The Pentagram Child: Part 2 (Afterlife Saga Book 5)

by Stephanie Hudson

  But for me this was not the case. Because what I saw wasn’t the sweet old man that Ted across the road waved at or that Shelia who owned the newsagent said good morning to. No, to me he was the face of nightmares and became the first sketch ever to be drawn where I had to learn how to draw insects.

  The skin on his jaw had been torn from the bone and gnawed away by thousands of crawling insects of all shapes, sizes and varieties. There was even what I now knew was a massive praying mantis coming out of his raw nose bone.

  I had even drawn the energy as a mist that he had been sucking out of the mail guy and I screamed, dropped my bike and ran all the way home. But this wasn’t what I was looking at right now, not the demon or the victim. It was of the face of someone I now knew as Celina stood watching in the background and I didn’t even remember drawing her. In fact I never did. It was as if my subconscious took over and created the picture my brain projected without even thinking about it.

  “Ah!” I jumped at the sound of my mobile phone going off and I fumbled with my jacket pocket forgetting it was in there.

  “Hey?” I said when hearing it was Sophia on the other end.

  “She’s fine…” Sophia whispered to someone else once she heard my voice and then she came back to me and said,

  “Uh, I hate to point out the obvious but you know you’re getting married in a few hours don’t you?” I closed my eyes and let my head fall back onto the headrest. Oh yeah, I knew alright! I had even considered how much weight you could lose in a day of crash dieting? Because there were things a naked body just couldn’t hide!

  “Oh come on Kaz, it’s not going to be that bad and I know there is one part of it that you’re definitely going to enjoy.” This time I actually groaned.

  “I heard that!” Pip shouted down the phone and burst out laughing. I was running late for the ‘pamper girl time’ they had planned for me, which I knew was code for ‘Mortal Doll play time’ But to be honest anything that took my mind off what was to come was never a bad thing, so I had said yes thinking it a good idea at the time. But now I wasn’t so sure.

  The first thing I needed to do was find Draven and tell him what I had discovered. Maybe he would think it would be a better idea to call off the wedding for now until we knew more of what she was up to. Well whatever it was, this plan of hers had been set in motion a long time ago if these pictures were anything to go by.

  “Are you on your way?” Sophia asked and I looked to the passenger seat and all my life’s demons spread out before me. It was a sobering sight to see along with a sickening one at that.

  “Yeah, I will be there soon.” I said still not being able to take my eyes off those images. I heard her say she would see me soon then but just before she hung up she asked,

  “Are you alright?” I thought for a moment and then answered in the only way I knew how and hearing those same words said from my own lips, that I had not long ago heard from Lucius’,

  “Yeah… I will be.”

  Once I had hung up and stuffed all the images back in my bag I drove the rest of the way to Afterlife. I was on autopilot driving there and before I knew it the beautiful building was looming over me. Of course it wasn’t open for the public, not tonight, not for the important royal wedding.

  “Oh god.” I said banging my head on the steering wheel. Now I was here I was torn. I knew what this meant to Draven which was the same as what a mortal version of a wedding would mean to me on the day. Could I really go in there and lay this all out right now, only hours before we were joined before the Gods and the eyes of his people?

  Now I wasn’t so sure.

  For a start I didn’t even know the importance of what I had discovered or what it could mean? But even so whatever it may be I was sure it could wait for a day at least. So with this in mind I got out of my truck and by the time I slammed my door I had decided it wasn’t more important than giving Draven this night. So I walked away from the car with the bag of haunting discoveries still on the passenger seat, leaving it for yet another day.

  Once inside I was bombarded with the whirlwind that was Pip and Sophia. Before I knew what was happening I found myself being pushed through Sophia’s fabulous Gothic fairy princess room and swiftly into her bathroom.

  “I am starting to feel like this is déjà vu” I said making Sophia laugh as I referred to the first time I let her play dress up with me. But soon I was sinking into her amazing sunken bath and letting my mind relax in the tropical paradise that was Sophia’s bathroom, complete with the incredible scent of a rain forest filling my over worked senses. I let my head fall back on the cushioned rim and soon my limbs felt like dead weights. I was glad now I had already showered at Libby’s house and spent the time plucking and shaving and scrubbing every inch of skin, so now all I had to do was lie back and enjoy.

  I closed my eyes and let the scented bubbles caress my skin like a lover’s touch which brought me back to Draven. I let my mind wander back over time and I could almost feel his hands all over me. I took deep breaths and the more I did this the stronger the memories came crashing back to me. So much so I felt my hand dip under the water and snake down my belly until I found my core.

  “Ahh.” I moaned as I touched myself intimately and my back bowed, pushing my breasts up higher and out of the water. My nipples stood erect thanks to the cool air licking at them and I cried out again.

  “Draven?” I whispered his name as a plea for him to come to me as desperation gripped me. I remembered how he had taken me in the bath and my body ached for him to do it again. I needed him with a fever of the likes I had never known. It felt like my skin was burning and it would only cool with his touch. The movement of my hand quickened but nothing would come to completion. I moaned again only this time more in frustration as nothing was happening. It wasn’t like I wasn’t turned on enough as it felt like my skin would soon split from needing to burst but it was like nothing was enough.

  “Ahh!” I shouted opening my eyes in anger at not being able to come and then found myself screaming again for a different reason. Celina’s face was slowly coming out of the water with eyes of burning hatred. Slashed eyebrows were cut into her face and black cracks and infection crawled under the skin like ink injected in to her blood. Her eyes that had once been beautiful were now milky white with only a black ring around the iris and a tiny black dot at the centre.

  Lips that split like they had been cut with a knife smiled at me as they emerged from the water. Fangs started to grow from all of her teeth until they became a deadly weapon. She was naked and it looked like her body had been ripped apart and then crudely sewn back together with black fish wire. Actually it looked like the Celina I knew had died in some horrible accident and I was now looking at her body after her autopsy.

  She started to come closer and I held my hands out in front of me to protect myself when something happened. That power, the one I didn’t understand but knew I had buried deep within me, came out unexpectedly and it was like an invisible force that couldn’t be stopped. It hit her and forced her backwards, making her fight against it as it tore away the rest of her damaged flesh. She screamed as it ripped into her and started taking her away piece by piece.

  “Go back!” I said in anger sitting up and instead of using my hands as protection I turned them so my palms faced her. Then I closed my eyes and felt the power of energy rising up through my legs and my stomach, spinning there round and round as if building up for greater strength before I knew it had hit its limit. My eyes snapped open and I saw the world differently. A shadowed room void of any colour met me and the writhing body of Celina fighting against my power in the water.

  Everything slowed down to a point I could have reached out and held one of the droplets in between my thumb and forefinger. A droplet created by the struggling body of death sharing a bath with me. I raised my hand and saw the tiny streams of power coming from it and when I moved it around it created a wave of energy. It was the reverse of what I saw when Demons or
Angels fed from humans. It was as though I was using that sucked up energy against them and as soon as the thought entered my mind everything clicked into place.

  My eyes homed in on my victim and I felt the injustice of being spied on as a child fuel my rage.

  “Leave me alone.” I said calmly before releasing the rest of my power and in seconds Celina was no more. Her body evaporated after it imploded in on itself…

  And then the screaming started.

  “Oh dear, I think I put in too much.”

  “You think?!” I heard Sophia saying in the distance. I felt myself moving but it almost felt like I was drunk.

  “What are we gonna do, sister roo?” Pip asked sounding a bit panicked.

  “What we always do…wing it!” Sophia said and I giggled.

  “Well that’s got to be a good sign…right?” Pip asked and I was sure I heard Sophia growl.

  “Get her legs.” I wanted to laugh at that as well, as it sounded like this comedy duo were trying to move a dead body and I guess that dead body was me!

  “Am I dead?” I asked as I felt myself sliding along a floor.

  “Nope, not dead…getting married yes, but definitely not dead.” Pip answered and I opened my eyes to see the blurry green hair of Pip as she dragged me by my feet.

  “Is this one of your games?” I asked giggling again. Man what was wrong with me…was I drunk?

  “Ha, if it is then the next level after getting your behind out the bath is trying to get you dressed!” Sophia answered before suggesting,

  “Come on, let’s try getting her up.”

  “Is that wise…I mean don’t humans usually go all pukey after you know…?”

  “Well she can’t get married lying down, I think Dom might notice!” Sophia snapped and Pip laughed,

  “Well she does need to lie down for most of it, couldn’t they just say their vows like that as well…or better still during the act?”

  “Pip, I think the whole object here was to help her relax ready for that lying down part, not to comatose her!” Sophia shouted and I felt her raising my arm up and letting it drop to make her point.

  “Ok, so she’s a bit…loose.”

  “Pip! Anymore loose and she would be dead! And last I heard my brother isn’t into necrophilia!” Sophia shouted and I giggled again.

  “Eww. Ok, ok, I get your point, but hey, at least she sounds like she’s enjoying herself.” Sophia just groaned and said,

  “Let’s get her dry but be careful, you don’t want to get her all worked up again.”

  “Stay away from the girly bits… Gotcha!” I felt them lifting me onto what I gathered was Sophia’s bed and tried to move in a way that would help them only I couldn’t feel anything happening. I felt them drying me off and I groaned as that heated feeling started back up again.

  “Whoa, I didn’t touch anything I swear!” Pip shouted dropping the towel. I moaned again and shifted on the bed feeling like a cat that needed to be stroked.

  “Oh crikey and butter Nora! She looks like’s she going into heat!”

  “How much did you give her Winnie?” Sophia demanded and I felt her feeling my forehead.

  “Now don’t you Winnie me I…”

  “Pipper!”

  “Ok, ok so the whole bottle.” Pip said after her scolding and Sophia bellowed,

  “WHAT?!”

  “Well I was worried about her, she seemed to be really freaking out about the whole thing and…and…” I opened my eyes and said,

  “Don’t fight guys, let’s all just have a cuddle.” I reached out to them and saw Sophia holding Pip back from getting to me.

  “She’s doesn’t want that type of cuddle, Pip.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “Don’t you mean oh shit?” Sophia corrected and then got up off the bed and declared,

  “There’s only one thing for it…we need cocktails.”

  “Holy Shit! What’s in this thing?!” I shouted finally sitting up and leaning back against Sophia’s kick ass iron bed that was covered in gothic flowers.

  “Uh…it’s probably best you don’t know just drink up and you will be fine.” Sophia said patting me on the leg and I closed my eyes and soaked in the feeling of being touched.

  “Ooops, my bad.” Sophia said taking her hand off me so the feeling disappeared.

  “Oh God, what’s wrong with me?” I asked feeling so ashamed but literally if one of them wanted to get it on right now and give me my first taste of girl on girl action then I was more than game! No! Damn it, what was wrong with me?!

  “Pip what did you do?” I asked and she blushed fuchsia before she started backing away holding up her hands.

  “Our little bundle of colour thought it would be a good idea to loosen you up a bit and relax you before tonight but she didn’t read the label and put the whole lot in. Therefore you’re a bit…”

  “Rampant” Pip finished off for Sophia and I closed my eyes and counted to ten…it didn’t work.

  “Pip I would get up and try to strangle you but I am afraid if I do that I will end up kissing you and try to get into your pants, so I will just skip it and say…what do we do now?”

  “I’d say, bottom’s up!” Pip said and I took the drink in my hand and downed the lot. Then I started screaming again.

  “By the Gods!” Sophia rushed over to me and took the glass from my hand before it shattered I was gripping it so hard. My throat felt as though it was on fire!

  “Jesus! What was in that thing?!” I asked in a croaky voice as though I had been kicked in the larynx by a horse.

  “Cinnamon.” Pip said and I would have laughed if I’d had the functions left to. Then there was a knock at the door and Sophia and Pip both shouted,

  “Shit!”

  “Shit!” And then for some reason Pip grabbed the covers and threw them over me as if trying to hide a dead body. I mumbled with my head under the covers,

  “Is this really necessary?”

  “Coming! Just a minute!” Sophia shouted and came over and pulled the covers back off my face and whispered,

  “Don’t say anything, we will deal with this.” And I got slightly concerned because if I didn’t know these girls any better then I would have thought they were about to kidnap me.

  Sophia and Pip went over to the door and opened it just enough to put their heads through the crack, then they both said,

  “She’s nearly ready!”

  “She’s nearly ready!”

  I would have laughed at their antics if their obvious worry wasn’t making me panic.

  “What are we going to do?!” Pip shouted once the door was closed and Sophia tried to calm her down.

  “Ok, just breathe and the let’s think a minute.” Pip started taking deep breaths and Sophia backed her up onto the bed counting out these breaths as any minute it sounded like she was going to pass out from hyperventilating. She started getting it under control when she fell on the bed next to me and I turned my head to her and said,

  “You good?” To which she just nodded.

  “Great, now I hate to ask the obvious, considering I can’t move and stuff, but shouldn’t we be telling Draven and postponing this little soirée?”

  “Ooh good word.” Pip said and I rolled my eyes.

  “No! We will not be postponing anything! Dom left me in charge of this part of the ritual and I won’t let him down…now let’s get her dressed.” This was not what I wanted to hear.

  Halfway through the mission impossible of getting my arms and legs to bend into a dress, I know knew the tortured life of a Barbie. Thankfully though the feeling started to come back to my body and movement became something to celebrate. However, the down side to all of this was that the drink Pip had given me, which I found out was my third, had now started to take effect.

  So the good news was that I was about to walk into my wedding using my legs but the bad news was I was doing so shit faced drunk and staggering all over the place. Oh and the side effects still included me
to be as randy as a goat on Viagra! Sophia and Pip walked me into the Temple and at the sight of Draven stood there in his masterful looking cloak, my blood started to boil from need.

  “It’s working.” Pip whispered and Sophia nodded smiling at everyone and said through gritted teeth,

  “It would work a lot better, Kaz if it didn’t look like you were desperate for the toilet.” I just giggled and knew she was referring to the fact that just the sight of Draven stood there had me ready to jump on him and squirming with every step.

  “Look at it this way, she’s not being shy…at least we accomplished that.” Pip added and Sophia sighed,

  “There is that.”

  Oh and this was most definitely true. I looked around and saw everyone as I had that day when first finding the Temple. They were all dressed in robes and the difference in colour was all that distinguished them between the levels of importance as all faces were hidden. I thought this was a bit sad and discriminating but hell what did I know, I was drunk after all!

  I looked down and vaguely took in my white dress that was made from the floatiest material I had ever seen. In fact it made me look like I was underwater. It was strapped tight across my breasts like a second skin and it was thin and see-through, showing my erect nipples underneath.

  “Isn’t my dress pretty?” I said picking up my skirt and twirling it round my legs like a little girl.

  “Uh, yeah…sure.”

  “It’s lovely.” Pip said after Sophia tried to get me to leave my skirt alone. I looked back up to Draven and saw him stood waiting for me to reach him by the altar. He was tilting his head to one side as if he was trying to understand what was going on. I was about to wave when Sophia grabbed my hand instead.

  “My brother is so going to kill me.”

  “Or thank you…have you seen how frisky she is…meow” Pip said just before we approached Draven.

  “Hi handsome!” I said not realising how loud I was and finding it echoing around the Temple.