<strong>The Huxley Estate: Kingsport, Massachusetts</strong><br/><br/>The sun hung low and fat in the sky over Kingsport, a glob of phosphorescent paint smeared against a sickly orange sky that throbbed uselessly behind the encroaching pall of heavy rainclouds.  An amber light seeped into the worn shingles of gabled rooftops, saturating hordes of moldering old colonial houses until they glowed like dim coals in a dying fire.   The buildings seemed to cling to one another for support, second and third floors jutting precariously over poorly paved roads until they nearly touched the neighbor opposite them, forming makeshift tunnels and cavernous alleys that twisted the old port town into a labyrinth of decadent architecture.  These jutting piles of worn edifices clustered up against the shore and rotting shipyards like pigs to a sty, their faces turned away from the newer parts of the town where wide streets bustled with wide-eyed tourists and motorized trolleys, and modern houses whose lifespans measured in the single digits sat proudly with plenty of space between them.<br/><br/>Overlooking the hoary old fishing community was a wide and ancient hill, and upon that hill sat a wide and ancient steeple, its paint fresh and white in spite of the age that weighed down on its sagging roof and swelled gluttonously in its wooden beams.  But above that weary place of worship lies yet another building, a great and masterfully constructed manor of untold antiquity set right into the very rock of the mountains that served to cloister Kingsport from the rest of Massachusetts for so many years.  Great spires erupt from its sides and spear themselves towards the oily sky above, the dark walls and crumbling stonework bringing to mind the fantastic and foreboding castles set deep within the dark countries of Eastern Europe, a near-perfect replica transplanted across the world and altered into a crude facsimile of the houses far beneath it.<br/><br/>And within that manor is a room, its walls and floor and sparse decor tinted a fetching shade of lavender that quickly becomes painful and obnoxious to the eyes; even the air itself seems to be visibly perfumed with the stench of it, wafting about in clouds that ought to make one wretch from the sheer potency of it.  A single chair crafted in the vague shape of some foreign beast, its four legs ending in sculpted claws, sat facing the door and the large expanse of emptiness between them.  There were no windows, and the poor ventilation had allowed years of dust to settle into the undisturbed corners.<br/><br/>The Widow Huxley sat in the beastly chair, her excessively fashionable mourning garb a refreshing shade of deep blue that billowed about her in silent waves of silk cloth and accented with a green panel of embroidered lace over her corset-restricted chest, the collar held shut with a brooch of similar color.  Her hat was crowned with black feathers that sagged over her deathly pallid face like a veil, allowing only the thin line of her purple lips to show.  At a glance it was clear that she was a woman that cared a great deal about appearances, even if that appearance was one better suited to corpses.<br/><br/>"Machen is<em>here</em>?  In<em>my</em>town?" she asked incredulously, her glassy voice scraping unpleasantly against her throat.<br/><br/>The startlingly cruel-looking man standing between her and the door shook his head.  "Not presently, no.  But we do know that he is currently<em>somewhere</em>in Massachusetts.  If he is truly becoming as bold as has been suggested, it seems likely that he may come here in search of information."<br/><br/>The Widow's lips curled.  "You think it's bravado that lures him into my nest?"<br/><br/>"Ignorance," the man corrected.  "It has been some time since he last stepped foot on American soil, and he is viewing his former home with new eyes and insight.  But he is trudging forward blindly, unaware of what lies beneath his every determined footstep and probing question.  Suspicions and paranoia aside, it is unlikely that he is even aware of our influence here."<br/><br/>"Then why not stay in Europe?  Why must he cross the oceans to make a nuisance of himself on my doorstep?" she snapped back.  "Not that I do not relish the chance to return every slight and impudent transgression back to him tenfold and deliver his remains to the Speaker."<br/><br/>The man furrowed his brow, the sharply pointed ends of his mustache wriggling as he slid a tongue to wet his cracking lips.  "Presumably to escape Lady Rigby, M'lady."<br/><br/>The decrepit woman let out a harsh laugh like the crack of a musket, a sneer disappearing beneath the feathery veil.  "I'm not sure whether I should praise his intelligence or mock him for his shortsightedness.  I can't think of a single soul that<em>wouldn't</em>want to be rid of that insufferable brat, but it is only because of her continuous incompetence that he has not been captured and the Key returned to us."<br/><br/>"I would advise against underestimating them, M'Lady.  Helena and Machen both."<br/><br/>She scoffed, dismissing the advice with a wave of her meticulously manicured hand.  "Do not lecture me about such things.  She wields power only because her father is a slave to her whims and holds enough influence for his demands to have weight.  She can't even capture one mortal man despite all the resources she could ever<em>dream</em>of and enough fae-folk prancing to start a Wild Hunt!  I could care less if she's a prodigy.  In the eyes of the Speaker, only results matter."<br/><br/>The cruel man remained silent for a moment.  "Mortal Machen may be, but normal he is not.  Lady Luck seems to have designs upon him, and his voice is said to have an uncanny effect upon the mind.  We would do well to approach him with caution, M'Lady."<br/><br/>"It is his<em>mortality</em>that makes him barely worth acknowledging,"  The Widow retorted venomously.  "Fortune may indeed have smiled on him the day he stole the Key, but it is the stupidity of our own that allowed him to escape.  He is utterly<em>inconsequential</em>in the grand scheme of things.  What can a man of a paltry few decades possibly do to us?  This town is far older than he, and its people older still.  Our order is even older than that.  The relic that he has so callously taken from us was here long before his eldest ancestor crawled up out of the mud.  What chance does a single human man possibly stand against the legions of the Manifold?"<br/><br/><br/><div align="center">-------------------------------------------------</div><br/><strong>The Boar's Head Pub, Boston</strong><div class="floatright">(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/rcburner/Characters/RobbieJarvis2.jpg)</div><br/>Meanwhile, one Philip Ramsey Machen was doing a helluva job trying to keep most of his alcohol in his mug or in his mouth, as opposed to sloshed all over the bar and the front of his suit.<br/><br/>"Another round on--what'd you say your name was again?"<br/><br/>The thoroughly drunken man turned to his neighbor, a heavy-set fellow whose face was about as red and blotchy as a cart of bruised tomatoes, and and nearly as bulbous around the edges.  His overalls were completely saturated with liquor--not that that was much cause for alarm, as it seemed the entire pub had gone completely mad and was quickly riding an adrenaline high into a non-communicative stupor.  The floors were absolutely soaked, the man at the piano was attempting to play some incomprehensible piece with his feet and a leg of lamb and failing to be heard over the chorus of raucous laughter that split the air whenever someone toppled to the ground, and at least three tables had been broken under the weight of dancing drunkards.  Asking for another round seemed laughably pointless, as the bartender had long since collapsed and was currently sleeping in a puddle of his own drool.<br/><br/>And Philip, of all the people in the room, was the focal point for all of it.  On the street he'd be the sort of person one's eyes would just sort of pass over without noticing, too nondescript and unassuming to even take note of.  Not too short but not too tall, not particularly handsome and not especially cute but falling right square in the middle of the spectrum, average and just easy enough on the eyes to get by.  His hair was short and brown and looked to have been cropped by an unwieldy pair of hedge clippers, eyes just a little too wide and a lusterless shade of blue.  Philip was physically unremarkable in just about every way, with a cyclist's build hidden under drab and tattered clothes and a jacket that looked to have been patched up so many times that none of the original cloth remained.  A total nobody.<br/><br/>But everyone, for reasons that couldn't quite explain at the time whilst heavily inebriated,<em>loved</em>him.  He was an old friend, a brother, a celebrity, a rich relative promising a sizable inheritance, a trustworthy ally, the President of the entire damn United States; whatever he had asked them to believe, their minds had filled in the blanks in whatever way they chose to.  Philip hadn't dared let himself go and abuse both his gift and his liver for nearly three years, and now he'd come home and all was right with the world.<br/><br/>At least for tonight.  Through the growing buzz that had settled in over the chronic ringing in his ears, he could hear Carter's words droning:<em>"Kingsport.  That's where you should take your questions.  But Phil--you may not like the answers, if you're stubborn or mad enough to go looking in the dark for them.  Probe too deeply and you may dredge something up that aught not to be."</em>The look in his eyes had reminded him of something.  It had reminded him of the first time he'd looked in a mirror after losing Sandra.  The horror was palpable in it, etched into every wrinkle and crevice in his skin.  Randy was a dreamer--always had been from what he could recollect--but he too had seen something in the intervening years.  Perhaps something even more terrible than the<em>thing</em>Philip had seen through half-blind eyes in a cellar back in Italy.<br/><br/>Philip could feel the hangover already, but he'd need that pain tomorrow.  Kingsport was calling.