Ravencrest Manor rose before them like a Gothic accusation against the darkening sky. Sam parked the Jeep, her hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel as she stared up at the imposing structure. In the growing dusk, the manor seemed less like a museum and more like what it truly was—a fortress built to contain nightmares.
"It looks different now," Lilly observed, her voice hushed with apprehension.
Sam nodded, understanding exactly what her sister meant. Knowledge had changed their perception. Where once they'd seen Victorian grandeur, now they saw the deliberate angles, the careful placement of windows, the way the entire structure seemed to pulse with hidden purpose.
"Because we know what it really is," Sam replied. "Not a home. A prison."
Tyrone's patrol car pulled up behind them, gravel crunching under his tires. He emerged looking grim, the radio call having clearly delivered more bad news.
"Another body?" Sam asked as he approached.
"Worse. Three more missing persons." His jaw tightened. "Whatever timeline we're working with, it's accelerating."
Patricia Abernathy waited for them at the manor's entrance, but the theatrical curator was gone. In her place stood someone Sam barely recognized—composed, calculating, her period costume now seeming less like affectation and more like ritual garb.
"The Ravencrest descendants finally return," Patricia said, her smile sharp with knowing malice. "I wondered how long it would take."
Sam felt ice in her veins. "You knew. You've known all along."
"Known?" Patricia laughed, the sound like breaking glass. "My dear, I've been waiting. Preparing. The Circle of the Void has been patient, but patience has its limits."
Tyrone's hand moved instinctively toward his weapon. "The Circle of what?"
"Emil's cult," Sam said, pieces clicking together with horrible clarity. "That helped him summon Nyxalloth in the first place."
Patricia's eyes briefly gleamed with amber light—not metaphorically, but literally, an unnatural glow that made Sam's skin crawl.
"Emil thought he could contain what he'd called forth. Such arrogance. We've spent decades undoing his work, weakening his bindings, preparing for this moment."
"What moment?" Lilly demanded, though Sam suspected she already knew.
"The moment when Ravencrest blood would return to complete the ritual," Patricia replied. "When the last of Emil's line would finally fulfill their true purpose."
Inside the manor, the temperature rose with each step they took. The familiar rooms from their tourist visit felt different now—oppressive, watchful, alive with malevolent intent. Patricia led them through corridors that seemed to stretch longer than memory suggested, her movements sure and purposeful.
"The private study isn't on any tour," she said, stopping before a section of wall that looked identical to the rest. "Emil's real work was always hidden."
The hidden panel opened at her touch, revealing a secret study. Not the workspace of an eccentric inventor, but the ritual chamber of a man who'd thought he could bargain with forces beyond human comprehension.
They stood in awe, the enormity of their discovery a tangible force. Sam’s eyes scanned the room, taking in the arcane devices scattered across the ornate desk, the faded elegance of the furniture, the haunting familiarity of it all.
Lilly moved first, stepping into the study as though crossing a threshold between worlds. “Holy crap, Sam,” she said, her voice reverent and disbelieving.
Sam followed, the thrill of the discovery electrifying her. “We’re not done yet,” she said, already reaching for the journals that lay strewn across the desk. Her hands trembled with anticipation, the weight of history alive and insistent.
Tyrone hung back, the room’s atmosphere settling over him like a heavy coat. He looked at Sam, his skepticism a dim echo of its former self. “What is all this?” he asked, more to himself than to the others.
Sam didn’t reply, her focus narrowing to the words on the pages before her. She felt the presence of Emil’s work, the threads of a dark and complicated history unspooling in her hands. She read, the world around her fading into the background.
“Contain the harbinger and take its power,” Sam read aloud, the words cold and sharp against the dusty air. Emil’s voice seemed to reach across the years, an urgent whisper that set her heart racing. She flipped through the pages, each one a glimpse into the obsessions that consumed him.
“Sam, this is insane,” Lilly said, her eyes wide as she explored the room. The study was a maze of curiosities, the forgotten remnants of Emil’s life spread out before them. She picked up an odd contraption, its gears and dials foreign and enigmatic. “What do you think this does?”
“Uh, I am not an expert on weird mechanical things,” Sam replied, her voice cutting through the study’s thick atmosphere. Her eyes darted across the journals, the lines between past and present blurring in the heat of her focus.
"He documented everything," Sam breathed, seeing the journals with new eyes. "Every step of the summoning."
"And every step of the binding," Patricia confirmed. "Which is why his work must be undone."
Tyrone stepped protectively closer to Sam and Lilly. "Over my dead body."
Patricia's laugh was genuinely amused. "Sheriff, you have no idea what you're dealing with. This is bigger than your small-town law enforcement can handle."
Lilly opened a drawer, the wood creaking with disuse. A small, silver locket lay nestled inside, its surface tarnished and worn. She held it up, curiosity giving way to shock as she clicked it open.
“Sam,” Lilly whispered, her voice trembling with the weight of what she’d found. “Mom was here. She was in this house as a child.”
Sam looked up, her attention momentarily torn from Emil’s journals. Lilly’s face was pale, the locket a small but powerful confirmation of what they’d suspected.
The photograph was faded, but the image was unmistakable. A young girl with familiar features stood in front of a fireplace in some part of the manor, her expression solemn and distant. The connection to their mother hit Sam like a punch, knocking the breath from her chest.
“It’s true,” Sam said, the realization both thrilling and terrifying. “She was right in the middle of it.” The discovery intensified her urgency, the pieces of the puzzle fitting into place with dizzying speed.
Lilly closed the locket, her hands shaking. The revelation was enormous, shifting everything she thought she knew. She glanced at Sam, their shared history more complex and intertwined than ever.
Tyrone picked up a brass artifact resembling an astrolabe, its intricate design both beautiful and unsettling. He turned it over in his hands, a sudden gasp escaping his lips as he dropped it to the floor.
Tyrone’s face was a mask of confusion and fear, the vision still fresh in his mind. “I saw my father,” he said, his voice rough with disbelief. “He was bleeding, calling for help.”
Lilly stared at him, her own shock evident. The discovery of the locket was powerful, but Tyrone’s experience added a new and unexpected layer to their quest.
Sam moved toward him, her concern mixing with the excitement of their discoveries. “Are you okay?” she asked, her focus split between Tyrone and the journals.
He nodded, the action slow and uncertain. “I don’t know what I saw,” Tyrone admitted, his skepticism visibly shaken. “I don’t know what any of this means.”
Lilly saw a ritualist dagger propped on a dusty, old, leather chair. She picked it up in her hands moving it around to study the symbols. Patricia's eyes brightened with new light, drawing Sam's attention. Sam looked to where she was looking and saw Lilly with the dagger.
"Lilly, don't---,"
But it was already too late, Lilly unsheathed it and the the handle of the dagger was a trap, spikes popped out and went into Lilly's hand. Droplets of crimson life dropped to the floor and were aborbed by the wood like a sponge.
Lilly yelped. "OW, shit!" She then looked up at Sam, "I guess I am the one that did it this time."
The study erupted into chaos without warning. The temperature spiked to unbearable levels, shadows writhed along the walls like living things, and whispers in no human language filled the air with malevolent promise.
Lilly screamed as tendrils of shadow wrapped around her ankle, pulling her toward a corner where darkness seemed to pool like liquid night. Sam lunged for her sister, their hands connecting just asTyrone bodily tackled them both away from the reaching dark.
Patricia stood in the center of the chaos, arms raised, her voice rising in what sounded like an invocation. The amber glow in her eyes intensified until they blazed like tiny suns.
"The awakening has begun!" she cried, her voice somehow cutting through the supernatural cacophony. "The Harbinger rises! The Old Gods return!"
"Move!" Tyrone shouted, practically lifting both sisters and shoving them toward the door.
“We can’t leave this,” Sam said, her voice a thin thread against the clamor of the whispers. She grabbed a handful of pages from Emil’s journal, her movements quick and precise.
Sam clutched the journal pages, her thoughts a chaotic swirl. Lilly held the locket close, its significance a beacon in the oppressive dark. Tyrone ushered them forward, his authority now born of necessity rather than disbelief.
The escape was frantic, their footsteps a rapid drumbeat against the shifting floorboards.
They fought their way through corridors that seemed to shift and change around them, the manor itself becoming a maze designed to trap them. Portraits leered from their frames, their painted eyes following their desperate flight. Floorboards buckled and reformed, trying to trip them, to slow them, to deliver them back to the hungry shadows that pursued.
They burst from the manor into the cool night air, lungs burning, hearts hammering. Behind them, Ravencrest Manor blazed with unnatural light—not fire, but something else.
"It's not just a prison anymore," Sam realized, clutching Emil's stolen journals to her chest. "It's a beacon. A summoning focus."
Tyrone stared at the transformed manor, his worldview finally, completely shattered. "What did we just walk into?"
"A trap," Sam said grimly. "One that's been set for over a century, just waiting for us to spring it."
Sam collapsed into the backseat, the journal pages spilling across her lap. The heat of the study still clung to her, the urgency of their flight a thrumming pulse beneath her skin.
Lilly slid in beside her, the locket pressed tightly in her hand. Her eyes were wide, a mixture of fear and awe etched into her features.
Tyrone took the driver’s seat, his face drawn with the enormity of what they’d experienced. The silence inside the car was thick, filled with the weight of unasked questions and unresolved truths.
They sat there, the world outside moving in slow, surreal motion. It felt impossible, all of it—what they’d seen, what they’d found, what they still didn’t understand.
The memory of Patricia Abernathy’s eyes burned in Sam’s mind, a reminder of how much they still didn’t know.
“We need to translate these pages before it’s too late.”
Her words hung in the air, a declaration and a challenge.
“Let’s get somewhere safe,” he said, starting the engine.
Sam looked over at Lilly, her hand still bleeding a little. "Hey, take us back to the B&B, I need to treat Lilly's hand."
The car pulled away, leaving Ravencrest behind like a looming shadow.
I need a hard copy.