by John Everson
Alex accepted the handle, and poured it over the cereal. Or whatever it was. The “honey” came out thick and golden black. It smelled like lilac that had begun to die. Sweet, yet vaguely, naggingly charnel.
The gurgling in her stomach helped her ignore the questionable scent, and she spooned the darkened flakes into her mouth, praying that the taste would not make her puke.
“This is… pretty good,” she said after the first bite. Her mouth came alive with a blast of citrus and smoky honey and something bitter but well-balanced. It cut through the sweetness and fought the citrus. She could almost taste the flavors fighting with themselves, each piece struggling for dominance.
“What is it?” she asked.
Helone shook her head. “Best you don’t know.”
Alex stopped with one spoon halfway to her mouth.
The demon smiled. “You need your strength. Take it.”
Alex hesitated. And then she thought of lying in the bottom of Elotan’s pit, starving.
It might make her sick, but she was going to eat now, while she had the opportunity.
Helone nodded. “You take the opportunities where you can find them,” she said.
Alex’s chest tightened. It was as if the demon had listened to her thoughts like she was speaking them out loud. Maybe for the demon she had; maybe hearing thoughts was that easy. She thought of shuttering her mind; Gertrude had shown her how to do that a year or more ago, so that she could stop the spirits from hearing her. From responding to her every thought and whim. It got tiresome – and dangerous – to have your every feeling answered.
When her father had understood the ability she had, that hadn’t been good. She’d needed to learn how to hide it.
“I don’t know how you came to my door,” Helone said. “But I’m glad you did. You might be a strong girl, but you would not have survived out there for very long. We are a hungry breed, the Curburide.”
“So I’ve heard,” Alex said. She gestured at her bowl. “Are you just fattening me for the kill?”
Helone’s dark eyes widened. She looked shocked and hurt. Alex didn’t buy it, but she didn’t knock it either. She wasn’t sure what the game was here, but she didn’t trust the old woman. For starters, because she wasn’t a woman, regardless of her shape and wrinkles.
“I’m as much a woman as you,” the demon whispered, answering Alex’s thoughts. Damnit. She’d tried to shield herself as well as she knew how.
“But you’re Curburide,” Alex protested. She aimed to keep the demon answering her public voice as she buried the private.
“And I live here alone,” the woman said. “I don’t roam with the packs like some wild dog. And…” she paused and looked hard at Alex. “I’m feeding you, not sucking on your bones, aren’t I?”
“Thank you,” Alex said. “I can’t argue with you there.”
She shoveled in a couple more bites of the cereal. She desperately wanted to ask what it really was, but part of her knew that she wouldn’t really want to know. And there was something else she really wanted to ask.
“Do you know how I can go home?” she asked.
Helone’s eyes flashed. “Perhaps the same way you came?”
“I didn’t open the door that brought us here,” Alex said.
The demon nodded. “That is a problem, then. Let me think on it awhile. In the meantime, you will be safe here.”
“But they are looking for me.”
Helone nodded. “I’m sure they are. I’m sure the whole city is searching for you right now.” She levered herself upright from the chair. Alex could see how bony she was. The skin seemed to hang off her arms in wattles of parchment. Flesh that no longer was supported by substance.
“They can look all they want out there,” Helone said. “As long as you are in here, they can’t see you. I made sure of that a long time ago. I don’t like to be spied on. And my doors are locked tight.”
“But I walked right in,” Alex pointed out.
Helone nodded. “So you did. But you’re not Curburide.”
Alex felt herself tremble as the import of that set in. This house was built to let in humans, but not Curburide, who actually lived in this world?
“I choose my company carefully,” Helone said. She lifted the empty bowl from in front of Alex and held out a gnarled hand. “Come, you need to rest.”
Alex took the old woman’s hand, and let herself be led down a hallway near the great room where she’d found Helone. There were a handful of unmarked doors, and Helone pushed one open and let go of Alex’s hand.
“You can stay here for as long as you like.”
“I’d like to leave tomorrow,” Alex said. “I want to go home.”
Helone nodded. “I will see what I can come up with. But in the meantime, stay here and stay safe, heh?”
Alex nodded, and stepped into the room. There was a large bed, and a narrow chest of drawers nearby. There were pictures on the wall, but she couldn’t quite make them out. The edges of the room seemed faint, as if she’d stepped into a drawing that hadn’t quite been finished. A painting not quite ready to be framed.
At the moment, she didn’t care. The insanity of the past twenty-four hours overtook her and she laid down on the bed.
“Sleep well,” Helone’s voice came from far away. Alex was so tired didn’t even hear the door close. But she stirred awake for a second and saw that she was alone in the room.
“From one prison to the next,” she said.
The sound of an old woman’s faraway laughter opened her dreams.
CHAPTER 21
THERE WERE SCREAMS in the hallway below. Joe felt Cheyenne stiffen next to him. He understood. If it hadn’t been for him stumbling on the door to the basement, those screams would have been hers right now.
“Let go of me!” a woman yelled. “I mean it!”
Joe stifled a smile. It wasn’t funny, but the girl had no leverage here. She was a prisoner and a couple guys were hustling her through a hallway to where a whole other group of people were waiting to receive her. A stern “I mean it” wasn’t going to make anyone suddenly take their hands off her. Sucked to say, but she was pretty much doomed.
A moment later, Joe heard the footsteps pass the doorway to the stairs again, presumably to get the other girls.
Sure enough, that’s exactly what they did. In a couple more minutes the hallway resounded with a new struggle. After they passed, Joe put a finger to his lips, made sure that Cheyenne saw him, and then climbed softly back down the stairs.
He peered around the corner there for several minutes, careful to make sure that nobody was still out and about in the hall or basement. Then he slipped around the corner and moved towards the entry to the chapel. There were angered voices coming from there.
“Somebody let her out!” Darin yelled. “She couldn’t have punched out that door lock on her own.”
“What about the wall chains?” someone asked.
“Fuck the wall chains,” Darin said. “We need to find her; this ceremony depends on five sacrifices.”
One of the women said something. Joe couldn’t make it out, but it really set Darin off.
“Are you kidding me? We’ve been coming here to this abandoned rock heap for the past two years and you’ve been getting your jollies out by letting the demons play with your pussy all night long before they have to slip back through the door they came in from. And now you’re telling me that when we have the opportunity to let them come and be with us all the time, you’d stand on a morality you haven’t practiced since you were a kid?”
Joe peered around the corner. Mike and Telly each held a woman by the wrist. Two more lay on the floor in front of them. Joe assumed they were unconscious. He saw why in a moment.
“All right,” Darin said. “I can’t force anyone to do this. I’ve got it all set up.
It’s exactly what we’ve talked about for years. But whoever doesn’t want to be part of it, now’s the time. Please leave and let the rest of us do what we came here to do.”
Nobody said anything. And then, the woman who had apparently been arguing with him about going through with the ceremony walked to one of the pews and picked up a purse. She looked at the older woman and said, “I’ll stop by tomorrow for my other things, okay?”
Sienna nodded, and the woman walked towards the exit.
Darin watched for a moment, and then shook his head. He didn’t say a word. But he raised his hand. He was holding something. Joe realized he was aiming.
There was a soft pfft and the woman froze. She reached around with one arm to feel the opposite shoulder blade, as if looking for an itch. Joe saw the tranquilizer dart just as the girl registered what it was. She turned around and looked at Darin. Her face was a mask of disbelief and horror.
“You wouldn’t,” she said.
Darin shrugged.
The woman toppled over and lay unmoving, on the ground.
“I need five.” Darin said. “And if you’re not one of us, well, then you’re one of them.”
Darin walked across the chapel and dragged the limp woman back to the circle they’d drawn on the floor. He laid her in the middle of it and pulled a ball of twine from his pocket. Then he pulled her arms above her head and used it to bind her wrists together. He cut the rope with a pocketknife and then bound her ankles. When he was finished, he directed the other men.
“I need them placed along the centers of each arm of the star, feet to the center.”
Telly laid his captive down and Darin quickly tied her wrists and ankles and then repeated the same action with the woman Mike held.
Then they dragged the two unconscious girls into position and repeated the action.
“They’ll wake up in thirty to forty minutes,” Darin said. “I only used enough to keep this simple. We need to have them awake before we start.”
“Why?” Telly asked. “What difference does it make?”
“Because it’s their fear and pain mixed with our calling that opens the door,” Darin said. “Without that, we’re just cutting meat. We might as well have brought a side of beef.”
One of the girls on the floor that hadn’t been tranquilized spoke. Joe was surprised to hear her voice; both women had been strangely quiet through this whole thing. He supposed they’d already screamed themselves out while waiting, chained up downstairs.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked. “We didn’t do anything to you.”
“No,” Darin agreed. “But you’re going to do something for me. Something amazing.”
CHAPTER 22
ALEX WOKE IN A FOG. She couldn’t believe she’d not only slept, but slept soundly in a demon’s house. But she had. The bed was insanely comfortable; the sheets silky smooth and warm. She’d fallen asleep almost instantly.
But now she stirred, and everything around her seemed dim. Grey. Unfinished. For the first moments when she had opened her eyes, she couldn’t remember where she was. And then it had all come back, and she forced her drowsy eyes open wider, taking in the room with more intent.
The place grew sharper as her eyes focused. It was still dark, but she could make out the small table next to her bed, and the chest of drawers across the room. She could also see the pictures on the wall, which she hadn’t really paid attention to the night before. There were five of them around the room and each looked to be a photo taken out of a fairy tale. In one, a young girl in a blue dress sat eating a bowl of something at a table. Behind her, a dark-skinned woman stood; a demon. Her hands hovered just above the child’s shoulders, six fingers long and curled, as if she were giving the girl a backrub from six inches away. The demon smiled, but not in a happy way. She looked… hungry.
In another picture, a boy child lay in a huge four-poster bed, with a silk top and pillows piled two deep. He was curled in a ball, sucking his thumb, with eyes wide, staring at the edge of the bed as if waiting any moment for something to appear.
The reason was obvious to the viewer; a demon lay on the floor beneath the bed, head and hands just visible at the opening. The demon’s arms were spread, as if it were embracing the child from three feet away.
She recognized the story behind the third painting instantly. Two children stood inside a cottage room, each holding lollipops and smiling at each other. The room was made all of candy; the doorframes were chocolate bars, the sink spout, a hook of peppermint. The table looked like gingerbread and the floors were poured peanut brittle. A demon was once again in the center of it all, an old crone with a jutting chin and a warty nose. She pried a gumdrop off the window sill with one hand, while offering a candy cane to the children with the other. Alex noticed again, that she had six fingers, and that the nails on each were long and black. Sharp and dangerous.
“You’re awake at last!”
Helone’s voice startled her. The demon stood in the doorway. Alex could barely believe she stood; she looked emaciated beyond life, the skin shrunken to clutch her very bones. But her face at least looked to have a little more animation in it than yesterday. When Alex had first found her on the couch, the demon’s face had looked like death, sunken and pale. Now the creature looked more alive; its eyes beamed with energy.
“I’m just happy to have company again,” Helone said, answering her thoughts. Alex quailed. She had to remember to shutter her mind here. The Curburide could hear her thinking easily, if she wasn’t careful.
“Thank you for taking me in,” Alex said. Silently she added, “And not eating me.”
“Not all Curburide are the same,” Helone said. “Anymore than all humans.”
“Well, thanks. And good morning!” Alex said.
The demon’s lips parted, revealing a row of thin, yellowed teeth. Alex realized the old woman was smiling as she shook her head.
“Oh no, child,” Helone said. “It’s not morning yet. You slept through the afternoon. It’s past time for dinner.”
“Oh!” Alex said. “Everything’s so dark, I thought it was night.”
Helone shook her head. “When your castle has no windows, it can be whenever you want it to be. But right now, outside these walls, it is evening. A very special evening, in fact.”
Alex sat up in the bed, and swung her feet over the side. “What’s the occasion?”
“The planets are aligned,” Helone said. “This is a night when the walls between worlds are thin. For a little time, we can enter your world, and enjoy the pleasures of your flesh.”
Alex felt her heart leap. If the Curburide could get to Earth tonight, perhaps, so could she.
“How do they get there?” she asked. “I mean, how do the Curburide get through the walls?”
Helone smiled, thinly. “I know what you’re thinking, but I don’t think tonight is the time for you. There are places we know, where doors sometimes open on nights like this. But they must be opened by humans, and they only stay open a little while. So on nights like tonight, the Curburide gather, and watch the places where we know the walls are thin.”
Helone held out her hand, to help Alex off the bed. “You would never get near any of the doorways tonight,” she said. “You’d be eaten alive before you even got close.”
Alex’s heart sank as fast as it had leapt. “Then, how will I ever get through, if all the doors are watched every time they might be opened?”
Helone didn’t answer immediately, but instead led Alex out of the room, through the dark, and back into the kitchen. The table was set with blue china, and something steamed from a bowl set in the center.
“Don’t fret about going home right now,” Helone said. “I’ve made you a nice dinner to help get your strength up.”
“But,” Alex began.
Helone pressed a bony finger to her lips. “You
’re human. I think you might be able to open a door home from one of the thin places when we don’t have every Curburide in the world standing around watching them. But you’ll need to be strong.”
Alex considered that, as Helone pulled out a chair for her and pressed her into it.
“Sit,” the demon commanded. “Eat.”
CHAPTER 23
ARIANA WOKE IN THE DARK. She lay curled and stiff on a cold hard floor. Her bladder was achingly, painfully full. She stretched and remembered.
It wasn’t just her bladder that was in pain. It was everything inside her from the delta of her inner thighs to her belly button. She’d been screwed and shredded inside at the same time. She reached a hand down to explore. How bad was it? Could she walk? Was she hemorrhaging?
Her fingers traced plenty of rough trails along her inner thighs. Dried blood. But she encountered nothing wet. That didn’t mean she wasn’t mortally injured from inner perforations, but it was a good sign, she thought.
She pressed gently on the outer bits of her sex and winced. It might not be bleeding now, but it sure had been. She pushed up from the ground to get to her knees and opened her mouth to gasp from the shooting pains inside. But the action only opened a new cauldron of hurt. As soon as the moan left her mouth it doubled in volume to become a cry of unexpected pain. Her mouth.
Her mouth was still raw and bloody. she felt it warm with new blood as she opened it.
“Oh, fuck me,” she whispered.
As if on cue, the door above her opened. Elotan.
“Thanks for the invitation,” the demon said, and a hand reached down and grabbed her by the hair, hauling her up the chute again. She cried out at both the new pain and the old wounds, and the demon laughed in a low, dangerous rumble. He held her out in front of him, and traced a long, dark fingernail down from the sore, bite-marked tip of her right nipple to her belly button.