The House of Edwin, Part Seven: June 18, 1926

Ron’s Vision

Ron, still unconscious following his explosive stunt in the tower, finds himself in a strange dream or hallucination. He is backstage at a theater, where he is accosted by an elderly violinist. The violinist takes Ron to the stage, where several dozen musicians caper and prance around a wheelchair thickly stacked with blankets. Underneath the blankets, something snores fitfully. The violinist escorts Ron to the piano and demands that he start playing, “or else He might wake up.”

Ron, who is not a pianist, bangs on the keys for a bit until Brother Theodore appears and directs him backstage. Ron follows Brother Theodore through a dark expanse toward a growing light in the distance, then watches in horror as Brother Theodore is torn apart for seemingly no reason. Ron continues running toward the light and, as he reaches it, awakens.

Annie Chantraine and Her Forces Press the Attack!

The Battle Continues

Ron wakes up on the floor of the entrance hall of the Edwin mansion, with Dr. Black sitting on top of him. For a moment, Ron thinks that the doctor is attempting to administer first aid, however it soon becomes evident that Dr. Black, still possessed, by Khad Vishtu, has been frantically searching Ron’s pockets for the Ouroboros Ring. Khad demands the ring from Ron, screaming that he is the true high priest of the Crawling Chaos. Ron punches him.

While Ron and Dr. Black wrestle on the floor, Annie Chantraine, who has phased into the room on the wings of dark sorcery, directs a devastating magical attack against Papa Doc Horus. Horus responds with his own sorcerous power, and the battle between them is so intense that the edges of Horus’ protective salt circle begin to melt.

Johnny, fearing that the cultists will overrun the back of the house, lights one of the remaining sticks of dynamite and throws it. His aim is badly off, unfortunately. While he does kill most of the cultists and the deep ones in the ensuing blast, he also destroys the back of the house and critically injures himself, Dr. Black, and Ron. Judge Putnam manages to escape the explosion with minor injuries.

Mikhail, hearing the explosion, continues to rush downstairs to the first floor to aid his companions. He reaches the entrance hall, where he sees Anne Chantraine and Papa Doc Horus locked in their magical duel. Mikhail, desperate to turn the tide of battle, draws his blessed Masonic sword and stabs Anne in the side, weakening her attack and saving Papa Doc’s life.

Vivian and Kane also hear the explosion but are unable to disengage from the cultists and deep ones to go and help their friends. Vivian makes several savage attacks with Ron’s blessed knife, mortally wounding a deep one, while Kane, kept conscious by a desperate bump of cocaine, empties his gun into the others. The cultists in the rear continue to lash at them with magic and mock them for their defiance as the deep ones with the red glass sphere move to join them.

But then!

Johnny on the Brink

In his dying dream, Johnny travels to a desert land, where he meets a figure, whose obscuring cloak is coated with dust, sitting on the edge of a dry well. Though the two do not exchange words, Johnny somehow knows that the figure, whatever they are, is making an offer to aid Johnny and his friends in their hour of need.

Johnny, knowing that the battle at the Edwin house is going very badly, agrees to accept the figure’s offer, and says that he will pay any price.

Rain pours down from the heavens, soaking the ground, but doing nothing to disturb the dust on the figure’s robe. The figure laughs, tips themselves back into the well, and vanishes.

The Tide Turns!

The group of deep ones with the glass sphere fall on the cultists in the front yard and begin tearing them to pieces. Kane and Vivian watch, in stunned horror, as the leader of the deep ones holds aloft the sphere and says, in halting English, “promise…returned…pact…came…protect…egg…Dagon…EGG!”

Vivian realizes that the red glass sphere is Mikhail’s witch ball and guesses that Mikhail’s prayer to the local “spirits of the water” have been answered. 

With all their enemies dead, Kane and Viviane back into the house to help their companions.

As this happens, Ron and Dr. Black awaken, dazed but somehow miraculously healed from the explosion damage. Dr. Black is also extremely grateful to discover that he is no longer possessed, though he does definitely feel Khad Vishtu’s presence lingering in the back of his mind.

There is, disturbingly, no sign of Johnny, but the group soldiers on despite his absence, turning all of their remaining strength to defeating Anne Chantraine. She screams in fury as Ron and Mikhail stab her with their blessed weapons and responds with devastating magical attacks.

At this moment, everyone fighting in the entrance hall sees a sparkling cloud of dense smoke pouring out of one of the corners of the room. Anne Chantraine shrieks as a large beast that looks like a hairless tiger on too-slender legs leaps from the cloud and effortlessly tears out her abdomen. The Lady of the Silver Twilight crashes to the floor in two cauterized pieces as the creature jumps toward another corner of the room and vanishes from sight.

Vivian, watching this, smiles a very hard, very terrifying smile.

The Hound

Aftermath

The deep ones with the sphere enter the house and, with broken English, attempt to convince Mikhail that they have answered his prayer. Mikhail understands enough of their meaning to thank them profusely and asks them to return to the ocean in peace, which they do.

Off in a corner of the entrance hall, Kane Eastman’s cocaine high and adrenaline rush ends abruptly, and he collapses.

Dr. Black, now fully in control of his faculties, tends to everyone’s injuries and manages to stabilize Brother Theodore and Tommy Hayes, who were critically wounded in the fighting.

The rest of the group pulls Johnny out of the wreckage of the back of the house. They are disturbed to find that, while he is alive and only slightly injured, his body seems to have been horribly wasted by some otherworldly force. He now looks as old as Judge Putnam, and his once blond hair has turned a stark white.

Vivian recovers the mi-go brain cylinder containing Christopher Edwin from the library fireplace. She quickly fills him in on the battle that has just occurred. Edwin congratulates them on a job very well done.

Giddy and exhausted, the group attempts to get some sleep. Their rest is undisturbed until morning.

Returning to Portland

The London Group is jolted awake by a knock at the front door. They answer it and find that their visitor is one of the men from the ferry company. He tells them that the ferry is fixed and has just come over from Portland, and that it can take them back over to the mainland whenever they’re ready.

Just before he departs, the man from the ferry company says, “I hear you had quite a wild solstice night up here with Mr. Edwin, what with all the fireworks and shouting! Didn’t think Mr. Edwin would be keen on inviting over such a rowdy bunch. Never can tell with people, I suppose!”

The London Group packs up their belongings and, with the mi-go brain cylinder nestled safely in Vivian’s lap, drives down to the dock and onto the ferry. There, they meet the Clarks, who have returned to Chebeague Island to help them. They are relieved to see that everyone survived the night on the island.

Thus reunited, the London Group and their allies return to civilization.

FERRYMAN: Johnny, do you have anything to declare?
JOHNNY: Yeah. Don’t go to Maine.

Several Weeks Later

The group has returned to New York to rest and recover from their island excursion, as well as to make plans to travel to Easter Island to stop the Order of the Silver Twilight.

Upon his return home, Judge Putnam learned that his hired security thwarted a robbery. Several men had been able to enter the judge’s property undetected and were in the process of loading up numerous crates in the judge’s garage into the Army surplus truck that Johnny had purchased some time ago. A brief gun battle ensued, in which one of the thieves was killed and one of the security men was injured. The surviving thieves were arrested, and nothing was taken.

The London Group suspect that the robbers were members of the order, who had jaunted into the judge’s garage via the stolen gate box to steal their magical and mundane arsenal. They keep this information from the police.

Sometime later, Christopher Edwin, through various proxies, signs over the remainder of his fortune to the London Group, who promise to use it to hire a ship to take them to the South Seas.

The group meets again at the judge’s house to finalize their plans. During this meeting, Christopher Edwin tells the group that the nutrient fluid that keeps his brain alive is slowly degrading, and he doesn’t know how much time he has left. He says that he wants to devote any time he has left to aiding the group in vanquishing the Silver Twilight and Carl Stanford once and for all.

The group graciously accepts his help. Privately, a few of them try to think of ways to either rejuvenate the nutrient fluid in the mi-go cylinder or find a way to get Christopher Edwin a new body…