open my front door and my jaw hit the stoop.

Michael Stratford was standing on my front porch, hovering on the edge of the shadows, but there was no mistaking it. I knew it was him the moment I saw his face.

The moment seemed to hang like an eternity, the blowing snow swirled around him, dancing to the ballet of the wind. Michael stepped further in to the flickering illumination of the porch lamp, and I saw he had two little girls in tow, sheltered beneath the dark, heavy cape he wore. The girls looked up at me with his eyes, so solemn and quiet. They had Heather’s soft, sweet features. I knew whose kids they were without even asking.

As the light above my front door fully revealed him to me I saw Michael looked older than he should have been. His expression bore the weight of too much pain. He still wore his hair long, very long. It reached all the way down his back and he kept it tied back in a thick ponytail with several leather cords.

It was also completely white, not one strand of auburn tone remained on Michael’s head.

And then my jaw drop again.

The sides of Michael’s head were shaved clean and tattooed. Every inch of his face was tattooed. His hands too, I noticed, were covered in intricate tattoos.

It was strange, as I stood there gaping at Michael’s body art; it almost seemed to move across his skin, to flow like liquid.

He was dressed all in black, wearing some sort of fine, heavy cloak over it all. The girls were hardly dressed for winter and I finally remembered to invite them in. Michael didn’t smile as when he came through the door and introduced me to his daughters Kaitey and Olivia. He looked haunted and blue beyond measure as they seated themselves on the couch in the living room. A few moments later the pizza I had ordered did arrive and I offered to share my dinner with them. The girls seemed delighted, though Michael declined.

As the girls ate Michael asked about his parents and our friends. I hated to have to be the one to tell him that his parents had died in a car crash two years earlier. He seemed to take it pretty hard, for a long time he stared at the carpet without speaking, his shoulders slumped. After a few minutes of contemplative chewing I finally got the courage to ask him where he had been for the last five years, and what had really happened that night back in seventy nine.

Reluctantly, he told me.

It took him long in to the night to recant his tale, in a low and strained voice he told me a story of magic and love and powers beyond anything I had imagined.

I honestly thought he had gone completely insane.

The little girls, Olivia and Kaitey, after they had finished their pizza, they sat by their father’s side, just listening to him and never saying a word. It was nearly four in the morning when he was done with his story. I asked Michael for proof. It might have been foolish, for all I knew he was the mad dog killer the police had labeled him. Something in my guts told me Michael was telling the truth, but I still needed more than that. He smiled sadly and shrugged. He had nothing more to prove to me that his fantastic story was true than his presence in my house.

He asked me to believe him and then he asked for a bed for his girls.

The next morning they were gone before I got up.

I waited to hear that the police had captured Michael, but it never happened. It was like they walked out into the snow and vanished. It was like nineteen seventy nine all over again.

I couldn’t get Michael’s story out of my head, so I decided to put it down on paper while it was all still fresh in my mind. I had to fill in some of the details myself; they often came to me in my dreams while I was working on this book. I almost felt like I was guided, I finished the final work in record time and as I knew that most people would have trouble accepting it as non-fiction I decided to pitch it to my publisher as a work of Science Fiction. But as for me, I am convinced now, I believe what Michael told me that night in my living room before he and his girls disappeared in to the winter storm.

This is a true story.

Chapter 1

Michael Trenton Stratford poked his head out from under the pile of blankets on his bed and pulled blearily at the tangles of his long, auburn hair, moving it from in front of his crusty eyes so he could peer at the silent alarm clock on the nightstand. Its red LED display was flashing the numbers four fifteen at him, flashing instead of a solid bright display, which meant that the electrical power in the house had gone out sometime during the overnight rainstorm and had come back on a little over four hours ago.

It also meant that he was going to be late getting to school, again.

Michael got up and dressed himself quickly, deciding to skip a shower, pulling on a pair of his favorite faded and torn Levi’s and a Rolling Stones concert T-shirt he had gotten a couple years back before heading upstairs to the kitchen of his family’s home to grab a bite of breakfast.

When he got there, both his parents were rushing around in the kitchen in a mad dance of avoiding colliding in to one another, obviously late for their respective jobs because of the power outage during the overnight rain storm. They exchanged mumbled greeting with their only son as the three of them vied for position to get something from the fridge.

Michael had his usual, a bowl of Cheerios and a cold glass of V-8. His Mom and Dad were animatedly discussing some business event Thomas Stratford had coming up as Michael wolfed down his meal. They barely noticed as their seventeen year old son tossed his dishes in the sink and headed out the front door to go to school.

It was storming outside again.

The rain came down by the bucket full, like it had been doing almost every day for the last two weeks. So far it was the wettest October on record, the wettest month of nineteen seventy-nine, and it seemed like the dark and gloomy gray skies roiling above would never depart the Chicago land area.

Michael dodged the fat, cold rain drops as best as he could as skipped down the steps from the front porch and jumped in to the driver’s seat of his old, fully restored nineteen fifty five Ford Fairlane four door sedan. He shoved the key in the ignition switch and fired up the willing two ninety two V-8 and backed it out of the driveway. The wipers were thumping in rhythm to the Aerosmith song as Michael cranked up the radio and sped up Longmeadow lane towards Irving Park road through the driving rain.

Conant High School, where Michael was a senior, was a half an hours’ drive away from the Stratford home in Hanover Park on a good day, and the long lines of stalled out traffic on Irving promised a much longer commute than normal.

It was nearly eight o’clock when Michael pulled up in his best friend Dan Gilmer’s driveway on Ashland Street in Hoffman Estates. Michael and Dan had been buddies since kindergarten, when Michael’s family had moved to the area from Washington State back when Michael was five years old. Michael’s Dad had been born and raised in Chicago; his mother was from Washington State. Though Michael was now living in Hanover Park, his parents had gotten a good deal on the bigger house there two years earlier; Dan still rode to school with Michael in spite of the fact that Dan’s house was only four blocks from Conant’s campus and an easy walk for any teenager.

True to form, Dan was waiting for him under the cover of the front porch of his family’s’ house, smoking a cigarette and looking like he had had a rough night. His long dark hair looked unkempt, and his eyes were barely open and red. Michael watched as his friend flicked his smoke into a puddle and ran through the downpour to jump into the Fairlanes passenger seat. He had only been out in the cold deluge for moments, but still Dan got soaked and his long, dark hair annoyingly clung to his face.

You’re late, man. Dan groused as he pulled at his wet locks, trying to free his face of the cold clinging strands. Not that I’m in any hurry to get to school, man, but we missed first hour completely.

The fucking thunder storm knocked out the power in my neighborhood last night. Michael replied sarcastically as he backed out the driveway and headed west down Ashland Street, which was actually heading away from Conant. I got up late and I didn’t even have time to take a shower this morning.

Dan made a grotesque display of sniffing the air disapprovingly. Too bad, he grunted as he fished around in the breast pocket of his blue jeans jacket. You needed one.

Screw you, asshole. Michael replied with a grin, making the turn onto Arizona Boulevard. So, did you get the stuff from Kevin last night?

You mean this stuff? Dan asked as he pulled a baggie stuffed full of what looked like raw, clumpy oregano out of the pocket of his rain dampened jeans jacket. It was covered patches of rock band logos. He tossed the baggie casually in Michael’s lap, and with one hand on the wheel he fished the baggy up, sniffed it with a huge grin and stashed it in the inner pocket of his biker’s leather. Dan also pulled a big fat joint and a lighter from another pocket and popped one end of the home rolled smoke in his mouth with a big grin.

Michael nodded approvingly and Dan fired it up.

The sickly sweet aroma of weed quickly filled the car.

Awesome man, that smells like some really good shit. Michael said as he took the joint from his best friend and puffed on it. Tastes like some really good shit too.

It’s a little Puna bud, straight from the Big Island of Hawaii. Dan said as he exhaled his hit in a fine stream of billowing smoke that expanded into the airspace of the Fairlane. It cost more, but man, it’s worth it.

Sweet. I’ll give you the cash for my half later when I get my paycheck. I have to pick it up after school today.

Michael turned on to Alhambra lane, circling back towards Conant as he handed the joint back to his friend. So, is band practice still on for tonight? I forgot to call last night and check with Phil, I had a big fight with my parents about my grades.

Yah, Steve and Phil are coming to my house around seven. Dan replied as he toked. Steve needs a new set of strings for his bass, so he’s gonna hit Roselle Music before he comes.

Cool. Michael said as the comfortable buzz of the weed settled in to his brain.

Dan asked.

Yah . . . Michael sighed. They want me to go Ivy League, like in college, but I was thinking more the high tech type of school . . .

My parents would be happy if I just made it through high school without ending up in jail. Dan laughed. Michael was sure his best friend would end up doing something in the music business, he wrote the most awesome lyrics, and he had a great singing voice. Michael himself dreams of being a rock guitar legend, though tech school would be a good fall back for making a living. Nothing was free, especially money and weed . . .

It took them only ten minutes to get to Conant after Michael actually started heading that way, the cold gray rain never letting up as it pounded the Ford and the sodden streets. The gutters on either side of the street were overflowing on to the withering green lawns of the houses; the trees were starting to shed their leaves in the onslaught of the torrential October precipitation.

After they had rolled on to the school campus and past the front Entrance Michael turned the corner and stopped to drop Dan off at the East Entrance. Once his friend had gone inside Michael started looking for a spot in the adjacent student lot to park. There was only one available, this late in the day, and it was in the final row that butted up against Plum Grove road, separated from the two lane strip of black top by only a thin strip of grass and gravel. It was the farthest spot from the doors of the East Entrance there was, but at least it was there.

Michael climbed out, locked up his car, and cursing steadily ran most of the way through the downpour blowing in his face to the shelter of the canopy above the East Entrance. He would have been completely wet from head to toe had it not been for the protection of his battered leather biker’s jacket. Once he reached the semi protection of the canopy Michael paused to have one last smoke.

Beneath the failing illumination of the one remaining working lamp in the cement shell of the canopy above Michael fished his pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and popped one in his mouth. He knew he was already late anyway, and his grades were pretty good, he just wasn’t going to worry about it. He pulled his black Bic lighter out of his left pants pocket and raised it to his cigarette. His lateness at arriving to school this day was beyond his control. In his reverie about reasons it was not his fault Michael did not even notice the girl standing in the shadows till she spoke to him.

Can I bum a light from you? A sweet, soft voice came from behind him, it caught his full attention as he turned and the flame from his lighter ignited the tip of his cigarette.

Michael looked through the flair of flame and the cloud of disseminating smoke. Though the light from the flickering florescent bulb overhead was dim he saw her quite clearly through the gloom. Maybe five foot three inches tall, thin with shapely legs, wearing a short blue jeans skirt, a loose sweater and a light yellow windbreaker. Her heart-shaped face was framed and partially hidden by wavy locks of glossy dark brown hair. She peered from behind her bangs with big, soft eyes of hazel. An unlit cigarette dangled from her full, pouty lips.

Sure. Michael replied, trying to act cool. His heart was suddenly hammering in his chest and his face felt hot. He reached out with a steady and confident hand and flicked his Bic to life.

She leaned in, touching his hand ever so gently with hers, inhaling as Michael applied flame to the end of the cigarette for her.

Thanks. She said, puffing out a cloud of smoke that quickly dispersed in the chilly air. I’ve been out her almost twenty minutes and I couldn’t get my lighter to work. They never seem to work when you need them most.

No problem. Michael replied as he returned his light to his pocket. You’re new here, huh?

How can you tell? She said with a pixyish grin. She flicked an ash from the end of her smoke. Is it that obvious?

Well, sort of. This isn’t the designated smoking area, for one, and everyone is supposed to be in class by now.

Oh, am I gonna get into trouble? She rolled her eyes and laughed evilly. I haven’t ever registered yet and I’m already a problem child. Besides that, aren’t YOU having a smoke here too?

Yah . . . Michael laughed, grinning wolfishly. Hey, I am totally on your side in that case. Michael flicked the ash off his cigarette with as much casualness as he could muster. His heart was still beating like it was going to burst out of his chest. His attention was totally focused on the ravishing creature before him.

So, why aren’t you in class then? She challenged him with a playful, throaty giggle.

Well, I’d like to tell you I’m a rebel without a cause; I just go to school when I feel like it . . . Michael sighed dramatically. But really, my alarm clock didn’t go off and I’m just late. The storm knocked out the power last night.

I’d like to say that too, she giggled. But I just really really really don’t want to go in and attend class.

Yah, I don’t blame you at all. Michael agreed. I’d like to ditch class too, but if I miss too many more days this year I won’t graduate with my class June.

Oooo, you’re a senior, huh? She took another drag. I’m just a lowly sophomore this year.

Nah, you’re too pretty to be just a sophomore. Michael said slyly, but truthfully.

Flattery will get you everywhere. She said with a cute smirk as she flipped her cigarette at the ashcan. Well, it’s time to go face the music.

Yah might as well get it over with. Michael agreed as he tossed his smoke into the ashcan as well. He walked over to the glass doors and pulled them open, making a sweeping motion with his free arm. Ladies first.

Why thank you, kind sir. She said as they entered the building.

The bell sounding the end of second period went off and noisy teenagers quickly filled the corridor ahead as Michael and the mystery girl climbed the stairs up to the main hallway. As they parted ways in the flow of kids Michael turned to ask the girl her name. Before the words came out of his mouth she had turned, peering at him from behind her dark hair with those big brown eyes and that mischievous grin.

My name is Heather Crowley, she said and then she disappeared into the crowd.

Chapter 2

Heather Crowley slipped away into the press of students feeling quite pleased with herself. She hadn’t even been at this new school a single day and she had already met a very, very interesting boy. Though he was a bit on the thin side he was sooo so cute, and his long dark hair and beat up leather jacket made him look wild and dangerous. As she had watched him approach the canopy she was hiding under she had felt something stir inside, her attention drawn by his aura as he had come running up through the pouring rain. It burned with a pure bluish white like no other aura she had ever seen before.

He had proven to be smart and funny. Heather felt herself flush with excitement just thinking about him. She hadn’t asked him his name, but she knew she would see him again. It was fate.

Heather let the flow of kids around her carry her down the main hallway as she got lost in her thoughts. She knew vaguely where she was supposed to go, and she was not looking forward to it. The Vice-Principal in charge of discipline for Conant had told Heather’s governess that Heather had to report to him before starting classes on her first day. It was annoying. She would have to sit there, looking like she cared, and listen to some fat old man drone on about her responsibility to behave and such. Heather knew it was really all about what had happened at the last school she had attended down in Florida.

She turned down the hallway just past the glass walls of the student cafeteria and went towards the front of the school building. Near the main entrance she found the corridor with the row of doorways where the councilors and administrators had their offices. A kindly lady behind a counter laden with stacks of paper pointed Heather towards a set of green plastic chairs in front of the Vice-Principal’s office, where she took a seat and waited.

It took long, long minutes before a balding, overweight middle aged man came out the door and asked Heather to step into his office.

Vice-Principal Miles Kimball gave the young lady his sternest look as she sat down across from him at his desk. He pretended to go through her file, though he had already read it, to give dramatic pause to the meeting and impress upon her the importance of his time. After a few minutes he cleared his throat and spoke directly to Heather.

Miss Crowley, I’ve gone through your records from Marlin High School. Mr. Kimball said in his most serious and authoritarian tone. And I’m a little concerned. While it is clear that you are quite intelligent, and you’re grades are not all that bad . . .

I don’t understand why you wanted to see me. Heather interrupted. She knew that the Vice-Principal was fishing around, and that her grades weren’t what he really wanted to talk about. She wasn’t going to make it easy on him. She looked up at the man wide eyed and innocent.

Well, to start with, you are two hours late reporting to school today. Mr. Kimball said.

I couldn’t help that. Heather replied quickly, trying not to sound too exasperated. The storm last night knocked out the power, and I woke up late because my alarm clock didn’t go off.

Then someone should have called in for you, Mr. Kimball replied. But that is not really the reason I wanted to talk to you. I would like to discuss the incident from last year.

Bingo, Heather thought. It was just what she had predicted would happen. She sat still with a blank look and said nothing. Vice-Principal Kimball stared at her crossly for a long moment, and then finally continued.

Although your file indicates that the police never found you to have any responsibility for what happened, you were involved in the incident. I’d like to discuss what happened with you.

Heather suppressed her reaction, trying not to squirm at the memories his words brought back. It had not been a happy time in her life.

She had been a freshman, only fourteen and new to the area and to Marlin High School in Miami. Heather’s uncle, who was her legal guardian, had just moved Heather and the governess who took care of her there. It was the third time in the three years since he had gained custody of his niece that they had moved. Heather had never forgiven Abraham Crowley for immediately selling her parent’s home in Huntington Beach California, moving her away from the only place she had ever felt safe up until the untimely death of her parents in a small plane crash.

Abraham had told her that the decision to sell his brothers modest estate was for her welfare, but Heather had known her uncle was lying to her face. He had just wanted the money from the sale of the house and grounds for himself. It was the only piece of her parents’ legacy that Abraham had access to under the terms of the guardianship, the rest of her parents fortune was tied up in a trust fund monitored by lawyers that had been friends and colleagues of Heather’s father.

Although their new house had been in a decent part of Miami, it was small and run down compared to the Californian estate, and some of the nearby neighborhoods were quite rough. Marlin High School, the school Heather would be attending as a freshman, had also drawn students in from these poorer and impoverished neighborhoods, and gang activity at the school was not an uncommon or rare occurrence.

On her first day of classes one of the troublemaking gang bangers at Marlin had decided that Heather would be his, and that was how the whole mess had started.

Mario Arroyo had spied Heather as she came down the main hallway of the central building of the Marlin High School campus. She looked lost and vulnerable in the rush of students moving around her, lost, vulnerable and pretty. Just the way Mario liked them. Heather had been clutching her printout of her classes for that semester and frowning when Mario had slipped up next to her and introduced himself. Trying to impress Heather with his macho attitude and flashing the wad of cash he made from dealing drugs on the school campus he had given her the hard press. Half the private security guards in the school were on his payroll, it was rumored he had connections to one of the gangs operating in the area. Listening to the alarm she felt in her gut Heather had done her best to avoid him at first, but it felt nice to have someone show some interest in her, and Mario was a handsome boy. Crushes and feelings new to her kept her swirling on the edge of his attentions. She certainly didn’t get that sort of attention at home. Her uncle was a cold bastard and she disliked her governess for reasons she couldn’t quite name.

Mario started buying her things, showering her with little gifts, offered to take her shows and concerts Heather was dying to attend, and all the while buttering her up with praise about her beauty. The more she seemed to resist, the more charm he poured on. Her resolved crumbled and she finally acquiesced to being his girl.

Heather started going out with Mario after school, telling her governess she was headed to the library, smoking cigarettes and pot as Mario and his crew rolled and did business. She had her eyes opened to greed and violence and kept her mouth shut out of fear.

It was when Mario had started hard core pressuring Heather to have sex with him and do harder drugs that she had finally realized the size of her mistake. Mario just kept at her, hounding her, promising her it would all be okay and she would like it. Finally he had become threatening, demanding, and acting like she owed it to him. Heather had been scared. She couldn’t go to her governess for help; she wasn’t supposed to be dating at all. None of the students at school would believe her; they all knew who Mario really was in spite of his greasy charm. Heather didn’t have any friends to turn to; she had never had a chance to find any before Mario swooped down on her. Mario treated Heather like he owned her.

She thought of running away, but didn’t know where she would go. Heather felt trapped.

And then something had happened one night.

Heather didn’t remember how Mario had gotten her to go out with him again. She had been trying to avoid him over the last week, but not very successfully.

She found herself riding in his car with him, watching with cold dread out the window as the lights of nighttime Miami flashed by. They were going to a concert at one of the posh uptown theaters in the city, so Mario said. It was a show she wouldn’t want to miss, he promised. It seemed more like he was driving around in circles to Heather, and after awhile they ended up parked out in front of an abandoned apartment complex in a seedy neighborhood.

Heather had resisted.

Take me home now! Heather demanded in a panicked voice.

Mario dragged her out of his car and up to a third floor apartment in the back end of the decrepit building. She was crying, begging Mario to let her go. He had his hand clamped around her arm like a vice; he said nothing as he pulled her up the dark stairwell. Down at the end of the hall he nudged a door open and pulled Heather inside with him.

Inside the darkened apartment two other men waited in the shadows.

The only light was from a battery powered lantern sitting on a busted up crate. It cast its wan illumination on the only piece of actual furniture in the room.

It was a battered stained mattress that lay on the dirty bare concrete of the floor.

Heather began to struggle in earnest as Mario dragged her relentlessly towards the mattress.

This is the one, eh? Grunted one of the men in a hungry voice, his face and expression hidden in the shadows the intent was clear. She looks fresh.

Never been tapped, Mario said as he flung Heather down on the stench of past rapes and violence of the ancient mattress.

One of the shadows pulled a syringe from his pocket and bent down as Mario held Heather down while she howled in anguish. Tears were running down her face in torrents as she felt the cold steel of the needle pierce the skin of her arm.

She felt herself sinking down, sinking in to blackness and despair.

She felt them ripping away her clothes . . . . deep inside herself she saw a tiny door she had never seen before and she slipped through it as the first man entered her . . .

Heather sat up screaming. Though her eyes were wide open it took several long moments of ragged sobbing before Heather realized she was laying in her bed at home, her blankets clenched into knots in her fists.

It had been a dream. It had been a bad, bad dream.

Miss SUTA came through the door, looking frightened. Heather had slowly calmed her breathing as the remnants of the nightmare slowly faded from her mind. It had been vivid, too real. Marion Bradley sat on the edge of her bed, waiting for Heather to fall asleep again. Heather pulled her blankets up tight around her neck and shook the last vestiges of the vision away. She was sure it was a vision of the future.

Heather looked up at Miss SUTA and noticed something different.

She could see her guardian’s aura glowing around her.

This cloud of life energy pulsed softly with concern and constrained affection, Marion’s whole attention was focused on the young girl she cared so much for. The color and hue, the pulse and tone of it, they all spoke to Heather’s senses.

I had a bad dream, Heather said in a throaty voice, hoarse from crying. I’m okay, please go back to bed.

Are you sure? Marion was worried, truly worried.

Yah, it was just a dream, About the future, about my future. It’s gone now, I’ll be ok. Heather managed a not quite convincing smirk.

Miss SUTA got up with a wan smile and I don’t believe you written all over her aura, wished Heather more pleasant dreams before she exited Heather’s bedroom, pulling the door shut behind her. Heather fell back on her pillow and stared up at the ceiling.

She had dreamed of things that came true before, she had dreamed of her parents’ deaths and been unable to stop it from happening. She wondered if she was now destined to be raped and murdered, if she would be unable to change her fate.

Finally a restless sleep claimed her, Heather wandered among dark choices and deadly traps, but this time finding that little door inside was easier.

Heather got up the next morning and vowed to never see Mario again.

When Heather got to school Mario was there, waiting for her.

He had a look of smug assurance plastered across his face, and for the first time Heather saw the sickly black aura that his soul created. It was ill, vile, it showed the heartless monster he truly was to Heather’s newly awakened talent, and Heather knew she was really SEEING Mario for the first time and it frightened her.

She looked around at the other students in the hallway, watched the dance and play of life energies that flowed from them and shaped their form and color according to each ones soul. She saw no malice or greed in them, for the most part, they were normal kids with normal concerns, and aside for the boys in his crew there was not one like the evil beast that dwell in Mario’s flesh.

He started angrily in her direction, his thugs from his crew drifted slowly behind him grinning like feral jackals. They were eager to see this scene play out.

Heather backpedaled and scrambled for the only safe place she could think of, the girls’ bathroom off the main hall.

It was not safe at all.

Mario kicked the door open and stormed in to the rest room with his boys in tow. Mario’s cronies dragged the couch up against the doors to block any one entering the restroom and then they took seats on it. Heather could see the intended violence in their oily green auras. They were as much animals as Mario.

There was no one else in the bathroom, she was alone. Heather shivered involuntarily.

I want you to meet some very important guys tonight, Mario said in a voice seething with an undercurrent of pent up rage. You are going to show them a good time, do you understand?

I’m not your whore. Heather stammered. Inside her blood was running cold and her mind was racing to find some escape.

You are whatever I TELL YOU YOU ARE BITCH! Mario screamed. Heather could see he was high on cocaine, high to the point of incoherence and murderous rage. I will fucking kill you and your whole fucking family if you don’t do what I tell you, you teasing little cunt!

She knew at that moment that Mario was going to rape and kill her in the bathroom of Marlin High School. She would not make it to the empty apartment and the stained mattress.

Heather began wishing with every fiber of her being that they would all die. She wished it so hard it made her sick to her stomach, and in her mind she found the little door she had never been aware of and she fled through it.

For eternal moments she hung in a limbo, but it was not an unpleasant one. She thought she heard the sounds of distant thunder . . .

Heather’s mind snapped back in to reality. She looked around her.

Mario had his back pressed against the wall below the only window in the room, next to the garbage can he had knocked over. Bright sunlight filtered in through the glass blocks framed in the brick and mortar wall of the restroom and mixed with the lurid light from the overhead fluorescent fixtures. Together they lit the scene of carnage at the other end of the bathroom by the couch and the door.

Mario was clutching a Glock nine millimeter automatic in his hand, he was trembling, he eyes lashed violently about the room, but he seemed unable to raise the pistol, or move. Smoke curled from the barrel, the spent cartridges rolled across the tiled floor with a tiny metallic ring.

He had just killed his crew.

Heather looked at the two bodies that had minutes before been leering beasts ready to use her, still sprawled on the couch with shattered skulls and surprised looks on their so dead faces. The sight of their brains and blood running down the walls did not affect her.

Heather knew, she KNEW, that she was the one in control.

She had overpowered Mario’s weak mind and taken control of him. She had compelled him and he had blasted his two buddies to the depths of the hell that waited them without understanding why he was doing it. Mario was a prisoner in his own flesh at this point, a marionette to Heathers will.

Heather knew that someone would arrive soon. Though the peer professionals on Mario’s dole might pretend not to notice what was happening when Mario chased her in to the bathroom the sound of gunshots would bring others who would not be inclined to look the other way.

Heather turned her attention to Mario again.

Do it. She said coldly.

Heather watched gleefully as Mario put the barrel of his pistol in his mouth and fired the final round he would ever fire, spreading his brains and blood across the bricks and cold white tiles of the bathroom floor.

When the cops forced the door that the couch was blockading they found Heather curled up in the corner stall crying her eyes out. She told them that she had fled to the bathroom to try and escape Mario, but he and his boys had broken in and during an argument over who would get to rape her first Mario had killed his friends and then himself.

The police never treated Heather like a suspect.

Heather was completely convincing in her story. She could have passed a hundred polygraph tests if she had had too, and she had found in herself a new strength. Her newfound ability to read auras was shaping up; interpreting the colors and their flow was the learning curve she was struggling with.

After the media circus had lost interest in the story Heather had been able to quietly finish out her freshman year at school, amidst the whispers and stares of her fellow students. Heather was a pariah; she spent most of her time alone devouring any book on the occult she could find.

Abraham Crowley had been beyond furious with Heather. He had practically threatened to chain her to her bed. It was no real threat to Heather, she spent most of her time in her bedroom anyway, and she had a small stack of occult books stashed under it. Her governess Marion Bradley had screamed bloody murder when she had found out Heather had been dating behind her back. Abraham Crowley stopped speaking to his niece.

In August her uncle put the house on the market, looking to take advantage of a spike in property values as a host of yuppies moved in to the area. By the first of October she had found herself and all her belongings moving in to a house in the suburbs of Chicago, forbidden to even talk to another boy.

Heather had thought that that was a fine idea until this morning.

And that brought her to the present; Heather came out of her reverie. The Vice-Principal of Conant High School was staring at her expectantly.

You don’t have to worry about me. She said with a smile. I’ll be a good girl, I promise.

Chapter 3

Abraham Crowley sat uneasily in his cramped coach seat. He was on the non-stop flight from Chicago Illinois to London, England and he watched out the window as the endless clouds roll by with a building frustration that he always experienced whenever he had to fly. At fifty-two years of age he found it hard to get comfortable in the narrow seats, the only seats he could afford, and sleep on long flights always eluded him no matter what he took or how much he drank. He had tried reading the paperback book he had brought with him, but could not concentrate on it and had ended up putting it away.

His thoughts drifted to the reasons he was now traveling back to England, back to a place he hated with a cold passion. The obvious one was his business affairs, attending to the administration of the small importing exporting company his father had owned and he now ran, keeping up with the business contacts that tied him to the country of his birth. The real reason, his most secret reason, the reason he would fly across the Atlantic when he hated it so much was that his obsession with power and the occult was about to pay off.

Abraham was the grand nephew of the Alistair Crowley, the famous British wizard of the late nineteenth century. Although most people thought Alistair had been a glory seeking crackpot and dismissed his magic as superstition and fraud, Abraham did not. He absolutely believed in the power of magic. He knew it existed, and once Abraham had built enough financial capital to allow it he had dedicated a good portion of his life to its ardent pursuit.

The fact that magic, and great success at anything, had always eluded Abraham was what made him a bitter and angry man. Abraham scowled as his mind went down its familiar old path of the treacheries of the world against him.

At an early age Abraham had discovered that things rarely went his way. He had to fight and scrape just to get along, though it had never really bothered him till his baby brother had come along late in his parents’ life.

Abraham had already been sixteen years old when Thomas had been born, working off an apprenticeship to the meanest, greediest old coot in the British shipping industry to procure much needed contracts for his father’s own business. Abraham had been taught at the end of a hickory cane that the world was hard and cruel, you worked hard for little pay, and you keep your nose to the grindstone no matter what. As the years passed and Abraham slaved away his youth, he had watched with growing avarice as his parents gave to Thomas all the advantages he had never gotten from them. In addition, good luck and fortune seemed to smile down on the boy. If there was a pound note floating about lost on the street, Thomas was the one who found it. Abraham was sure that if there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, Thomas would be the one to find it.

While Abraham ground away at his soul in the dark depths of the accounts department of the shipyards Thomas went off to college. While Abraham struggled and backstabbed his way to the top in the shipping firm, Thomas graduated at the top of his class and met a beautiful young woman who became his wife. After their parents had passed on, Abraham had stepped in and struggled to keep Crowley Imports afloat while Thomas had taken his inheritance, his beautiful bride, and his insufferable good nature and immigrated to the United States to start his own business that of course flourished.

And during all those years, through all those disappointments, Abraham obsession with his family heritage and the dark calling of sorcery had grown until its calling had become undeniable to him.

One evening Abraham had been going through the ponderous heap of artifacts that filled every nook and cranny of three floors and the attic of his late parents London townhouse. They had lived through the bombing of London during World War Two and had never broken away from the habits of Londoners struggling to survive when food and the necessities of life had been scarce.

In spite of the modest amount of wealth they amassed during their lives Lawrence and Lydia Crowley had been hoarders, something they would have vehemently denied even though the contents of their home was proof positive. Abraham had found plenty of things to sell off and make a profit on, and he had found even more stuff that he had to pay to have carted off. In the end he barely broke even and the house was cleaned out for the most part.

It was in an old trunk in his parents’ bedroom that Abraham discovered the old leather bound volume of tattered yellowed pages with a pentagram embossed on its cover. It was