Vault of Ungodly Horror #20

“The Mysterious Miss”

The 16th Century. Edinburgh, Scotland. Earth-Alpha II.

Astrid McAddington was the daughter of Lord and Lady McAddington, spoiled and crude, hardly a lady. But they wanted her to marry a rich count who would take her away from them and keep her away with his riches. His name was Count Vazzey, a priest of all people. He very quickly became her master, dominating and abusing Astrid at his every whim. They never married, but he did take her away from Lord and Lady McAddington as they hoped.

For over a year he kept her prisoner in his castle on the hill in Edinburgh, tormenting and torturing her constantly, always bringing her to the brink of death, before he would allow her a few weeks to recover. She tried to escape him, of course, but Count Vazzey was too powerful, too controlling. He always laughed at her, and that just made her hate him even more.

But Count Vazzey possessed a darker secret than his monstrous sadism — he was a vampire! He finally partook of Astrid’s blood, sinking his fangs deeply into her neck. Three nights later, she crawled out of her own grave and began preying on the entire countryside. Her first kill thrilled her beyond anything she ever hoped. It was also terrifying, but she gorged herself on her victim’s hot blood as it flowed down her throat. He eventually found her and dragged Astrid back to his castle. She went crazy after a short while with him, but this time she was able to fight back. Still, he made her. He was her master. She could not defeat him.

Astrid found out he had wives like her all over the place. And yet, he never took her as his bride. He said she was too far beneath him, his stature but not his notice.

And he had this room. Filled with body parts he sometimes tore off his victims. Arms, legs, hands, feet, breasts, sex organs, even scalps.

One evening, tired of his toy, Count Vazzey buried Astrid alive in a glass coffin and the glass was somehow reinforced in such a way that the glass could not be shattered. All she saw for years was the darkness. The dirt. The worms.

How she got out Astrid could never remember, but she did finally escape that damnable coffin. She was free, and she was starving. She was so gaunt, but somehow she got the strength to attack the gravedigger attending the cemetery in which she had been buried. Consuming his blood began to restore her, but she needed more.

And she was pissed off.

30 years later, Astrid ran into one of Count Vazzey’s brides while prowling about Edinburgh. Her parents were dead and gone. Count Vazzey was nowhere to be found, though likely still alive in some other province. But one of his brides, Gypsy, was still around. Gypsy was young and beautiful, always flaunting the riches her husband left her with before he went off to who know where. She also bragged about being a virgin, which oddly enough was true, right on up until he killed and turned her. He never touched Astrid, either, and she always wondered if it was because he was impotent that way, or possibly even gay. Gypsy said he would beat the tar out of her for shits and giggles, and even tossed her aside after he married and vamped her.

But why didn’t he marry Astrid? Strange.

In fact, Gypsy was the woman he had just before he met Astrid. Astrid got a kick out of that piece of information, for some reason.

Gypsy had originated from Romania. Turned out she was a real gypsy, too. And she was a dabbler of magic, having found something known as the Book of the Damned Ones among the Count’s numerous treasures. It was a dark, horrible tome that repelled Astrid when Gypsy showed it to her. She had stolen it away from him just before he tossed her aside like garbage.

Count Vazzey did discover she had taken it, though. He ended up tracking Gypsy down and firebombed her castle in revenge, but not before he took the Book of the Damned Ones with him. What a bastard.

Fortunately, Gypsy had not been in the castle when it was destroyed. She and Astrid had gone to Bucharest to Gypsy’s old camping grounds. It was totally devoid of any life, but she didn’t expect to find any there. After all, it had been in 1588 A.D. when he met and transformed her into the undead. Apparently the locals killed off her tribe after suspecting them of looting their homes and places of work. Pretty much burned them all at the stake, thinking them to be witches as well as thieves.

Count Vazzey finally tracked them down in the Carpathian Mountains. Gypsy was murdered viciously, torn apart and burned so she would never return. Astrid was able to escape, but she knew it would only be a matter of time before he caught up with her. She fled to Italy where she ultimately ended up encountering Sister Savage, an excommunicated warrior nun who had a habit of hunting and destroying creatures of the night. Astrid resisted, and they fought on several occasions, but eventually Sister Savage banished Astrid from the earthly mortal plane with the Manuel of Banishment, using it to banish all vampires from the face of the planet at some point after their encounter.

Where Astrid ended up was some sort of dimension that seemed like Hell, but actually wasn’t. It was terrible there, even for its residents. It was ruled by the succubus Olesquolesque, and it was there when Astrid encountered Sister Savage again. This time Sister Savage was a prisoner here, after encountering a demon that pulled her with it into this hellish realm when she banished it with the Manuel of Banishment. She remained there for five centuries, although in her point of view only several months had passed. It was the same with Astrid, only for her it seemed like several years had gone by. Alongside other “lost souls”, the two women escaped back into the mortal realm, ending up in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, a hotbed for supernatural activity. Astrid was able to get away while Sister Savage was busy battling the other demons expunged from Olesquolesque’s personal hell.

The 21st Century was not gentle to Astrid, nor was it likely to Sister Savage as well. After some wandering, uncertain as to what to do with herself. Astrid encountered another more frightening individual by the name of the Fear Goblin, and decided to become a part of his troupe of Fear Dwellers, alongside two other women named Demeter and Marcia Trent, the Woman With No Shadow. The Fear Goblin had plans to terrorize the entire world in order to drink in all the fear he and his band could create. Astrid didn’t really care for the world as it was now, so she didn’t care what happened to it.

“You’re a curious one, aren’t you?” Marcia said, as she and Astrid stood outside an abandoned old castle in Ireland the Fear Goblin used as a base.

The wind blew through their hair, as Astrid remained silent.

Marcia Trent was once the daughter of Sir Edwin Trent, a renowned archaeologist who was searching for the lost temple of the winged god called Ningal. It took him years to find it, until he reached Ankara and discovered a stone map that was thought to be lost forever in history. The map led Sir Edwin to an underground chamber in Turkey where he found a magnificent statue of the Assyrian God himself, Ningal. He took it back to England and had it placed inside the British Museum, after which Sir Edwin completely vanished without a trace. His daughter Marcia, who assisted him at the dig site, lost her shadow that very same day. The only way she could get it back was to find her father’s body, which she believed to be entombed with the statue, and give it a proper burial.

Or, at least, this was what she told journalist, Reginald Atkins. In reality, Marcia was a servant of Ningal, and offered him sacrifices regularly so the god wouldn’t kill her like he did her father. Reginald was offered up next, and was devoured by the statue, which had transformed into a demonic version of Ningal himself. For a while, Marcia served him, until under unspecified circumstances she was forced to hide underground to avoid being killed. Recently, however, the Fear Goblin came to her and recruited her for his plans. As long as these plans kept her out of Ningal’s clutches, for their falling out was of great concern to her, and she wanted their relationship back.

“How long are we going to just stand around and wait for him to shit and get off the pot?” Astrid asked. “He wanted us together, so why is he making us wait to start the tormenting and sorrow party?”

“He has some grudge against a few someones,” Marcia answered. “Don’t know who, really, but he wants them out of the way first. From the way he speaks, they are some of those Modifier things being complained about in the media. I don’t know. You don’t have anything better to do than I do, do you?”

Astrid thought about the fact that she cannot make other vampires like her because of the permanent power of the Manuel of Banishment. She wondered if destroying it would fix that problem, but she really didn’t want to try to get it from Sister Savage, who had proven several times over she was one not to be messed with.

“No, I suppose I don’t,” Astrid finally muttered. “But I can only remain bored for so long before I go crazy.”

“Vampires are immortal,” Marcia pointed out. “What’s time really to someone like you? A blink of an eye.”

Astrid scoffed. “Yeah, I don’t think I’m like you think I am, or there would be more of me around. Think about that one, stupid.”

After saying that, Astrid took off into the night, with her crimson hood up and her matching cape flapping in the wind. Marcia shrugged her shoulders and paid her no more thought. However, she was getting about as antsy as Astrid was, and hoped the Fear Goblin would soon begin his plans for the world so she could present it to Ningal on a silver platter so he would forgive her her trespasses.