The Strange Case of Miss Lavinia Armitrage

Arkham

Arkham, Massachusetts

They were out of time.  After giving Prinn the slip in French Hill, they stopped at the intersection of Lich Street and Parsonage. His bruiser of a vehicle suddenly appeared, and the pursuit was resumed. After getting their bearings again, they ran past the edge of the Quadrangle and to the corner of Church Street, just skirting the campus of Miskatonic University. Prinn was right behind them, and they had only minutes to spare. If they were going to stop the process that had begun back in Dunwich, they had to do it now.  Ward still wasn't sure just what part Lavinia would play in the final chapter, but he was glad to have her with him.  She was much stronger and resolute than he had anticipated, and the horrors they had already confronted hadn't fazed her like he would have thought. He cursed himself for taking Prinn so lightly and for not planting him six feet under when he had the chance.

"Hangman's Hill is just ahead, and the river is to the right. The graveyard is just before we get to the street facing the river..." Ward hesitated slightly, and then picked up the pace.  He glanced at his watch. "Thirteen minutes to midnight..."

"Sounds about right," Lavinia murmured, trying to keep up.  Stumbling, she cursed her choice in footwear for the thousandth time.

They could sense the ground rising slightly as they continued their brisk pace.  A wooded hillock appeared through the gloom in the distance.  They alternated glancing behind them, but there was still no sign of the pursuit that they knew was coming. Ward looked at a dimly-lit street sign. "West Street. Almost there..."

They suddenly blundered into a group of college students who appeared from behind a large oak. Everyone cried out simultaneously in surprise.  A jovial-looking lad in a Miskatonic U. sweater burst out laughing, quite loudly and much to Ward's dismay. Two sorority sisters squealed and also began laughing and trying to conceal the adult beverages they had been imbibing. "Excuse us," Nathaniel interjected, pulling Lavinia and crossing the street. The students continued laughing, and then there were shouts from further behind them.  "Prinn!" he said to Lavinia, who was already quickening her pace.

They ducked around the corner of a low stone wall and caught their breath. Lavinia looked back apprehensively. 

"Do you see them?" Ward asked, straining to see through the gathering mist.

"No...wait--there!" She pointed at a now-brightening point of light, followed by several others bobbing up and down behind the first. Flashlight beams, scanning to the left and right, all the while coming ever closer. They crossed Boundary Street and ran onto the grassy area that signaled the edge of Hangman's Hill.

"Through the woods on the right," blurted Ward, and they sprinted ahead.  Soon they could see faint outlines of worn grey tombstones, and a shiver went through Lavinia. "Come on!" Ward pulled her arm.  They began running again. The Miskatonic River was somewhere just ahead of them, and with it, perhaps, the end of their quest.

"Hangman's Brook is at the back of the cemetery," she said breathlessly. Behind them, they heard a ruckus of some sort, and then angry words mixed with shrill giggles, and the sound of a glass bottle bouncing across the cobbled pavement.  "Sounds like Prinn ran into our party-goers," she exclaimed. 

"Maybe he'll stop for a nightcap--he was never one to pass up a free drink..." Ward strained to hear the tell-tale sounds of pursuit.

"We should be so lucky," said Lavinia.

"No, I'm not kidding--Az would stop for a drink even if the hounds of Hell were nipping at his backside."

"I'd prefer those pooches to his damned spook cats!" she replied.