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Keep Up With Hildred
LUST
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Lust
Sins of Mercy #1
Hildred Billings
BARACHOU PRESS
Lust
Copyright: Hildred Billings
Published: June 24th, 2020
Publisher: Barachou Press
This is a work of fiction. Any and all similarities to any characters, settings, or situations are purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.
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LUST
—-
Straddling the line between corporeal and ethereal was never easy.
To be fair, this was the first time in nearly a hundred years a being like Acedia had touched a wispy foot upon the earth.
She was used to watching from afar. Or was it considered adjacent to the mortal world? She was an immortal being who neither existed on the mortal plane nor in some heavenly sphere. She simply was. Like she could split herself into any number of independent personalities, Acedia could be both visible to the naked eye and never once spotted as she moved between shoulders and breathed the same air as the people going about their lives. Some of them had called to her. Wasn’t that why she was there? Wasn’t that why she gazed into the sad faces of forgotten women and heard the whispers of forgetful men?
Their pain touched her. From the day she was created – or was it born from the earth? – she had been keenly attuned to the silent wails of those who suffered deeply on a spiritual level.
Once, so long ago, a cult had worshipped her. Those fearless women of ancient times were gone now, their ways also dissipated upon the wind, but Acedia remembered them. She recalled the happy faces she had touched with her divinity. She would never forget the young women and the wizened crones she blessed with her endless, bountiful love.
Unlike some other deities that roamed the earth, Acedia’s strength was not reliant upon the number worshiping her at any given moment. She was not empowered by prayer. How was that possible? Every time she came across that sentiment, she could only laugh. Imagine! A goddess that didn’t exist unless someone worshipped her! Only a mortal could come up with such silly notions. Probably a man. Acedia had nothing against them. It was men who allowed her original temples to be built, although they had also been the ones to tear them down. Once, she had been a blessing upon the people who called her. Soon, she was devolved to cult status. Then a nuisance. Soon, she was a danger. A demon who came into the night and stole women away from perfectly decent homes and husbands. Girls were given objects to wear to ward her away, not that such things worked. Maidens ran from her, even if she took the form of their best friend. Young married women prayed to find happiness in their marriages while uttering breaths meant to fend off Acedia, the goddess who was all too soon forgotten by the very class she swore to heal and protect.
She had never known any differently. Even when she was forgotten, she continued her divine work. Like her sister, the entity born alongside her, fulfilled her dark duties in another realm.
Acedia hadn’t interfered with a mortal’s life in so long. The last time had been a miserable failure, the poor dear succumbing to Acedia’s sister’s dark and twisted promises. It hadn’t always been like that. Acedia won, more often than not. Did she condone the games she played with her sister, though? No. She didn’t think of them as games. She thought of them as duties they fulfilled, and it was her duty to turn all spiritually destitute women away from the darkness.
Such a call had brought her to the mortal realm once more. After a hundred years of dormancy, licking her wounds and recalling a time when her followers embraced her, Acedia was ready.
A young woman had fallen asleep on a park bench, slumped over from the weariness of a long day at work before she was to return home to her sick mother. The woman didn’t yet realize that a major source of fatigue wasn’t the stress weighing upon her shoulders, but the new life growing inside of her – courtesy of a one-night stand she swore would relieve her tension four weeks ago. Yet as she slept, she afforded Acedia the perfect opportunity to borrow her body and readjust to the world.
So much had changed in the past hundred years, never mind in America, a country that hadn’t existed the last time Acedia successfully turned a woman away from the darkness. She of course knew about technological advances, great strides in medicine, and changes in social mores that meant the world as an ancient life knew it was no more, but Acedia was no less amazed to gaze upon bright lights, busy people, and buildings so tall that she lost their rooftops to the sky. The gaping mouth she now commanded let out a low whistle of appreciation. Human ingenuity. Who knew? This was a deity who had been impressed with Roman aqueducts and praised the Chinese for their impressive houses of worship. If there was an unveiling in history that had hosted a languid woman who suddenly chirped up in raucous, sometimes inappropriate applause, it was probably Acedia’s fault.
For, unlike what her named implied, she was quite involved in human affairs. She was simply in a strict place of viewing from the sidelines, never to directly interfere unless a voice had cried out to her.
Whether they knew it or not.
Acedia left the woman on the bench and once more blended into the crowd, invisible yet leaving a chilling breath on the backs of necks and warmth in stomachs. The men also looked around as Acedia passed a busy intersection full of cars and bicycles. One woman nearly slammed on her breaks when she swore she saw a female figure brush past the front of the car. Yet one second later, she swore no one was there.
Acedia was both taking in everything she saw and following the cries of sorrow luring her through neighborhoods and across planes of ephemeral wonder. As she slid through one reality and into another, the voice grew stronger. So did her urge to comfort, to love, and to surrender to the will of a woman reciting a time-honored tradition of summoning a goddess to her aid.
Mercy…
That was the name echoing in Acedia’s head. She saw Mercy’s face before her wherever she turned. How could she not? Every line, every contour was now etched into her memory. That’s how it worked. That’s how Acedia afforded her heart the wonders of love and healing.
Of course, that’s not what Mercy was thinking about as she lay across her bed, bottle of vodka in one hand and a pocketknife in the other.
She stared at the glistening blade in her hand, but didn’t dare touch her skin. No, Mercy was merely on the precipice of doing something drastic. It was those late-night sobs, curses against God, and pleading in the dead of sleep that had summoned Acedia from her celestial hiatus. Had there been other women in the meantime? Of course. Why hadn’t Acedia gone to the countless women beseeching her calm and glory? Besides her own minute fears that she would only send them back to the darkness?
None of them had been the right one. Acedia hadn’t been ready, much to the poor dears’ chagrin. But there was nothing she could do until she was capable of commanding her own power again. For while she could help one woman after another – and had, many times long ago – only once an age could she don the mask of a mortal and live as one of her own subjects.
Acedia ached to know that again. It had been over five-hundred years since she last lived life as
a mortal woman. The love she had felt then had been as immortal as her own soul. That lovely young lady she called her mate had lived a divine twenty years before succumbing to things the mortal Acedia could not save her from.
Nothing could have saved her. That was the damnation of a mortal life.
When Acedia returned to the spirit world at the end of that mortality, she swore she would not go back until her heart ached and her soul cried for companionship. A hundred years ago, she had been ready. Her failures had not only stricken her in her pride, but broken her heart.
Time inevitably healed wounds. And, inevitably, Acedia returned.
“You poor thing.” She stood at the edge of Mercy’s bed, wondering if this woman sensed her presence. As much as Acedia attempted to project an aura of tranquility, she knew that at these early stages of healing, it was difficult to reach out to her destitute followers. “You have cried yourself numb.”
That’s how it always began. The women Acedia healed were usually at the lowest of their low. They danced at the edge of the spirit world, either prepared to take the final plunge themselves, or accept their fate at the hands of another. There was no will to fight back. No need to plea for mercy. Why bother, when the kiss of death felt more appealing than the brutal punch of life?
Mercy struggled to sip more of her drink. When she couldn’t bring it to her lips, she allowed the half-drunk bottle to crash to her carpet. She didn’t give a shit that the room now reeked of alcohol.
“I will save you, Mercy.” Acedia reached for her, but quickly retracted her hand. She couldn’t touch Mercy now. She would have to wait for the strength of night, when the moon was high and she was corporeal enough to intervene. “I will do whatever it takes to save you. You called for my help. Well, here I am.”
Mercy didn’t move. She had no will. No drive. Not a lick of desire. She had numbed herself from the pain of life. Acedia knew a bit about it. A toxic ex-girlfriend. A worthless job. A friendless existence. Withdrawn family. The taste of vodka had lost all appeal. The will to live and experience the magic of life had escaped with every one of Mercy’s seven sins.
“I’ll bring them back, Mercy. I promise. Tonight, I will come back and show you what it means to feel alive. Then…” Acedia withdrew to the wall, where she became one with the paint and drywall. “You will know what it means to be loved. Hang in there for a little while longer. I’m coming.”
She had to regather her bearings. She had to consult her own power. Most of all, Acedia had to prepare to split into the seven aspects of herself once more.
The difference between her and a demon? Demons corrupted human sin for their own aggressive gains. Deities like Acedia? They introduced sin. Right where it had been lost the hardest.
For to sin was to be alive, and living was the endgame of existence.
1
Mercy Devereux stood on the edge of a bridge, staring into the abyss below.
One foot slipped against the stonework. Mercy latched onto the ledge, adrenaline pumping through her system as her heart flurried in alarm. For a moment, she reconsidered her intentions, but that was instinct. Survival. Millions of years of evolution at work inside her brain, which had miraculously formed inside her mother at a time when cavemen no longer existed. She hadn’t asked for it to know the instinctual difference between danger and safety. Hell, she hadn’t asked to be born.
This night was a long time coming.
Mercy unearthed her vial of liquid courage and let the alcohol burn her throat. It warmed her against the cold, breezy night. It could not warm the rest of her, however. Not after she had numbed herself to the emotions that had burdened her for so long.
“Just fucking do it,” she muttered, hair blowing in the breeze and obstructing her view of the blackened water below. Nobody survived a fall from that bridge. The reputation of such a place had become so dismal that signs littered the pathways, imploring would-be jumped to “Not do it,” and that, “God is with you.” Or maybe she should, “Call this number if you have dark thoughts.” Well, Mercy had long learned that if there were a God, He had no interest in her life. Probably because she was a sinning lesbian who drank too much and smoked pot without guilt.
Besides! She had called those numbers. All of them! Each time she was met with the condescending, tired voices of people swearing that they knew how she felt. What she was going through. As if. When Mercy sat on her bathroom floor, sobbing and drinking, asking the hotline why her girlfriend of four years beat her and her best friend left her, she was given sputtering emptiness and an emptier, “It will get better!” Mercy couldn’t convey how much she detested that phrase.
What was death to her? Only an end to the pain she put up with for the past year, and the depression for far longer. Pills didn’t work. Therapy was a joke… Mercy had nowhere else to turn to except this bridge, infamous for the number of people who jumped off it every year.
She clutched the railing and swung her leg over, the wind now stronger as it nearly lifted her into the canyon.
“What are you doing?”
Mercy looked over her shoulder, expecting a bystander. Instead, she saw nothing, aside from the empty road and the shaking trees.
“Over here.”
Slowly, Mercy turned her head again, legs still straddling the railing.
Nothing was in her line of sight. Aside from a ball of white light.
“Oh, my God.” She was hallucinating. Already. Was this what it was like to be on the brink of death? Had Mercy already fallen? Was this life on the other side? The Beyond? A hot, white light appearing at the end of a tunnel? Fuck it. The thing was talking to her. She might as well hang up the hat and slip into that abyss beneath her.
Mercy leaned toward the side of the road, stomach tumbling as it prepared to throw up the alcohol she had been drinking all night.
“Are you Mercy?”
That thing was definitely talking to her. The white light, which grew brighter by the second, had Mercy grabbing either side of her head with a moan.
“You are, aren’t you? I’ve been watching you, Mercy. We all have.”
“Great. Now I have supernatural stalkers.” Mercy bent forward, placing her cheek against the cold barrier. At least it wasn’t digging into her crotch now. No, only some fairy giving her a hard time. “Been a long while since I hallucinated like this. I didn’t think I smoked anything.”
A hint of red flashed before Mercy. She attempted to shake the shock out of her system, but the light was still there. Apparently, it had more to say, too.
“I am not a hallucination.” Was it growing in size? Or coming closer? Mercy could hardly tell, thanks to her brain betraying her every time she attempted to focus her vision on what floated before her. “I am a deity. I am your deity, Mercy.”
The universe had to be kidding.
“Are you there, God?” Mercy drolly asked the night around her. “It’s me, Mercy.” That made her chuckle for the first time in days. “What does some mothball want with me? Come on, let’s get this over with. I have plans for tonight. I’d like to get them over with.”
“That’s it, Mercy. I am here to stop you.”
“Fuck that.” Mercy should have known that her plans would be foiled by a meddling god. I almost got away with it, too. Her mother might have warned her about this once. Or was it church? Wasn’t it amazingly difficult to separate the spiritual lies she had been told throughout her life? To think, when she had been a small child, she almost believed in literal sky fairies. Now there was one hovering before her, claiming to come and save her from herself. At least it wasn’t bright enough to make Mercy’s headache worse.
“You shouldn’t do this,” the voice said. Was it a woman? A little girl? Hard to tell when there was no face to go with the feminine whispers in the cold air. Was this one of those gender-non-conforming deities? She always heard that angels didn’t have genders. Would make sense for her literal guardian angel to defy all checkmarks at the doctor’s office. “If you m
ake that jump, you will die.”
“That’s the point.”
“It is not worth it.”
“I’ll be the judge of that, thanks.” It was official. This hallucination annoyed the shit out of Mercy. A woman can’t stand on a bridge without some deity trying to interfere. Go figure.
“If you die like this,” the voice continued, “you will be condemned.”
Oh, great. Now her subconscious was lecturing her that self-harm was a sin and she would go to Hell. Some guilt from her childhood never went away. “I don’t believe in any of that.” Mercy crept onto the side of the road, pulling herself away from the rising wind. Her soul was already numb. Her face didn’t need to be, too. “Besides, what’s so bad about Hell? I bet some cool people end up there.” Party and a half. Did she have to bring her own beer, though?
As if to remind her that it was there, the ball of white light flashed her right in the face. “Who said anything about Hell? I’m talking about something much worse.”
“Well. What a compelling argument.” Mercy teetered toward the side of death. If she survived this – if – she would probably regret it. That’s what she heard bridge-jump survivors say, anyway. A part of her always suspected that those interviews were either fake, or the men and women were paid to say that they had regrets. Did logic tell her that? Of course not. Did her negative emotions, which had been compounding for many years, whisper those dark thoughts into her ear every time she saw someone appear on the evening news? Obviously. See, Mercy subconsciously knew this about herself, too. Deep down, she admitted that her brash actions would not save her soul. She didn’t care about her soul. She cared about ending the pain. Exiting her role in this dark, lonely world.
Nobody would miss her. Those at work or in her neighborhood who might gasp and shed a tear on her behalf would get over it soon enough. Her house would be sold, either to a developer ready to tear it down, or to some couple looking to upgrade from their starter home. She didn’t own pets. Her job was far from specialized. Middle-management for a corporate office. Whooppee-fucking-doo. Maybe Cari, a number cruncher from the finance department, could finally get a big promotion with Mercy out of her corner office. And before anyone gets too excited, there are four corner offices on that floor, and mine is the smallest.
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