Handbook of Erotic Fantasy: Unfinished Business (Patreon)

The planchette skittered. The candles flickered. The noblewoman felt more than a little foolish. She had been promised a chance at confrontation with the undead. Instead, she had passed the greater part of her evening at play with a Parker Brothers toy. Worse, the sylph across the table seemed utterly unconcerned with her growing impatience.

“It takes two to tango,” the occultist had said. “Sure you can Ouija by yourself, but it’s always more fun with a partner.”

An odd way to frame life-or-death combat with the paranormal. So Van Helscion had thought at the time. And now, many hours and many candles later, there was nothing ‘fun’ about the situation. The half-orc hunter harbored a growing suspicion that she had been duped, but to what end she could not fathom. She elected to adopt a stratagem.

“Do you know,” she said, “I had an elderly aunt on the Gildentusk side. Gashnakh, I believe her name was. Or possibly Gabriella. Who can keep them all straight? But she was a very great lady in possession of a very large income. She could boast of extensive estates, a fine town home, and a vast ineptitude in all matters pertaining to cozenry and charlatanism. It was an open secret among the family that she consorted with soothsayers and miracle workers of the very least reputation. To wit, she kept a pet spiritualist on staff. I saw him once as a girl. It was only from afar and through the window of a moving carriage, but I still maintain a distinct impression of a crooked figure looming in the door of some cramped and dismal hermitage. He was exceedingly thin, with only a few strands of hair the color of ash to his credit. His face was utterly lacking in that probity which folk of sense know for a mark of virtue, instead bearing a twist of sardonic malice which I hesitate now, as then, to dignify with the name of ‘smile.’ I shuddered as I saw him, and wished nothing whatever to do with the man, or for that matter his deceitful practice.”

Van Helscion paused her anecdote then, looking through narrowed eyes at the woman opposite. But before she could so much as roll Insight, she was interrupted.

“Occultist,” said Occultist.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Your Great Aunt who-gives-a-shit had a spiritualist. I’m an occultist. Totally different setup.”

Van Helscion’s frown deepened. “Are we both touching a planchette?”

“Yup.”

“And is this device, with its faux-arcane symbology, not the very icon of spiritualism?”

“It is.”

“Then would it not be fair to say that you are practicing the ‘art’ (and I use the term very loosely) of spiritualism?”

“That makes sense to me.”

“Then you are a spiritualist.”

“Nope. I don’t have a phantom in my head. Big difference.”

It was at that point that the ghosts slithered into the ladies’ respective ears. And as the pink glow of conjugal bliss shot from tomb portraits to living flesh, and as twin saves vs. possession were summarily failed, and as Van Helscion felt a masculine presence overwhelming her mind and faculties, the last thing her consciousness comprehended was the voice of the sylph. “Damn,” it said. “I was hoping to top this time. Three freaking votes!” And then the promised confrontation with the undead began in earnest.