Through the door we found ourselves in a desert, already starting to burn under the sun. We could see a hut in the distance, which looked like our best option for some shade, but when we got there it was clearly occupied, with horses outside. We took a look through the windows, and saw a group of people - men? Zombies? They were all collectively eating another person. Vaquelin, I think, but before we could figure out what was going on, we were spotted and chased. I was getting away, but Jared fell and I couldn't leave him behind. I picked him up while Jim threw stones at them, but it wasn't enough. Jim suffered a scorpion sting, and Jared got sliced by one of the men's scimitars. Somehow he figured out that spraying his own blood on one of them would cause enough of a distraction for us to escape.
We kept running, seeing a cave up ahead. Jim was worried about the scorpion sting, but none of us had any idea even how big a problem it was, let along how to deal with it, and getting away seemed more important right then. Then we got to the mouth of the cave, and my head filled with voices. Dad. Mum. Spencer. All telling me the same thing. That I'm a disappointment.
I could see from the looks on the others' faces that they were hearing something similar. I tried to reassure them, and told them that I hear things like that all the time, but it goes away, and it was going to be OK. That and the offered hugs seemed to help. And at least for a moment we had some respite from our pursuers. They looked in, sheathed their scimitars, and left.
Jim got his phone out to give us some light in the cave, and we could see that the scorpion sting was getting worse. Black veins were appearing on his skin. He told us he could see that robed figure again in the tunnel ahead of us, but I couldn't see it, and Jared said he couldn't either. Jim asked if it was death, or Vaquelin, or the devil, but it seems it didn't answer. Jared went and stood where Jim said it was standing, with no apparent effect. There didn't seem to be anything we could do about either that or the scorpion sting though, and the cave was a dead end, so we left.
Back out in the desert there was a group of people up ahead. A funeral procession with four pall bearers carrying a shrouded body. As I watched them I heard Spencer's voice calling to me. It was him in the shroud. I ran towards them, knocking a pall bearer out of the way, but the others kept going. I pushed a second one aside, but a new pall bearer had risen up out of the ground to take the first one's place.
I shouted to the others for help, but it was no good. They were too strong and I couldn't stop them. Hands were reaching out of the grave as they lowered Spencer in, grabbing him to tear him apart. Too late. I failed.
By the time the others caught up with me I was crying so hard I could barely speak. I tried to explain who Spencer was while they tried to calm me down. Not very successful on either side. But the men, or zombies, or whatever they were had all disappeared, and ahead in the distance was a city. Just like another of those Vaquelin paintings. We kept walking.
The city, when we got there, seemed somehow not quite real. It was divided up into areas that looked like they were devoted to different crafts, so Jim went looking for paintings, which he found in a wide variety of different styles. We figured out this was another place from Vaquelin's past. Djeraba, the artists' colony in the Tunisian desert.
It looked like we were on a time limit though, with walls cracking and crumbling behind us. By this point we knew we had to find Vaquelin. We passed crucified figures, and heard rhythmic chanting in what sounded like Latin or French. Jim was looking worse and worse. We walked through caves, full of the smell of incense and rot. My mother's death filled my mind. It seemed like death was walking alongside us.
Then we found him. A temple, or a cavern, with markings all over the walls, and in the centre was Vaquelin on his knees on a carpet, surrounded by twelve or so of the living dead we'd seen so many of. In front of him were three objects. A crown, a knife and a stick, which I later realised was a carved bone.
Somehow I was sure I had to get hold of those objects. Jared attempted to create an opening in the ring of zombies by talking to Vaquelin, while Jim tried removing the markings from the walls. Vaquelin didn't respond though, and the zombies started circling around Jared.
Jared must have remembered those first ones that chased him, as he re-opened his wound and smeared blood onto one of them, then punched him in the face. I guess he must had reminded Jared of his father, as he started shouting about how of course he was a disappointment, he was his son.
There was still no opening in the ring of zombies, but at least now they were distracted. As Jim went for Vaquelin, I pushed my way through and picked up the knife. And then I could hear Spencer's voice in my head again, but this time he was telling me he was imprisoned inside Jim. I could see a hand bulging out of Jim's skin where he got stung. I didn't know what to do.
Vaquelin looked at Jim and waved that bone wand, and one of the living dead turned inside out. He started talking to Jim, something about power and eternal life. Jared was lecturing his father about how he'd ruined his mother's life. But I was barely listening. I knew in my heart that that wasn't really Spencer talking. I told him I was sorry, but I'd already seen him die, and I reached for the crown.
Vaquelin stabbed me with his bone wand, but by that point I didn't care. I put on the crown and stabbed him. He grabbed my hand, and something about it felt familiar. I felt a vibration in the crown, and suddenly I was somewhere else. Somewhere dark and windy.
I was at the waterfront, at the Golden Gate Bridge, and I was angry. Spencer was there, and he was angry too, shouting at me and holding a bunch of papers. I shouted back. And then there was a hooded figure behind him, who stabbed Spencer and demanded money. I handed over everything he wanted, and he left, leaving me alone with Spencer.
The knife was in my hand. I pulled it out, then pushed Spencer over the bridge and threw the knife in after him. Then I was in my own room, waking up next to empty bottles of pills and liquor. Wondering what had happened to Spencer.
Then I was back in hell, with Vaquelin smiling at me, enjoying my pain. He seemed to know what I did. I'm not sure I knew myself. But I could see the others being attacked and I couldn't let that continue, so I stabbed him again, trying to get it right this time so I could make him stop, but his hands fastened around my throat and moments later I was blacking out from lack of air.
When I woke up I was in some kind of mediterranean villa with the smell of jasmine in the air. I was bleeding from a wound in my chest. A heart shaped piece of flesh seemed to be missing from over my heart, and somehow that seemed to make sense. Jim was trying to treat the wound, and Jared came in with a first aid kit and managed to clean me up.
Compared to everywhere we'd been recently, this place was actually nice. There were a lot of personal items around though, particularly clothes, and it didn't take long to figure out which painting this was. The Coupling.
Jared went to the kitchen to find us some food. I wasn't sure about eating. My mind kept going back to that Rosetti painting of Proserpine holding the pomegranate. But Jared suggested that I could be stuck there with him for eternity or go out and face whatever was out there in hell. And a sandwich followed by an eternity there with Jared didn't seem too bad a prospect.
Jim still looked badly ill, but slightly better than before. His searches had found a set of blank panels, presumably intended for the Tears of Djeraba triptych. He decided to add his own pictures. Something nice. A cat and a possum.
While the place seemed comfortable enough it was hard to ignore the sounds of lovemaking coming from upstairs, and in the end the three of us went upstairs to investigate. At this point I don't think any of us were surprised to find naked dead people having sex. Black feathers littered the bed around them, and when Jim picked one up, we heard the sound of movement and then a huge statue of a weeping angel appeared, with talons for hands and razor sharp wings.
It spoke with the voice of Mariells Dubois. She told us that Vaquelin has given her life eternal. Jared didn't think it was worth it, if she had to spend it as a statue. She told us that that was her on the bed. We argued that that was not how it had really happened - these two dead people with their intestines spilling out. Jared went on, suggesting that Vaquelin wasn't really into it, and that's why he'd parked her out here as a statue. Maybe he was just using her. She had killed her own husband for him, after all. Sure he'd saved her from dying of pancreatic cancer, but was this existence really living?
This was a chance for me to finally find out what really happened at the exhibition. Marielle told me that Vaquelin had needed a sacrifice to let his magic through into our world. He'd invaded the body of the security guard, so that Marielle could be his bride. It was to show the world the beauty of his art.
It seemed Jared's words were starting to get through to her, but she swore he was too powerful for her to stop. We asked if she could get us home, given that none of us wanted to be here. She couldn't, but suggested that we would find our own way, and then vanished into the bed. The black feathers were left behind. Each of us picked some up, very careful of their razor sharp edges.
Once again we had to get out. It seemed too obvious, but I was sure that we could simply walk out of the front door. So we did so, and once again found ourselves in a long corridor.
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