“Is that so, sweet wife?” he uttered hoarsely. “Run, little one, for this time, I am hunting you, and I enjoy it, and when I catch you, and I will, I will do more than just chain you to a bed.”
“Of course he’s in my fucking head again.”
“Did you just swear?” Fred asked. We both turned as something tripped through the bushes and landed at my feet. “My body!”
“Great,” I growled as I helped his body up with my free hand while holding his head with the other. “We need a sewing kit. It’s time.”
“Time for what?” he asked.
“To become the queen again, of course,” I hissed. “I’m tired of the games, and tired of pretending to be weak.”
Chapter 31
Inside the abandoned church that sat on hallowed ground, I stared down at Fred, who watched me through terrified eyes as my power filled up the room. My fingers touched on the smooth edges of his severed flesh, searching for the arteries and whatnot while I began the process of making him whole again. The light above the sarcophagus he was laid upon swung above us as the sultry song played low from the car stereo outside; Scars by Boy Epic, one of the songs that I sang within my soul. His blue eyes watched me, knowing I didn’t fear what he was or what he controlled. I could smell his fear, taste it as he studied me, the cold detachment that I exuded. I had a much scarier monster chasing me, one that lived within me. It wasn’t the beast who terrified me; it was my reaction, as if I sensed that I belonged to it. But something even scarier within me was waking up, and she wasn’t evil, she was war.
“I’m going to tell you a story about a girl.” My finger began to loop the nylon thread through the curved needle I held. “It’s about a very young girl, one who viewed the world as a beautiful place where she felt cherished. She was very naïve in her views of the world, but she knew no boundaries, or what would become of her as that small child she had been started to reveal what she was, unknowingly. She had been given the world as a playground, with a champion who protected her as best as he could, until he could no longer refuse the commands of the Order he followed; unbeknown to him, they needed him away from her to do very bad things while he was away. I’m sure that I don’t need to tell you who that scared little girl was, do I? No? Good. I remember his face as he left me within the walls of that hell, so fierce and proud of the curious being I was becoming. At first, he came back to see me often, until the wars started taking him further and further away from me. That’s when it changed, when everything changed. The druids loathed me for how I’d been created. I was barely five when Dane, the Headmaster of the druids, began to beat me; his hands were as large as clubs, and they punished me for things I held no control over. My magic was wild; it was a part of what I was, who I was. I grew stronger than any of them, but there was a part of me that changed every time I wielded it. I started to envision things, a world I didn’t know. So I buried it, let them think I was weak.
“The first beating was brutal, but the second one, that’s when they placed their woad upon my flesh. I fought the druids, doing everything I could without wielding the magic I held. They beat me into submission until my only option was to lay there as they held me down, using multiple needles to pierce my flesh with the blue ink. Back then, tattoos were not the same. It was a brutal process that only those of iron will and strength could withstand. I remember the sound it made, the searing pain as they pushed it through my flesh. It took them days to paint my face, my arms, and my chest with their blue ink. Afterward, I was hung naked from the wall, a reminder to all that I was not human. I was a monster in a little girl’s body,” I whispered as I pushed the needle through his flesh, connecting it slowly. “I’m sure they would have done worse to me had they not feared what I was. You see, they left no inch of me unexplored as they searched me for the mark of the devil. Luckily, my untried cunt was, to them, what the gates to heaven are to you: forbidden, untouchable, a sure way to allow the darkness in. For days I hung there, convinced that my Knight would return and save me from the horror of what they had done to me. Yet day after day, as I hung there, starving to death with the ravens pecking against the scabs of the markings and the ink, I lost hope.
“Eventually, knowing he would return, they brought me down and whipped me as everyone watched until they’d torn my body to nothing more than a bloody mess. Tied to a post, I healed, unable to die because something had denied me such an extravagant thing as escaping the torture. For me, there was no way to escape the pain that they delivered. I was free of it after several days, free to become their servant and tend to their chamber pots, to clean their rooms. Never allowed close enough to the other children to ever know what it was like to be loved. Weeks after they’d scarred me, I was sent to the bathing house, for my odor offended a visiting lord. One of the druid’s whores, well, she wanted to sell me to that lord, because he enjoyed the flesh of young children. She washed me, touching me as she examined my tits and other…things, or the lack of those things. According to her, I would bring silver or more for what lay between my young thighs. Once I had been washed and violated by her, I was pushed into a dark room with the lord. He was grossly overweight, his breathing was heavy, and even in the dark, I felt the demon that waited within his flesh. The monster who craved to hurt the child I was. So I destroyed him. I freed the demon, knowing that I was strong enough to face it, and so it died there, on that dirty floor at my feet.” He hissed as I went too deep with the needle before I tied the end, cutting it before I began to thread the needle again.
“I was beaten again, for defending that which was not theirs to give. That whore was my first taste of human blood. I set her on fire as she took me back to her home, intending to use me to bring her coin. I remember the smell of her flesh as it sizzled when the flames kissed her skin, burning so hotly that she began to melt. I was fascinated by it, how flame burned through tissue before reaching the meat, how her hair created a different colored flame than her flesh. After she’d perished, I played in the ashes that had been left from her corpse. I was, of course, still a child, and I felt free of those people for the first time since my Knight had abandoned me to them. I was on my own then, able to hunt the other druids who had beaten or painted my flesh. One by one, I hunted them down until I was seven, when I watched the last one burn to death in his home, where he, of course, had felt safe from the monster that had begun hunting him and his druids.” My finger held the nylon as I snipped it, tilting my head to listen to the noises outside.
“After I’d slaughtered them, I headed towards Ireland; it called to me, as if it was a part of me that my child’s mind couldn’t understand. Callaghan, of course, found me in a small fishing village where I’d been trying to work for coin to pay a captain to take me across the sea. Those people in the village never bothered me, never came close as they offered me jobs to gain my fare, but then I think they wanted me to leave their lands. To them, I looked like an orphan, abandoned and dirty, carrying death with me. It was, of course, my disguise; no one touched the dirty ones. He took me to a new compound, a stronger one. One that held no chance of escape,” I whispered thickly as I rethreaded the needle, knowing he hadn’t realized that every stitch would be a single one, which took a long time to accomplish putting an entire head back onto a body.
“Years passed, and while I had kept the secrets of the last druid compound, no one had guessed which enemy had murdered them all, so I watched them. I studied them, acutely aware of the animosity that they felt at having me within their grasp. You see, to them, I was this unnatural child, born of one of their own. Druids do not breed women, and those who held magic were murdered by them for their wrongness at birth, and yet there I was, a female who outranked them all in skill and power. They kept their distance at first until one boy dared to touch his lips against mine. My fault, of course; for me, any attention was welcomed as I’d been starved of it my entire life. I was the child of evil, born from a magic so horribly terrifying that th
e Gods themselves had banished it. That boy, the one who kissed me, I had fallen in love with him, or so my young mind believed. I thought that one day, he’d give me the world. He promised it to me, kissing me before I had ever realized his intent. I didn’t understand the magnitude of what he’d done until he’d lifted my skirts, forcing himself on me. I pushed him away, and the others, they’d stood watch so that he wouldn’t be discovered. We were, of course. As the Headmaster’s son, he wasn’t punished. You see, Arthur was born of Knight and druid, like me, but he was born male, and I was not. I’d thought that maybe he out of everyone would understand me. That maybe I’d found a kindred spirit, but he only wanted to hurt me too.
“When his father discovered us, I was chained to a post and used to show them proof of what I was. Druids were not immortal, not like the Knights. They died, and so being lured to me was a death sentence. Arthur stood in front of me as I was stripped naked; his eyes were horrible as he took in my naked flesh. I begged him to tell his father the truth, and he only smiled, watching as I was laid bare before him. They’d brought in every male child to watch me be humiliated before them. One hundred lashes were delivered before he invited the boys to defile me, or more to the point, what had remained of me. He encouraged them to piss on my tainted flesh, to spit in my face or openly hurt me in much darker ways. Arthur though, he wanted to push things into me, so he did, through the tears in my flesh since he couldn’t penetrate me the way he really wanted to, not with everyone watching him.
“So instead of raping me, he pushed rocks, glass, anything available to punish me as his father watched him through proud eyes. Hours, it took them hours of abusing me to grow bored, and even then, the abuse didn’t stop. I prayed Callaghan would come, that he would protect me and stop them, but he didn’t come back. He could never come when the abuse started because he never understood why he was ordered away before it began. His father was aware of what I had suffered, often coming to observe it as the abuse unfolded. My Knight was purposely sent away so that I could be tested; to see what I could endure before my body gave out until I was broken. To see if I was evil, I guess, or if I was willing to lose my soul to the darkness to defend myself,” I explained as I dabbed the cloth against the flesh I’d finished sewing together, staring at it to be sure the stitch was placed thickly enough. “I knew what they wanted, what they feared, and I’d long since stopped using the magic. I let them believe I was weak enough to be abused and controlled. I’d learned to hide what I had become from everyone, even my Knight.
“When my spine broke, I laughed at them. I looked Callaghan’s father right in the eye and laughed at what they had done to me. Callaghan thinks he knows what happened, but I’ve never told him the truth. I never told him that I had fallen in love with his enemy, Arthur, or that he was the reason for that beating, and that I had earned that beating for my weakness. I deserved it for thinking I was good enough to be loved. Callaghan wouldn’t have understood it, the reason I believed I had loved Arthur. The isolation and the abuse I suffered at being their servant, it was debilitating to the child I’d been. Arthur was different, like me. He knew I wasn’t evil, not to begin with, and neither was he. His evil was created. I created it within him as I ripped him apart and promised him that he would never know what pleasures my evil body held. It created madness in him, knowing that he would never have what he thought he’d earned. Anyway, after my body had become useless and broken, and month after month had passed of lying in my own waste as my body slowly became a dried-out husk that resembled a corpse, Arthur came. He whispered into my ear that he had sent a message to Callaghan, that he wouldn’t let my untrained pussy be wasted as I turned into a husk of dried flesh; it, after all, was all he wanted from me.
“He wanted me with a fire that burned within him. He didn’t love me; he craved me. Like madness within his mind, he wanted what he couldn’t have. Months after Callaghan had saved me, I hunted them all down, every boy who had defiled me that I had considered a friend. I guess I was naïve for believing they wanted me as one. You see, my body was changing, as were theirs, and I was the only female of their age that resided within those walls. So one by one, I hunted them down like animals and put them out of their misery. I knew Callaghan watched me, but I needed him to see me, the real me that was hidden. Arthur, though, he was so much fun to take apart. I started with his cock, showing him it would never be worthy of being used on me. I ripped him into pieces, and then, he vanished, and I sensed he was different than the others I’d slaughtered. The Knights only vanish during their first death cycle, which alerted me to what he truly was. Unlike the others I’d murdered, he didn’t stay dead. His mother was of Templar blood, like mine. When they learned of this, he was rewarded for his lineage and sent to the Knights to be trained, while I was locked into a cage that held me until I was old enough to earn my keep. Bound by magic they assumed would hold me to them, I was released. Their mistake, of that, I am sure.”
“You’ve killed anyone who has ever wronged you; who could be killed, anyway.”
“Of course I have, Fred.” I shrugged nonchalantly. “Anyway, I tried to sleep with Callaghan when he healed me, but he looked at me with such utter disgust on his face that, after that, I hid who I was from the entire world, hid who I was becoming. I buried myself so fucking deep that to anyone looking at me, well, they’d have seen a broken girl, a confused, damaged girl that held no intelligence. I am not stupid, Fred. I am not simpleminded. I am the only female druid, and I have become more powerful than the highest trained male they ever had at five years of age. I had outranked them all by the time I was ten, despite having no one to teach me spells or show me how to strengthen my craft. So I hunted people. I hunted down anyone who preyed on the innocence of those not strong enough to fight back. I let myself die to see how I came back each time. I know which type of death can trigger a body to come back stronger, to strengthen the mind, or to numb it from pain. Make no mistake; I am broken. I have so many fucking cracks that you could look through me and know how jagged my every edge is, and I wouldn’t care if you looked through me and found my soul was missing. I have been beaten, I have been broken, and I have died a thousand deaths without ever feeling a single one of them. I am stronger because I’ve been given no choice but to become stronger. Broken people are terrifying because we know how to continue surviving, no matter what happens to us.
“I know why I was brought back, and what I am to do, and while I see the justification for such an effort, I will not be owned. I have killed tens of thousands of people in every way imaginable to see how they died from those wounds. I know how long a body takes to drain from a simple nick to an artery. I also know where to miss each vital organ to avoid death until I am ready to deliver it. I don’t feel emotion when those around me die, because I’ve never cared for a single person in a very long time, until you. I prefer you without your hands and arms because, without them, you would never hurt me. You need to know that I am giving them back to you, and if you turn against me, not even Lucifer himself will be able to stop me from reaching you. I assure you, I am much more powerful than he is. The magic within me is ageless, more ancient than even Satan himself. I won’t hesitate to destroy you and your entire army if you so much as lift a finger against me. You can either be by my side, or in my fucking freezer. That choice is yours to make,” I said as I finished sewing his head back on with the skill of the finest surgeon. “I assure you, the only side of me that I have allowed you to view was the side of me that I wanted you to see.”
I stepped back, staring at him as he sat up slowly and tested his head. “I should want to hurt you, mistress,” he purred as he jumped off the sarcophagus and grabbed my arms, staring into my eyes as he lowered his mouth to my ear. “I really just want to bend you over and fuck my anger out on you, but you have a bigger problem coming at us. He’s close, and so are the witches, my pretty little queen. You should run because I plan to as well.” He stared at me as a sinful smile l
ifted to play across my lips.
I reached over, turning off the recording device that I had set in front of the door. “Oh, Fred, I’m not even here, and ew, no, we’re never fucking,” I said as I smiled and stepped back, watching as his eyes took in the differences between me and the clone that had put him back together. “Did you really think I would trust you? You’ve wanted me dead for months now. Trust is earned. Prove to me that I can trust you and I will find you when I am ready. Now, I want you to slip back into your position as the leader of Hell’s army. If you choose otherwise, I promise, I will fucking destroy Hell itself to reach you.”
“You want me to slip away from Lucifer with half of his army when he is hunting some bitch and her boyfriend, don’t you?” he scoffed as he touched my hand, staring at the likeness. “How did you do this?”
“It’s a simple cloning spell. It’s magic that I used to force the monsters hunting me to look in all the wrong places. I’m going to need you to think bigger, Fred. I want all of Hell’s army, and I want them scouring this world for those witches. They are here, hiding from us. I want to know where they are. I want to know if they fucking sneeze. Make sure the demons keep their distance and that their presence isn’t detected. I don’t want them to see me coming until I decide it is time to take them down.”
“You expect me to turn all of Hell’s army against Lucifer?” He laughed until his eyes met mine. “You know who I am, don’t you?”
“You’re the High Prince of Hell, Lust. Of course, I know who you are. I told you, I’m not stupid. There has been nothing I’ve done in the last five years that hasn’t been premeditated. The demons I killed inside Vlad’s bar, they would have challenged you against turning Lucifer’s army against him. So they had to die, and a little lie was all it took to finish them off. I also killed your brother, who was stronger than you. Couldn’t have Sloth getting in our way, now could we? Plus, I needed his death to make tongues start wagging in Hell, which forced you out and into my world. That was why you surfaced and started slaughtering humans you assumed had knowledge of who had murdered your brother, wasn’t it? The only thing I didn’t plan was slipping on a beast’s cock and liking it. But shit happens, and I did. Now he is inside my head, prowling as he hunts me. The thing is, I knew he would be. As I said, I have trained my body to become a weapon. Callaghan and what is within him can still only access what I allow them to now. I did suffer electrical shock recently, and of course, that makes things trickier for them, not me. I closed that part of it off to him, the part that thinks and plans. Not my preferred way of blocking him, but I made do with what I had.”
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