by S. B. Niccum
“Are you saying that I’m supposed to stop her? How?”
“You also are the only one impervious to her. You have an understanding of her nature that is … unique.”
“Agatha?” I shook my head uncomprehending.
He proceeded to tell me about her society and all the things she’s been up to since she ran away from Charlotte’s house. She had married my uncle, Eros; she was behind Alex’s death—my death gone wrong. In fact, everything he said felt like a new blow.
“And,” he added, “she recently kidnapped Dorian. He is being held captive.”
“What? How?” I opened the car door and was about to rush to the house.
“Rescuing him is not why you need to go in there,” he warned, grabbing my arm. “Your job is to stop her and to destroy this society.” His eyes looked intent and carried a warning in them.
“By stopping her you mean … ”
He nodded.
“I can’t kill anyone.”
“Is better that one evil person die than a whole generation fall. Think of what I’ve told you. She is being led by cast-out spirits to bring an early end to this world. The time is not yet.”
I shook my head emphatically. “Sorry, you got the wrong person. I can’t do that. I can’t believe that God would ask me to that either.”
He bit his lip, then closed his eyes.
“David slew Goliath.”
“I’m not David.”
“It’s your destiny,” he said solemnly. “When the time comes you will know what to do.”
I got out of the car and started toward the house. It was bustling with voices and the din of dishes and wine glasses. After his warning, or rather his assurance that I had help … more perhaps than I realized, I knocked on the door.
To my surprise the man from Mexico, Mathoniaha opened the door. He was dressed like a butler. I turned to see John’s expression, but he had evaporated. There was no sign of him anywhere.
Wordlessly, Mathoniaha ushered me in. He nodded once as I crossed the threshold and his eyes seemed to say, “Don’t blow my cover. But I’m here for you.”
Inside, the house was full of people I recognized from T.V. It was a wide assortment of celebrities and politicians. They were all wearing purple hooded robes, but underneath they looked as if they were dressed for a formal cocktail party. They ignored me, or let me be, as I passed through the room. Only a few people glanced at me but quickly looked away.
This place felt odd—no—not odd … bad. It felt oppressive and uncomfortable. I wanted to just get Dorian and get the heck out of here, but I knew it wouldn’t be that easy. Part of me also felt duty bound to be here, to end the whole cat and mouse game with Agatha, and to do whatever I could to stop this society. No. I didn’t want to kill Agatha or anyone for that matter, but bringing this world to an early and untimely end didn’t sound like something I wanted hanging over my head either.
I moved through the house ghost-like, as if moved by some unseen power. The place didn’t look like a home at all, though it had a parlor, a living room and a dining room. Everything seemed void of life; every item looked like a prop for a play.
I found myself in the kitchen, where lots of busy cooks ignored me and went about their jobs with unusual devotion. In front of me was a door; it looked like a large pantry. Something urged me to open it and though the inside was dark, I could discern an L shaped outline of light coming from the back wall.
Narrowing my eyes, I felt my way toward that sliver of light and traced it all the way around until I found small hinges. A door! Jamming my fingertips on the edge of the door, I pulled it open and found narrow stairs going steeply down. The wood was old and you could feel indentations under my feet as only years of use could have made.
At the bottom of the stairs there was a narrow hallway with closed doors at either side, I felt like Alice in Wonderland, trapped in a dream of sorts, or a nightmare. Suddenly a door opened and a woman wearing a red hooded cloak came out. She looked up and…me! It was me! I felt a scream leaving my throat, then … darkness.
Chapter 35
I woke up on a cot in a room with no windows. One of the walls was covered in drawings, familiar drawings! “Dorian!” I heard a scuffle and Dorian’s head popped up beside me. He had been lying on the floor beside me.
“Dorian, hi! What? Where are we?” I rubbed my eyes and tried to focus them. Then I felt a sharp pain on my head and I rubbed that too, only to find a goose egg there.
“Ouch!” I had been hit from behind by something heavy.
Instinctively Dorian reached a hand out to comfort me.
“Agatha,” he said solemnly, “and Genie.”
“Eugenia? She’s here? What would she be doing here? And Agatha … ” My mind reeled to the last thing I remember seeing before I was hit. It was me! Or someone who looked like me.”
“Agatha,” Dorian insisted. Could it be? Could Agatha had changed her appearance to look just like me? If so, why?
I directed my attention to the windowless room. It was set up like something between a prison cell and a nice hotel room, minus the T.V. and the coffee maker. There was a cot, a desk with a stack of papers—the wrong kind for Dorian to use—several boxes of pencils and pencil-sharpeners. There was another small buffet table with a pitcher of water, paper cups, and some crackers.
“How long have you been here, Dorian?” He shrugged, he didn’t know. “Do you remember how you got here?” Again, another shrug and he shook his head no. “Do you know if my aunts are safe?” He looked at me despondently and I knew that this was one of his main worries.
“They are fine, I’m sure. I think she’s after us for some reason. I don’t know why she wants you, but I know that I’ve been on her hit list for quite a long time.”
Dorian made a sweeping motion with his hand pointing to the drawings he had done on the white wall. Apparently he couldn’t bring himself to draw on the wrong paper, so he took to the walls. But all he had drawn were flames, perfect flames drawn in pencil covering one whole side of the wall and smoldering in between the flames was this house. “Is that something that will happen or has happened?”
No answer.
His drawings were miraculous, but unpredictable. One couldn’t depend on a timeline. The flames could have meant that this house was once in a fire and since restored or it could meant that it would someday be destroyed in a fire, no one could tell.
“Is this why Agatha brought you here?” I asked, pointing to his mural. “It must be.”
Dorian nodded then went to the stack of paper, “Wrong kind,” he explained innocently.
I got up and hugged him tightly.
“What? Did you say something?” Puzzled I looked at Dorian who shook his head.
“The—tt—time hasss come … ” A static like sound buzzed around my head making me feel dizzy and disoriented. Dorian steadied me.
“Oh, how touching,” a sarcastic raspy voice with a British accent startled us. It was a heavily tattooed guy who looked vaguely familiar.
“That’s right,” he said cockily. “I’m Marcel.” Apparently he felt that that was all the explanation I would need and that it should be obvious to me who he was by the mere mention of his first name.
The buzzing started again, they were those voices that I heard a few hours ago after Alex left me. They spun around me so rapidly that I felt vertigo. My eyes were having a hard time focusing on any specific thing, and my stomach started churning with whatever food I had in my stomach from the night before. I felt like throwing up, but I knew that Dorian would freak out about that, so I turned to Marcel and puked on him instead.
“Oh, bloody hell!”
“S-sorry,” I said unapologetically while I wiped my face. Instinctively Dorian stepped back and plugged his nose.
“Get out!” Marcel ordered while pushing me out of the way. “You’ll pay for that you little—” He shoved me again and Dorian started charging toward him, but Marcel shut the door in his face and
left him locked up in there with my vomit and that awful smell. I knew that Dorian would not deal well with that and I was proven right by his loud banging on the door.
Marcel pushed me into another room and locked the door heaping British blasphemies and coursings in on my head. The tormenting devils came back too, with more taunting words and more depressing messages as to why I should end my life right here and now; mixed with reassurances of the finality of death. The messages were actually contradictory and were driving me crazy.
I was left in this room for some time. I’m not sure how long, but it felt like a long time to spend with those depressing voices and in this odd room that looked like a medieval dungeon or a gothic shrine of sorts. Where was Celeste? John had promised help.
“Oh … Alex!” I groaned, hoping, but knowing that he wouldn’t come.
The devils laughed. “He won’t come to you Tess. He’s gone! Gone forever!”
“No. I don’t believe you. They still exist!”
“So where are they now, huh?”
“Yes, if they exist, why have they forsaken you?”
“That’s because they are all in your head!” They sneered and laughed some more.
“How about you? I can hear you!”
“We don’t exist either!” They laughed louder and harder and taunted some more, until finally the door opened and Agatha walked in. She paced the room, apprising me as I sat in the fetal position in a corner of the room.
“Well, well, if it isn’t Tess.” Her hair was different now, it was blond now and she no longer looked like my evil twin. “What’s wrong Tess? Is someone bothering you? You look sick.” When I didn’t respond, she continued, “Did you know that there was a murder committed today?” She paused and looked at me still, like a cat toying with a trapped mouse before eating it. “And do you want to know who it was that committed this murder? You! You, Tess! You killed the only human being that I have ever loved.” When she saw the puzzled look in my eyes she sniggered. “What, you don’t remember? Well let me jog your memory.” She pushed a button and a projector turned on and the lights dimmed down and a horrible scene was played in the back wall, where a person resembling me stabbed Eros on the chest more times than I cared to count.
“tss … tsst … sss” More static sounded in my ear. A different kind but I couldn’t hear it. My eyes remained fixed on the frozen image of me, holding a dagger over Eros’ body.
“You see Tess, you are in deep trouble here. So if I were you, I would listen to me carefully.”
“That is not me,” I said and my voice broke as I said it. “Your hair …”
Agatha shook her head and made a ticking noise with her tongue. “But this video says it is. And as you can see … I look nothing like you. The police has been informed and you will be arrested and charged—quite ironically—just like your father was, for murder.”
“This won’t hold up in court, I have proof that I wasn’t here when this happened.”
“Oh yeah? Well I have proof otherwise, and the Chief of Police, whom you’ll have the pleasure of meeting in a few minutes, thinks otherwise.
“Hmm … let me think, the Judge also, and who else? Oh yeah, we have an additional witness too and you’re about to meet them all upstairs because they are all members of my society.” She grabbed me by the arm and lifted me to my feet. “And they’re all upstairs waiting for their monthly ritual.” She shook her head and relished some internal delight. “Tonight, they are all in for a treat. They will see for the first time how power is acquired.”
“What? Agatha, you are—”
“No Tess! Not me, you! You are completely crazy. Trust me when I tell you that you need to either rot in prison or in a mental institution! Fortunately for you, I’m willing to offer you a different option.”
I shook my head trying to shake this nightmarish situation away.
“Because we are sisters of a sort, I will give you a very unique option. I suggest you take it, because I’m not very patient.”
I didn’t respond right away, that old feeling like Agatha was ridiculous came back to me. “Okay, what is it?”
“You and Dorian, can pledge yourselves to the Source and become part of my society, and willingly share your gifts with us, or … I take your gifts by making you and Dorian our sacrifices.”
“What?”
“The ritual might not kill you, but it will definitely leave you … hampered. At that point a mental ward would be the best-case scenario. But chances are, neither one of you will survive and I earn your powers.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard! You can’t inherit people’s gifts by killing them!”
Agatha laughed cynically and I felt like I was trapped in a second rate horror film. “You know nothing of how the Source works, and how power is harnessed. But by the time I’m done with you, you’ll be dead or too stupid to understand what happened to you, so I guess … you’ll never know.”
The members of Agatha’s society, filed into the room in a somber procession. They were all hooded and their heads were facing the ground, but I didn’t need to see their faces to know that they felt like empty shells. When I saw them earlier I sensed the same thing, though they looked beautiful, prosperous, healthy and fit. However inside, they were hollow and dark, as if there was little humanity left in them.
As he passed me, Marcel, turned his head ever so slightly, smiled and winked mockingly. He appeared to have showered and change, since the puke incident. After him another hooded member passed and looked my way. It was Eugenia; she too looked contemptuously at me and suppressed a derisive smile.
The members of the society took their places around some altar of sorts, Agatha was at the head of them, behind and above her hung a gothic symbol of sorts that no doubt represented the Source, or whatever it was they worshiped.
The last person to enter brought with him Dorian, who jerked around as the man shoved him into the room. He tried to come to my side, but the man holding him grabbed on to him with both arms and wouldn’t let him go.
“Has he drawn anything?”
“He drew a very impressive mural,” the man who held Dorian said.
“Well … ”
“It’s a picture of this house, going up in flames.”
“This house was almost destroyed in a fire nearly thirty years ago,” a heavy-set older man, spoke up. Agatha turned sharply to look at him, and he cowered. I wonder who he was in real life, what profession he had. He looked well to do, he looked like he was used to being in charge, but not here.
“So it could be the past or the future.” Agatha said, turning her attention back to Dorian who was still writhing in the man’s grasp. “Which one is it, Dorian?” She asked in a syrupy voice.
He didn’t answer; in fact, he didn’t even acknowledge that she spoke at all. “Talk to him Tess!” she ordered me.
“He won’t tell us, he never does. Believe me, I’ve tried,” I said matter-of-factly.
“Very well, if he won’t cooperate, we’ll take the gift from him,” she announced, then grabbed a thick goblet, lifted it up and started reciting something in a strange language. The contents of the cup were red and started to boil, spilling over the side. The hooded crowd knelt down on one knee and bowed their heads, repeating certain things at certain times.
When Agatha was done, with the blessing, or whatever it was she had done, she took a sip from the contents of the cup and swallowed slowly, making a big deal out of it. She then walked around the room and like a priest, let each of the hooded people take a sip as well.
They continued with their ritual by chanting some more things in that odd language, then they started shaking and their eyes started rolling to the back of their heads. This lasted for a few minutes, and then most of the members started regaining control of their bodies once again. As they did so, some of them looked slightly irked by the experience, like a bitter cup they had to drink in order to get whatever they got out of this organization. Oth
ers, like Marcel, looked like they had just gotten an adrenaline rush and were jazzed up. All of them looked a little emptier.
“Bring her to me,” Agatha demanded, with a low growl that didn’t have her usual tenor. I looked for evidence of an electronic voice changer, but saw none. Maybe she had one hidden under her cloak.
Two members yanked me forward and roughly pushed me toward Agatha. Her eyes looked different too, they were her eyes—but they reflected the thoughts of someone else—a second person. I examined her and she shone different too, it was hard to explain. It was as if she was possessed. The interesting thing was, she didn’t like it. If she didn’t like it, then why do it?
“I amuse you, Tess?” the foreign voice asked.
“Who are you?”
“We’ve met before … a long, long time ago.” The foreign voice broke out into an evil laugh that seemed to shake the room and bristled the hairs on the back of my neck. The voice was so thickly laden with dread and despair that it coated me and everyone else in the room with it. It was evil, simple and pure. “Please to meet you … won’t you guess my name?” it joked, then laughed louder.
“Ha! That was a good song,” Marcel piped in from the sidelines. The thing inhabiting Agatha turned its head in an unnatural way toward the sound of Marcel’s voice. There was no mirth in its expression; nothing of that sort could ever be understood by that being.
“I know … I wrote it,” it commented. “I wrote a lot of songs, some of yours too Marcel.”
This last comment made Marcel swallow a lump in his throat and drained his otherwise cocky face of all color. The being that inhabited Agatha now turned its attention back to me and examined me for a moment with hungry eyes.
I felt my body trembling from the inside, but something seemed to be keeping me still on the outside. All the agony that I felt inside seemed to be enhanced to the point that I felt that my strength was failing me and my eyes were becoming unfocused. I tried to fight against that feeling and tried to remember all the good things that had happened in my life, in order to counter the effects of that being, but my brain was having a hard time coming up with any.