by Lucas Thorn
She was a redhaired beauty, Vasilja thought. Pale freckled skin. Had worked in a clothing factory, so fingers were rough and nails split.
Ribs a ladder down torso.
Mole on hip.
Thin legs, placed wide apart.
Fragile. Weak.
Exposed.
Body cleaned and washed for ritual.
The old man dusted her with ashes from an urn. Holy wafers charred and burnt. Mixed with blood and spit.
He sprinkled it across her breasts. Paused to reach out and grab each bosom with gnarled hands. Kneading them roughly as he worked the ash into soft skin.
“I baptise thee in Lucifer’s name,” he intoned. Moving his hands even lower. “I baptise thee in Lucifer’s name…”
Vasilja smiled, amused by the erection beneath his robe. Plain to see there was nothing else he was wearing beneath.
The woman moaned when he began rubbing her belly with the dry mixture.
It was, she thought, almost comical. The rituals Dracula had led were more pagan. Simpler. There was less melodrama. Why Hailwic had chosen this particular ritual to hunt down, Vasilja didn’t know.
If they’d returned to Castle Dracula, perhaps they’d have found another. His journals had been missing, but surely his lesser grimoires were still in the castle. He couldn’t have taken them all.
The woman rolled her head. The laudanum beginning to wear off.
The little boy looked unconcerned.
Perhaps he’d been in a church before and seen rituals performed.
Most likely couldn’t tell the difference between a holy and unholy rite.
He caught her looking at him and smiled. Lifted his toy at her. Showing it off.
She nodded back at him, returning the smile as Freddy began climbing onto the table between the woman’s legs. His weight made it awkward. The robe lifted too high, showing rough hairs streaking his thighs and buttocks.
Vasilja winced.
“I baptise thee,” he said again, words rushing loose. Voice rushing as he felt the woman stir. “In Lucifer’s name.”
Held out a hand, and Senka handed him an iron goblet.
He raised it high above his head.
“Lucifer! Prince of Darkness! We dedicate this sacrifice to you. We purge it of its purity. We revoke its ties to Heaven and corrupt its innocence with Absolution. Great Satan, we beseech thee! Bear witness to this, the Revelation of her Sin.”
He drank from the goblet.
A heady mix of spices, wine, and the ashes of biblical passages from the Old Testament.
She stirred again, one arm shaking as the unholy priest grabbed her hair and lifted her head. Put the mug to her lips and poured the remaining contents into her mouth.
She gagged, but swallowed enough to content him
Then he pushed the goblet back to Senka, who tossed it over her shoulder. It bounced with a sharp clatter before hitting the wall. Caused Dimiti to look over his shoulder. Saw everything was fine, so turned back to the door, peering out into the city’s gloomy streets.
Frederic huffed a few more obscenities. Voice gruff and excited.
Groped the young woman’s breasts.
Sweat dribbled off his beard.
He placed the knife against the woman’s thigh. Wiped his face dry with his sleeve.
And read aloud from one of the grimoires.
A harsh and guttural string of gibberish, she thought. At least, it sounded enough like Latin to appear a gross parody of the language. Dracula had used Sumerian, she remembered. And Hebrew. It had sounded a lot more organised and sensible.
She tapped her knee with a finger. Impatient now.
Hector waved at her.
She waved back.
He was so little, she thought. Had she ever thought of being a mother? Before Dracula had found her? Had she entertained such thoughts? She couldn’t recall.
She’d been part of a Devil’s coven. Not witches like Senka would know them. Worshippers.
Devotees.
There were three other women. Two crones and a young girl with dirty feet.
That’s all she could remember.
Dirty feet.
And a lot of blood.
Frederic placed the grimoire to his left. Took the second grimoire and continued from that. More mumbled streams of perverted Latin.
Did Frederic understand what they meant?
She assumed he didn’t. But if it bothered him, he didn’t show it. His cheeks were flush. His eyes roaming the young woman’s naked body as she opened her mouth and let out another long groan from somewhere deep inside. A groan which almost had the strength to become a wail.
Vasilja realised she’d forgotten to ask for the woman’s name. She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. She’d have to ask Frederic later.
Senka moved around the altar. Eyes glinted in candlelight. Lips drawn back, fangs bared. Slowly, she took off her coat and tossed it across an abandoned pew. Then her shirt.
Stripped down to nakedness, her powerful shoulders flexed.
Frederic almost forgot what to say as he caught sight of her, but miraculously didn’t misspeak. And was able to maintain his composure enough to hold out both arms to the younger vampire.
Who bent slowly and took the boy in her own.
Then held him out. Reluctantly.
She wanted the boy for herself.
There is a beat, Vasilja thought. To life. A thrumming beat whose rhythm can be heard to those who have an ear for such things.
Vasilja fancied herself as one such person.
She could hear the beat of the drugged woman’s heart.
Slow.
Steady. Rising rapidly now and then as her brain surfed the rise and swirl of laudanum’s special kiss.
And there was the boy’s beat.
Soft. Faster. But maintained.
He had no fear. She’d told him not to be afraid. And her control endured even as Frederic took him from Senka’s hands.
Steady.
Trusting.
Still holding the ridiculous toy.
Senka moved to stand at the woman’s head. Placed hands on either side, flat on the table. And licked her lips.
Anticipation coiled inside the young vampire like a snake.
An adder.
Bunched and ready to strike.
Frederic, his life reaching its zenith, was a rushing crash of blood as his veins flooded with adrenaline. Fear and lust merged, forming a miraculous state of being in which he revelled in the evil works he was conspiring to achieve.
This moment was something he’d been waiting for.
A moment of complete and utter abandon as he threw aside everything which had constrained him. Threw it aside and held head high, and the boy even higher.
Reached down.
Grabbed hold of the knife. A knife which had once been blessed but was now corrupted with evil.
By chance, the boy, held upside down by his feet, was looking at Vasilja. One eye wide. The other still burdened by the ugly wart.
He smiled.
Waved his toy.
And two things happened in one epic crescendo as the music of life abandoned the gentle and sublime rise to descend into the catastrophic chaos of a chorus birthed in the fiery maw of Hell itself.
First, Dimiti bellowed incoherently and began firing his revolver at someone rushing up the stairs toward the church.
He kicked the door shut and slammed the bar in place.
Shouted; “It won’t hold them long!”
Second, Frederic slit the boy’s scrawny throat.
Blood sprayed across the old priest’s chest and he quickly turned the wriggling body around to aim the gushing flow onto the writhing body of the drugged woman. Who began to mew as blood wet her pale white skin.
Vasilja leaned forward. Smell of fresh blood overpowered her senses.
Senka, standing close, let out a cry of triumph as she was hit with a spray of crimson. It splashed her face. Riddl
ed down her cheek and neck.
Breasts.
Arms.
Belly.
Howling in glee, the young vampire hadn’t noticed Dimiti’s cries. Or the loud explosive shots of his gun.
Or the answering blasts which put splintering holes through the wall.
“I baptise thee in the blood of the innocent! I crown thee in the blood of the innocent! I defile thee in the blood of the innocent!”
He tossed Hector aside, smearing the woman’s body with blood. Covering every inch of her pale white skin. Revelling in it. The iron tang of blood no double filling his own nostrils, too.
Hector landed with a crash among the abandoned pews.
His whimpering cries were wet gargles as the little body fought for breath through slashed windpipe.
Failed.
Body shivered into stillness.
Frederic, lost to the ritual’s hedonistic lust, pushed his robes aside.
Took handfuls of the woman’s skin at her hips.
And thrust inside her, not knowing this occurred at the precise moment Hector’s heart beat its final beat.
Wouldn’t have cared if he had.
In that single moment, carnal lust dragged his reason across coals which flared and burned with the fires of monstrous and inhuman instinct. Any last shred of empathy the man called Frederic may have felt was lost to him.
He grunted.
Didn’t manage more than a few clumsy thrusts before he completed fouling her.
Scrambled to grab the knife as more bullets smashed through the door. He didn’t look over his shoulder. A bullet screamed past his ear, but he didn’t hear it.
Raised the knife.
Shouting wildly.
Arms wide.
The Devil’s laughter pounding in his ears.
Music of damnation at its most ruinous.
Dimiti smashed a window and began shooting into the dark. Reloading as quickly as he could. Eyes wild.
And Frederic’s voice screamed, loud and clear as he brought the blade plunging into the chest of the woman he’d so eagerly defiled; “Satan! Satan! Satan!”
Blade slammed home.
Sheathed in innocent blood made corrupt with the most diabolical sins.
Silence.
A deafening rumble of silence.
The kind which left breaths caught in lungs.
Then a rush. Shout.
And the door boomed as something heavy hit it from outside.
“Lady?” Dimiti called. “They’re almost through!”
Vasilja stood.
Sighed.
Looked to the altar.
Senka, red with blood from her hair to navel.
Head bowed across the bloody wound.
Sucked deep.
“Senka? There’s really no time for that.”
The young vampire’s head whipped up. Eyes, black as night, chilled Vasilja’s core even colder than it had been before. They were not Senka’s eyes.
Not anymore.
“Senka?”
And the young vampire’s eyes began to burn with fire. They boiled and bubbled, spitting sparks and molten gore.
Not just any fire.
Felfire.
And Senka began to laugh.
And laugh.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
She heard Dimiti shout.
Heard the first shot.
Had started to look toward the door when Frederic slit Hector’s throat.
The old man’s hands held more strength than she’d expected. Also hesitated less than she’d thought he would. Frederic’s eyes froze with a complete lack of compassion for the boy. Lost in lust for the act he’d committed himself to completing.
Blood gushed.
Hit the old priest first.
But he turned the boy around, the expanding wound aimed instead at the drugged woman between Senka’s hands. A pumping spray wide enough to hit the vampire, too.
The slick warmth burned into her skin.
Her nostrils flared and mouth opened to catch precious drops spurting free.
Taste, a heady mix of youth and splendour.
Intoxicating.
Blood, overflowing. Dripping off the table in waves.
Then he threw the boy aside. She watched the body tumble in the air, a part of her disappointed she couldn’t keep it. Couldn’t drain the last of its life herself.
There was a hum in the air.
An electric hum which filled her mind with song.
The song of Fel. Her mouth split into fanged grin.
Frederic pushed aside his robe, revealing his erection in a manner which should have startled her. It didn’t. Her mind was already lifting beyond her body as though a hand from somewhere far away had reached forth and was trying to drag her free.
He thrust into the woman.
A few somewhat panicked moments later and he pulled himself free, spilling ejaculate across the table. Wiped hands quickly and, without pause, fingers wrapped around the dagger. Trembled, excitement more than fear.
It gleamed in his fist, and she was aware for the first time of the absolute power building to a terrible climax within the defiled church.
Could smell the seething taste of brimstone.
Feel the hot rhythm of ritual beat a pulse through the universe’s fragile fabric as one world peeled back to expose its belly to the jaws of another.
He raised the knife. Eyes delirious with sadistic joy.
And, bringing it down, howled; “Satan! Satan! Satan!”
Each call of her master’s name went through her like a bell. A solid wall of heat crashing past, making her stagger. She held onto the table to keep her feet as it washed her soul with corrupted force.
Pounded with the impact of a fist.
On the last, she fell forward.
And, as she toppled, the hand which had been pulling at her mind gave a spiteful yank and the world disappeared in a wild scream of light and sound.
Darkness.
Swallowed her with a gulp. Snap of jaws.
Precious silence. Darkness smothering her.
Empty.
Alone.
Then she was falling.
Falling like a star from the heavens.
White dress seemed impossibly long. Tattered. Stained. Caught in the slipstream. A tail winding into the dark.
She heard it again. The thunderous toll of the Felstone.
The deeper she fell, the louder it became until each heavy ring made her put her hands to her ears. Then wind. Wind tearing at her dress. She burned through atmosphere.
Senka screamed with it.
She was a white comet. A pure line streaking from the sky. A star, shining bright. Flaring in the last moment before impact.
And then she hit.
Blasted a crater into rough earth, sending debris spitting in all directions. Lay there, on her back. Feeling nothing. Just aching emptiness as if the sudden crash had torn all sensation from her body.
Staring up at the cavernous ceiling so far above. Misted fog crawling along the roof of this world.
Shuddered.
Gasped for breath, sucking a lungful with panicked need.
Slowly, rolled onto her side and began the painful crawl up the steep slope of the crater she’d created.
Fingers clawed into scorched earth. Hot.
Smell of brimstone. Burning. Searing her lungs.
She hauled herself over the lip and tumbled down the other side. Chunks of stone and moist earth rolled with her. With an agonised cry, she slammed to a halt against a twisted trunk.
Looked up.
A leafless tree, bark spotted with foul purple infection. Disease raced through the tree’s wooden flesh, chewing into its heart like acid. Throbbing light as spores wriggled inside pus-filled sores, trying to escape.
The rancid glow made her feel ill and she kicked away.
Hanging from the high branches, a dozen bodies.
Ropes tied their wrists. Long wooden stakes dri
ven through shins, thighs, and bellies. Iron nails hammered into skulls like metal crowns.
A fetid breeze made ropes creak as they swayed, and each movement drew sorrowful moans from their mouths.
She could see them.
They couldn’t see her.
They had no eyes.
Shuddering, she turned and scampered away, dress tangling around her legs. As she ran, she tore it loose, ripping the cloth just above the knee. Legs free, she ran faster.
Easier.
Bare feet kicked smoking dirt. Didn’t notice as green flames licked her soles. Plasma burped from below the surface, spitting green energy in sparks.
Green lake, thick with brimstone stink, churned to her left. Hands stretched for the shore. Clawing for safety they’d never find. Raked at wet mud but found no purchase.
Occasionally a head might break the surface.
Might get the chance to suck a breath of air.
Perhaps let out a caw of pure madness.
Then dragged back into the molten depths by some unseen beast.
Senka’s attention lifted toward the cavern’s impossibly large roof. It stretched forever in all directions, promising no end to the torment below. Other figures were falling. Tumbling from the dark.
Their impacts would be just as violent as her own.
Dark things flew between them.
Things with no name.
She saw one lunge at a falling body. Sharp and blacker than night. A creature from a primordial time. Massive wings to propel its hulking draconic body.
Enormous fang-filled mouth opened impossibly wide.
Heard it roar. A sound like the screech of tearing steel.
Wings unfurled as it swept onto its prey. Slowing descent. Kicked at air, then up it went, launching itself higher and higher.
The thing wheeled overhead, slavering jaws crunching.
Blood and bone shrapnel spattered the ground nearby, but the vampire had no desire to taste it.
She kept running.
Didn’t know where she was running to.
The ground cracked in front of her. Green flame spewed from the wound. Putrid molten stone hissed like a snake. Crackle and pop of burning rock which split and burst.
She angled around it. Leapt a thin chasm.
Felt the heat rush up her legs.
Kept running.
A demon rushed past. Huge legs carrying it fast. Fur-draped flanks. Bristles down bare humanoid back. It glanced at her. Wide flat face. Bulbous nose. Tusks protruding from its lower jaw. Green skin and bright green eyes made brighter as they burned with Felfire.