The Eighth
Page 24
He’d been wrong.
About everything.
“Brother?” said Lust. “Say something.”
Paimon turned and stared at his sister. Her hood was down and her sin was out. Boils and sores crested her face, and puss wore on her lips like globs of old chapstick. He wanted to leave, to get as far away as possible from this hospital and this moment.
“We need to find, Arazel,” he said. “We’re done here.”
Lust stopped him, her nails digging into his arm.
“That’s not how this works.”
“What do you mean?” he said. “She’s gone. I’ve failed. There’s nothing left.”
“There’s everything left.”
“What do you mean?”
Lust bent down and riffled through the contents on the floor. “Where are you?” she muttered, shuffling through debris. “Ah, yes. There you are.”
Paimon leaned down to get a closer look.
In his sister’s hand was a token.
“How did you—”
“If everything that you needed was supposed to be in this box, then the Devil would have provided you with a token for bringing Rhea back to Hell,” she said. “My guess is he expected her to have the baby there after they consummated their union.”
Lust giggled.
“Lucky for brother, we were watching and ensured that didn’t happen.”
Paimon thought back to the night at Rhea’s house where he lost connection with her and something else took over.
“Okay, but I still don’t understand how—”
“Let me finish, brother,” she said. “If you want to complete your sin, we’re going to have entice the Devil with someone else, someone better to take her place.”
Paimon smiled.
Fucking women. They always have an agenda.
“Someone like you,” he said.
“Yes, someone like me.”
“You fucking had this planned the whole time, too, didn’t you?”
“From the moment I laid eyes on her. She looked so much like your beloved Marissa. I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist.”
Paimon bit his lip and fought back the urge to hit her.
Fucking cunt.
“So how does the token help me with any of this?”
Lust took his hands in hers and whispered in his ear. “If I’m gone, and Rhea’s dead, we’ll need someone to take my place. Someone that’s familiar with my sin.”
“Someone like Arazel.”
Lust cheered and waved her hands in the air. “That’s my boy,” she said. “Brains and a body. Dangerous combination.”
Paimon stared at the ground, his eyes locked on a picture of Rhea’s face that had fallen out of the box. His heart stopped beating, and Paimon felt nothing for her. Rhea had taken every part of him, everything he had left, and Arazel’s soul had paid the price.
It was time to repay the favor.
Let her see how it really felt to die.
“We’ll need a ferry,” he said.
“And a groundskeeper.”
“Yes,” he said, hope rising in him. “Let’s go pay Charon a visit.”
“Wonderful,” Lust said, clapping her hands and generally acting like a school girl. “It’s been a while since I’ve rendezvoused with the groundskeeper. I wonder if he still has my keys?”
Paimon thought of the ferry, back to the moment at the gate when Charon had pulled out the key ring and told him to finish the job, no matter what the cost. Tricky bastard. That’s why he wanted me to see it. So I’d remember. So I’d know there was another way out and another way in. “Wait. Those are your keys?”
Lust giggled. “Perfect! So he does still have them,” she said. “Now let’s go get little red.”
Paimon knew going after Arazel was one decision that he would never regret.
He nodded and took her hand as the two of them walked back into The Void seeking out the connection to Charon.
Bless me my sins.
“I’m coming, Arazel.”
Author Bio
Stephanie M. Wytovich is an Instructor of English by day and a horror writer by night. She is the Poetry Editor for Raw Dog Screaming Press, an adjunct at Carlow University and Western Connecticut State University, and a book reviewer for Nameless Magazine. She is a member of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, an active member of the Horror Writers Association, and a graduate of Seton Hill University’s MFA program for Writing Popular Fiction. Her Bram Stoker Award-nominated poetry collections, Hysteria: A Collection of Madness, Mourning Jewelry, An Exorcism of Angels, and Brothel can be found at www.rawdogscreaming.com. The Eighth is her debut novel. Follow Stephanie at stephaniewytovich.blogspot.com and on twitter @JustAfterSunset