Sacrifice (Dylan Hart Odyssey of the Occult)

by Gilmore, RM

  I didn’t fight her. Hell, it didn’t even cross my mind. I’d let my heart make a decision before my head could tell that stupid heart to fuck right off. I knew that, really, deep down inside. I knew I was completely and totally fucked. It made no difference. It was too late. She had me. I’d given in. She had won me over and all it took was my dead daddy. Everyone had something, that one thing they would lay down and give their world over for, and mine was my father, better than a boyfriend or something equally meaningless and facetious.

  She kissed me, nothing like her colleague, but not any less charmed. Her soft lips pressed against mine, not hard or yearning like Mike or Cyrus, but poised and meticulous. I didn’t kiss her back, though her precision called for it. A handful of heartbeats passed, and she was finished. Her lips left mine swollen and faintly longing. The moment my eyes met hers, my feelings of hope and rapture were lost. Euphoria became pain that shot through my limbs, resembling electric shock. My gut ached as my lungs struggled to take in air. Convulsions began in my legs and moved up and out, until waves began rattling my head back and forth.

  She’d kill me before I got to see my dad. Maybe that was how I’d see him, on the other side. A deal I wanted, and a deal I was getting. My penance, she’d promised, my penance was all she wanted. Repayment for blood I’d spilt, literally. Promises of resurrected fathers were a farce created in my own head. Her motive hadn’t budged. What was a little lie to coax her victim into handing over their soul?

  She released me and I fell to the dirt. The drumming stopped in unison.

  “Zorin,” she called and the drummer came to her side. Her small pale hand touched his face and looked at him longingly. “Brother, would you please.” She handed him a leather pouch.

  I coughed and sputtered, trying to find my life again. She’d been inside me, in my soul. She’d taken a piece of me with her when she left, but it was the bit of her she’d left behind that churned and clawed under my skin.

  “You bitch,” I coughed and spat; blood hit the dirt. The claws were all too real. Gutting me from the inside out. I stumbled to my feet. “I’ll fucking kill you,” I said breathlessly. The fighter in me scrambling to maintain control. “My dad,” was all I could mutter out.

  She chuckled and waved her hand in my direction as if to shoo me away as she walked around the far side of the fire. Zorin, kin to my enemy, came to me. “Fuck you too.” I was losing steam. My legs trembled under my weight as I tried to get to my feet.

  He dug in an unseen pocket and retrieved a small doll made of many things. Fabric, thread, blood, bits, pieces, it was all there. It looked surprisingly like me. Complete with matted black hair atop its fabric head. He smiled and kissed the creepy little thing. My heart sputtered. He looked into my eyes and blew a soft breath against the doll. My lungs filled with air. I looked at the doll again; the hair was mine. Kinky and frizzy and black. I reached up to my own hair with unsteady hands and felt my head. My matted hair. The hair that voodoo cunt had snatched from my head during our second encounter. In the back, near the nape, a prickly patch of broken hairs tingled my pins and needles fingers. My body was beginning to feel tingly and numb, like it was going to sleep.

  Holding the leather pouch in one hand, he tossed the doll toward the fire. Instinctively, I lurched for it, jumping to my feet without a second thought. Quite obviously there was a chance I’d burst into flames if the damn thing hit the fire. I missed it and it fell to the dirt. Nothing happened, but it didn’t matter. I believed. That was all they needed.

  On my feet, pain cut through my body. I closed my eyes and prayed it would go away. I begged God or Satan, or whatever the fuck was listening to make the pain stop. I wanted nothing more than to see my dad, to hug him, to breathe him in; and Azelie wanted nothing more than to make me suffer, and she was surely getting what she wanted. It became more apparent every second I gritted through pain, that she would never produce my father. I would never get what I wanted. The only thing to do now was take the bitch down with me.

  Zorin took me by the arm. “Down,” he commanded.

  I refused. I still had a tiny bit of my own will. For now. “You’ll have to do better than that.” Blood filled my mouth from my gut and soaked my teeth and lips. The man and his sister were attempting to rip my soul out through my mouth and I was still looking at him like he was for dinner. I was losing the fight and my little trinket wasn’t enough to save me this time.

  The fire sat dead center, with Azelie on the other side of it. The sexiest, most dangerous man I’d met in my life, whatever I had left of one, wrenched my wrist behind my back until I complied and dropped to my knees on the ground. Holding my hair in one hand, just the way I liked it, Zorin pulled my head backward, tilting my face toward the starless sky. Long dark fingers smeared a sweet smelling paste across my forehead and dotted down my nose. I fought against his hold, but my muscles refused to work. My limbs flopped pathetically around my sides and through the dirt. With gumption, the man released my hair and shoved me toward the flames. My face hit the dirt first. Sand coated my lips and stuck to the blood and tears on my face.

  The blood in my mouth, the stench wafting around my head emanating from the wreath of decay on my head, one more disgusting straw and this camel would blow chunks all over the d’Entremonte tribe. “They’ll find you,” I coughed out. “They’ll come for me.” I didn’t really know who would come, but someone had to. My mom would send someone when I didn’t come home. They’d come to find Tatum. And Cyrus. Malcolm would come, if he were still with the living. He’d send Dominika and bring all his henchmen with her. They’d come.

  “Who’s that?” Zorin asked, his Cajun accent not nearly as thick as his sister’s.

  “My friends,” I promised, empty yet full of false hope.

  “Your friends?” Azelie laughed, a heavy belly sort of laugh. “Oh, my darlin’, you have no friends.”

  I sniffed snot back into my nose as I tried to get up from the dirt again. My bare stomach stung and burned from the paste or the dirt, I didn’t know which, but it didn’t hurt as much as that bitch digging around in my gut fucking hurt. I wanted to die, wanted it to end, but I’d never let that bitch be the one to take me out.

  “Yes, I do, and they’re bigger and badder than you!” I yelled, using all the energy I had saved up. “They’ll come for us,” I whispered.

  My gut wrenched when I finally sat up on my butt. Azelie sat on a stump, flames flickering between us. A full mask with long black reaching horns had replaced her skull headdress. Her arms lay slack on her thighs. Spread near her feet, her tools of the trade lay in wait. A small bowl filled with rusty nails, jars and corked beakers, herbs and gore, all waiting for her to put them to work.

  Rustling from the trees took my attention. From the dark, something white flashed.

  No more dead things, please. Inside, I sobbed. Outwardly, I spat blood in the dirt and snarled at whatever was about to come for me. I moved my legs under my butt and prepared myself for one last fight. I had nothing left to give but my life, and nothing to lose but my pride. Which do you think I’d give away first?

  Motion and white again. Light from the fire hardly picked up the change in color. Red and white. Red. White. I blinked my eyes tightly. Golden light flicked across the landscape only in the foreground. All else was dark.

  Through the trees nearest me it came. Red. White. Red. White. Tumbling. Flaming red and ghostly white. I couldn’t even muster a scream when it rolled into view. Red hair spilled around my knees when the head of Malcolm McTavish hit them like they were bowling pins at the end of the lane.

  On a different sort of day, I’d be thanking them for ridding my life of such an awful human being. Or whatever the fuck he was, but not now. He was my saving grace, him and his vampire brigade. They’d come looking for him. Someone would come. They had to.

  “What, no strike?” Marienne and her perfect white lace emerged from the woods.

  “Gutter ball, bitch,” I said, sputtering bloo
d.

  “Does nothing wane your will?” Her French accent far more beautiful than Azelie’s.

  “Nothing on this Earth.” My dad popped in my head and I shook it away. Hopes of seeing him were gone. I was a fool, a grief-stricken idiot.

  The hem of her lacey white skirt dragged through the dirt, mucking up the color to a grey. She bent at the waist to meet my eyes. Her brow cocked she said, “We shall see.” She stood and turned from me. “How’s my detective?”

  I pursed my lips and bit my tongue. She was trying to push my buttons. Pride. It would be mine even in death.

  Another rustling from the woods. Zorin stood over me, ensuring I didn’t somehow break the mystical hold he and his bitch sister had over me. The hold that grew stronger by the minute. If I needed a guard, it meant they weren’t certain I was theirs. A glimmer of hope flittered through my bones and flipped off the bit of Azelie’s soul that partied in my gut.

  I scooted away from him an inch or two while he watched the movement in the woods. Rocks surrounded the fire pit, containing the blaze. I tried to move close enough to one. Just one piping hot rock would be enough. It’d burn the hell out of my hand and I’d likely not get away at all, but it was all I had.

  Eyeing the rocks, I tried to make my movements inconspicuous. That bitch was still in me, her evil soul wreaking havoc. I looked up as Zorin continued eyeing the woods. Whatever was coming couldn’t be half as nasty as my future if I stayed there and let them take me completely.

  The rustling grew louder. Whatever was coming would appear any second. That was my moment. Figures appeared through the trees. It was time. I reached out and touched the rock closest to me. It was hot, so fucking hot I could hardly touch it. Azelie’s soul gnawed at my insides. I reached out again and grabbed the hot thing.

  “Dylan?” a sobbing familiar voice called to me. So desperate. So sad.

  “Tatum.” I dropped the rock and with it my heart.

  The only thing still on this earth, aside from my mother, who could thwart my prideful plan. She wore the dress I’d seen her in last. It was tattered and most of the buttons were missing down the front. She hadn’t been back to House of Porte. If she had, she’d been there in that. I closed my eyes and recalled the basement and the rusty red stained drain in the cement floor.

  “No,” my chin quivered.

  “Dylan, why are you here?”

  “You,” I whispered.

  “Stupid bitch.” Her lips moved but no words came out. Her blonde hair was matted with dried blood. Hers? I didn’t know, maybe Malcolm’s.

  I nodded. I agreed. It was stupid. All of it. Every last fucked-up second of it. And it was all my fault.

  “Let her go. I’ll do whatever you want. Just let her go.” She was a bitch. I was so mad at her. But she was the closest thing to a sister I had and there was no going back on family. I had let go of my soul to bring my father back from the dead. I’d lay down my life to preserve the family I had left on this earth.

  “I knew you’d see it my way,” Marienne hissed.

  I snarled at her. She’d die. Whether I did it or someone else, that bitch would die. She smiled at me and her eyes wrinkled around the edges. She was older than Malcolm, Cyrus and Dominika, and was showing it.

  The pain in my gut seared with a burning ache that settled in my loins. I spat again, more blood. I fell to my hands. My hair singed, that close to the flames, and wafted a stench to my nostrils that turned my gut on its ass. Blood and burning hair was too much to stomach. I wrenched in the dirt and heaved bile from my lips. Burning hair was the disgusting last straw. My already aching stomach screamed from within from the pain.

  “No! Stop!” Tatum protested.

  I looked to find her kicking and fighting Marienne’s alien minion and Zorin. They dragged her toward two posts jutting from the ground. She fought hard, just as I was sure she’d done for days. I was exhausted. My body only running on adrenaline and pride, and I knew she was no different.

  Zorin released her arm. She swung at him, but he ducked away. He lowered his muscular upper half to meet her eyes. His large hands held either side of her makeup smudged face. As he did me, he wooed her into submission. Fifty shades of fucked.

  Her limbs went slack and she succumbed. Twiggy alien guy held her tightly as Dreadlocks wasted no time ripping her already torn dress from her body. White bodice and matching panties lay undisturbed beneath all that black pinstripe fabric. Only Tatum could be tied up and tortured for days on end in a corset, and still have breath left to fight.

  Partially naked, they tied each of her arms to either post. Zorin laid a kiss on her forehead before he left her there alone, and love struck. Arms above her head, Tatum’s long legs dragged through the dirt as she dangled by her wrists from the posts on either side of her limp body.

  I crawled on hands and knees, frantically trying to reach my friend. My knees dragged through my own blood and vomit, soaking the knees of my pants. The goo on my belly flaked away as I moved.

  Only feet from her, my limbs felt as if they were moving through drying cement. Each step harder than the last. “Come on,” I said under my breath. Encouraging myself to keep going. I swallowed back more puke and pushed my hands to move just once more. The tingling in my hands and feet had made its way up my limbs and to my core. “Tatum,” I whispered with my last breath.

  My lungs still filled with air, but I wasn’t breathing. Not really. Just as my heart still beat in my chest but it wasn’t my blood it pumped through my veins. The bit of Azelie’s soul trapped in my gut had finally clawed its way to the surface.

  My legs shifted and lifted my body from the ground without objection. I stood in front of Tatum. I could see her with my eyes. I could smell the fire and blood with my nose. I could even feel the heat on my skin, but I could do nothing about it.

  I was trapped in my own body. Seeing from within like a guest in my own head. Something – someone - else had control. My lips parted and my tongue began to flick out words I didn’t recognize.

  Alien guy manhandled Tatum. Adjusting her body so her head hung back, exposing her heaving chest. He smiled a sickening grin and ran his hand over her exposed cleavage.

  I kicked and screamed inside my own body. I cursed him and threatened his unborn children. None of it mattered. I was stuck. I was no more. Just my shell and Azelie d’Entremonte at the wheel.

  Leaving Tatum dangling from her posts in a love struck haze, Zorin came to me, touched my face sweetly, and kissed my ever moving lips. He gripped my arms and trailed down to my hands. Only seeing what I was allowed to see in my field of vision, I couldn’t eye Azelie. For all I knew, she was sneaking up behind me with a huge knife ready to slit my throat.

  Zorin laid his kiss on me. Leaving my lips numb, my chanting never wavered. Moving back to Tatum, he shoved the groping alien guy away with disgust. At least the bad guy had manners. Marienne giggled at the two of them from out of view. “Your penance,” she said, sounding like Azelie in her words. Zorin held Tatum by her hair, stretching her long neck. “My profit.” It was the first time I’d heard the P word. I knew money was a motivator; it always was.

  My hand lifted from my side and a long machete was clutched in it. My eyes widened, at least the eyes trapped inside my own head did. I fought my own hand, willed my arm to drop. Begged it to leave that deadly weapon planted firmly in the gut of Azelie d’Entremonte. No matter how I tried, no matter what will I pushed through my body, nothing worked. Nothing changed what was happening.

  The force, whatever it was that was controlling me, raised my arm high into the air, tongue still speaking words that meant nothing to me. Against my inward pleading, the hand I no longer hand control of yanked her bodice down, revealing her breast, still riddled with the nibbles of her vampire lover. Her dreamy eyes slid open and her once lifeless body writhed becoming aware of the situation it was in. Whatever spell Zorin had her under, he’d released her just in time to witness my actions.

  Under protest, my
lips moved quickly spitting out some kind of fuckery. Machete in hand, Tatum stared into my eyes. I stared back and begged God to stop what was about to happen. I pleaded, screamed to Him for help. To save her before the monster that had infiltrated my body took her precious life. As far as my feeble little human mind could comprehend, nothing less than God Himself could stop this.

  “Dylan! No!” the voice of my best friend pleaded with me to stop.

  My lips forcibly twisted into a sick grin. Without warning, down came the machete, my hand still attached. Azelie continued to force my smile, a sick and sinister sort of smile, but subconsciously, my throat quivered with disgust. The blade cut deep into the lovely throat of Tatum Price. Blood poured from the fissure over her naked breasts, and onto the dirt below her. I screamed, cried, kicked, and begged, but nothing surfaced. Every emotion, every need, everything I was, was trapped inside my skin suit; someone else ran the controls. Someone so evil, the devil himself hid from her in the dark.

  Tatum’s body slumped, her arms hanging above her head. Blood gushed from her wound. Glugging out like a gallon of milk dropped on the floor. Zorin pushed her head over her chest and shoved something under the stream of sticky red stuff. It caught the fluid to contain it for later use. Sickeningly similar to the buckets of blood I’d dumped back in May.

  Machete still clenched in my fist, I watch with helpless eyes as my best friend, my sister, bled out from a wound I’d inflicted. Inside, I screamed. I cried out her name. I called to God and begged him to bring her back. God wasn’t here. Nothing good and pure could exist in a place filled with such malevolence.