Candlelight flickered over his toned form. He closed his eyes.
“I am here on my own orders. Do it!” He took a deep breath anticipating the sound of the posts grinding in the dirt, the ropes tightening, pulling his body. They still didn’t move.
“But, High Priest…”
“You would like three turns, yourself?”
With a final second’s worth of hesitation, the wheels began to move. On the first turn, the ropes gripped, bringing a smile to his young-looking features. The pressure, so far, was bearable but he knew it wouldn’t be for long. On the second pass, he felt the pull from under his arms and in his groin. As the noose around his neck cut off the blood flow, he felt icy doubt turning to slush, melting from his heart.
Pulsing, a vein stood out on his forehead. He didn’t tighten his muscles, didn’t resist the tug but instead welcomed the pain, hoping to be rid of his doubt forever. On the third spin, he could no longer breathe. His eyes pushed at his eyelids, hands and feet feeling swollen, sinuses feeling like they were stuffed with cotton, ears ringing. He wanted to laugh, wanted to thank the men for all their work over the years, wanted to kiss the Dark One’s horny feet, wanted to dance naked with the High Priestess, with his Eve. The ritual would go as planned. Aludra would draw the spirit to them. They had no reason to doubt the Dark One, ever. He was cleansed.
“You have been sent here to learn a lesson. Do you feel retribution, remorse? Do you now understand?” The words he scripted centuries ago sank into his heart, opening his mind to his errors, his doubt. He did understand, he did feel remorse, and, best of all, he felt retribution seeping into him, enshrouding him in faith and truth and love for the Dark One who gave everything and asked so little in return.
He nodded yes, a pressured grin spreading over his purple face. Grateful tears leaked from his eyes. Why hadn’t he done this long ago?
“You will not repeat the same mistake?”
He shook his head no as best as he could. Chest burning, he longed for a lungful of the warm air around him.
“Then you are released.”
Never had the High Priest felt such relief. The moment they said the word “released,” he felt his heart completely free of doubt. He could soar as high as an eagle if he so chose.
One reverse motion. He sucked in the air and exhaled in a moan of triumph. Hands and feet tingling, underarms and groin burning, throat aching, he laughed, a choked and harsh sound in the gloom. As they turned the wheel a second time, the ropes were tight, but no longer painful. Feeling flooded through his limbs. His body burned with electricity, alive for the first time since Eve’s death. Three times around. All pressure ceased. The men untied him.
The High Priest sprung from the table and bounded to his clothes.
“Thank you,” he hollered as he ran through the canal and back into the manor. Alive. Never had he felt so alive and full of hope. He would live forever with his beloved at his side as promised. The Dark One would not fail him. The Dark One would always be there to ensure his security so long as he served, obeyed, and didn’t doubt. He would never doubt again.
Chapter Seven
“Time to play; time to play,” Aludra whispered in a girlish sing-song. A cathedral stood before her, the Romanesque spires reaching to the heavens, each tipped with a large cross. The Church of the Holy Mother was the largest building in this small town, next to the hospital. Singing and organ music filled her with awe. Never had she heard anything so ethereal, so powerful. She never knew sound could carry so much magic. It had to be magic to make her feel the way it did.
She stepped through the large front doors into a red-carpeted entryway, then through another set of double doors. These were adorned with brightly colored stained glass depicting a robed woman and her child. The image reminded her of what her mother must’ve looked like. An ache seized her chest. She gasped, feeling her eyes burn as she gazed at the image. Maybe her mother held her this way before she’d been cast out of the Order. She had not known her.
The baby in the glass looked warm curled in the crook of an arm and the folds of the robe.
With a shake of her head, Aludra turned away. This was no time for nostalgia or self-pity. She saw a group of people in long gowns standing on some sort of platform and a man in black directing them with a stick. To her left and right were altars carrying hundreds of tiny candles. At the base of each altar were wooden benches—far too small to sit on—with red pads on them. Each pad carried twin indents.
The incense made her heady.
She watched a woman dressed in a black skirt and jacket, wearing a hat with black lace covering her face, kneeling on one of these benches. A candle was in one of her hands. She lit it with a long stick, set it on the altar, and put her hands together in front of her face. She rocked back and forth, crying and murmuring. Aludra sensed that whatever this woman did was cleansing her spirit. The ritual seemed to fill the woman with another kind of strength, something Aludra couldn’t understand.
Power. It surged through the woman, lighting her soul like a bonfire. Did she know how she glowed? Aludra mimicked her actions. She knelt on the red pads, took a long stick from a small, metal cup attached to the side of the altar, and lit it with one of the other candles. She then grabbed an unlit candle and set her tiny flame to it marveling at the beauty of fire as she did so. She blew out her stick and placed it back in the cup then set her candle on the altar.
As she drew her palms together, she noticed the dried blood grimed into the lines in her skin and remembered the woman she’d just left behind. The spirit wouldn’t leave her body while the woman had lived. It didn’t matter what Aludra did to her, the spirit only grew angrier and more powerful, refusing to be torn free. After the first failed attempt, she’d found a child playing and tried again. Still nothing. It didn’t help that she hadn’t a clue how Rory managed it in the first place. Perhaps it was something only Rory could do.
With her hands firmly together, she put her finger tips to her forehead and closed her eyes, waiting. Hands clasped, head bowed, she felt nothing. She waited. Nothing. Her mind wandered. She wondered what the spirit of Rory was doing now. Could it feel anything at all or did it just travel aimlessly? She knew little of her task, except that she was supposed to bring the spirit in. But how? It could go through walls. Was she to bind it and drag it back in the body it now possessed? It would easily pass through the ropes; she just knew it.
The answer didn’t reveal itself. Nothing actually happened. The longer she sat there, the more nothing there was. What was she doing incorrectly? Where did this power come from? Aludra wanted the same feeling flowing through her that must have flowed through Rory.
Frustrated, she stood and blew out all the candles on her altar. The woman in black gasped and stared, her wrinkled face burning with shock.
“What!” she hissed.
“How dare you,” the woman began, but Aludra didn’t stay to listen.
The choir in the front of the church sang on, unaware of what had just transpired.
She strolled outside and found herself in a garden where a woman tended some plants. She wore a black and white uniform just like the one she’d seen the organist inside wearing. The gardener had a young, innocent face and a slender body. Maybe too slender. When she bent over, she reminded Aludra of trees she’d seen in one part of the forest. Trees with long, delicate branches that hung over and swept to the ground, the kind of limber branches that can be used like a whip. Whip trees, she’d thought of them.
The gardener glowed with the same power she’d seen in the kneeling woman but her light was stronger. Angry that she couldn’t somehow channel this energy, Aludra resolved to find out everything she could about what this was.
“Excuse me,” she interrupted as the woman worked the soil.
“Yes, child,” the black robed woman responded, looking up, leaning on her hoe. Aludra found it interesting that she called her child the same way the High Priestess did.
Aludra
walked closer to her. So many other people were in the area. She knew she had to be careful.
“I have a question.” Almost close enough now. Shoulder to shoulder. She should get her to move away from the windows. But how? “Um, I need you to come over there with me. I want to talk in private, if you would, please.”
“Yes, my child, whatever you need.” The woman walked over to a tool shed, placed the hoe inside, removed her grimy gloves, and turned, smiling at Aludra.
“Over here,” Aludra motioned and walked away, confident the woman would follow. She clenched and unclenched her hands, nearly bouncing in anticipation. If she could just get her over to the last victim’s house, she knew this time she could do it. She felt confident it would work. But would this one fall for it? She just had to.
“I have a friend,” she began when they got to a more secluded area away from the church. “See that house over there?”
“Yes.”
“She’s in there, see. She says she’s going to kill herself if she can’t talk to someone like you. I’m afraid for her. I came here to find you.”
“Let me get the Father to help with this,” the woman said and turned to leave.
“No,” Aludra said and too quickly grabbed the woman’s upper arm in a tight grip. She squeezed too hard.
The woman winced.
Aludra softened her smile, loosening her fingers. “I’m sorry,” she continued. “You don’t understand. She is afraid of men. It has to be you.”
The woman nodded and, with that, simply followed Aludra across the street to the house.
This was too perfect. Innocent people were so damn trusting, naive.
“Do you know how she came to be like this?”
Aludra said the first thing that came to her mind. “Men did things to her. Terrible things. She can’t be around them now without fear. I wish to have you speak with her. Talk her out of her own death.”
“I will do what I can. The Sisters are always ready and willing to help anyone in need.”
Gravel crunched under their shoes as they crossed the driveway. Aludra let herself in through the unlocked front door. The heavy smell of blood filled the room making Aludra’s heart race with excitement.
Almost there.
“Oh, what’s that smell?” The woman crinkled her face and held the back of her hand up to the bottom of her nose. “It smells like…”
“Blood,” Aludra said as she closed the door behind them.
“What…” the woman turned, blue eyes wide, bottom lip trembling. She flicked a glance at Aludra’s bloody fingernails for the first time.
Aludra looked up at the woman from under her eyebrows, green eyes flashing poison. “Play time,” she whispered.
The woman hesitated for only a second, then ran through the house. Aludra let her. She couldn’t get far. She followed through the kitchen. Before she came around the corner, she heard her scream.
“Oh my, oh Lord, why, Lord? Why me, Lord? She’s dead. She’s dead. Oh, God, she’s dead.” Aludra walked in.
“How do you like my work?” She swept her hand over the blood-soaked floor, motioning toward the glassy-eyed woman slouched next to the stove. Her arms were extended to either side of her body, tied in place with dish rags. A washcloth hung from her mouth. Blood pooled beneath her wrists.
The living woman backed away from Aludra in horror, turned, and ran into the other room.
“Go ahead and run. I’ll catch you in the end.” She chuckled, following a bit faster. She didn’t want the woman to get outside, screaming the way she was.
The woman’s glow was fading. This wasn’t good. Aludra wanted to feel it, feel what her spirit had to offer.
“What do you want from me?” the woman cried from the stairs as she ran. “What did I do to you?” She stumbled, sobbing, blinded by her tears.
“Who is this God you talk to?” Aludra asked, wondering if that had anything to do with the woman’s aura.
She sobbed, running up the rest of the stairs, disappearing behind a door. Aludra heard her body slam against it as it shut. She could almost taste the woman’s fear on the air. It was much better than the kitchen woman’s had tasted.
“Who is God?”
“Leave me alone!” the woman screamed in a shrill voice.
“No one is going to save you. You are mine now.”
She found the closed door and pressed her body against it, imagining the frightened soul leaning against the other side. She licked the white painted wood, running her hands over it, caressing it.
“I smell you in there,” she whispered.
“The Devil sent you!” the woman wailed. After a slight pause, she took a deep breath, then said, “God, if it is your will, I am ready.”
Aludra heard her stepping away, retreating into the bedroom.
She placed her hand on the knob, then hesitated. A trick? She didn’t think so but why would the woman just give up like that? It didn’t make any sense. She decided it didn’t matter. The urge to feel the spirit was far too strong to resist. She turned the knob, rushed in and slammed the door behind her. Just as she was about to lunge for her victim, she stopped, dumbfounded.
The glow emanating from this human’s spirit nearly blinded Aludra. She pressed herself against the door and stared. The light, so beautiful, she wanted to touch it, to feel the power, to twist it into something else. What would it take to dampen that energy?
“God is not here,” she muttered, but didn’t know why. “It’s just you and me.” Looking at the light pulsing from the woman’s skin, she wasn’t so sure. She wanted to be, but firmly told herself it didn’t matter. The woman stood, ready for what came.
“The Lord is my shepherd…” she chanted. If Aludra didn’t focus, she’d become lost in the flow of words. They were melodic, these words, not unlike the words spoken during the many ceremonies in the caverns of the Order.
She shook herself and concentrated. The bed had a headboard with many vertical brass poles. It would do just fine.
Like a snake, she snapped forward and tackled the woman to the bed. The warm body trembled and heaved beneath her, but the bitch didn’t struggle. Propped on her elbows, Aludra gazed at the woman’s closed eyes and red lips. What fun they would have.
Tree branches tapped the window, reminding Aludra that the world might see her training session. She pushed herself off her victim and pulled the drapes closed. Her thigh banged against the corner of the bureau. The spot ached and would surely bruise. She licked her lips and poked a finger into the tender flesh then caressed the corner of the furniture.
Whispered words and choked sobs from the bed brought her back to her task. With a clatter, she flung open the drawers and dug through, searching for the right tools, casting miscellaneous clothes on the floor. Black nylons stuffed in the corner would suffice. Using her teeth, she tore them in two.
The wretch cried and continued her incantation, the words coming softer, faster, hands clasped between her breasts. This couldn’t be allowed. Aludra ripped them apart with little effort. Knot tying had been a popular form of meditation in the Order. She knew just the one to use to bind her captive. Straddling the woman’s chest, knees in the crooks of each arm to hold her in place, Aludra wrapped and tied the nylon around each wrist and then around the poles in the headboard. She wanted to bind the naive girl’s feet, but couldn’t find anything that would work. No matter. It would be more fun if her toy thought struggling might amount to something.
The intoxicating ebb and flow of her voice threatened to lull Aludra to sleep. It had to stop. The woman brightened each time she began her ritual anew.
Aludra hopped off the bed, found a sock in the drawer and stuffed it into her disobedient plaything’s mouth, securing it with more pantyhose.
“Now, where can I touch your spirit?” she asked.
The woman squeezed her eyes shut and turned away. The sufferer must see if she should learn anything from her pain. There would be no hiding from this.
; “First things first, then.” In the bathroom, she dug through drawers and cupboards, but didn’t find what she needed. Loath to leave her captive alone, she searched the nightstand and found a small sewing kit.
“I want you to look at me. I want you to see everything I do to you before you die. Got it?” The cold needle felt good, gripped between her lips as she unspooled black thread.
The woman’s eyes sprung open, her expression soft and pleading as Aludra threaded her instrument of pain.
“You see this?” She brandished the tool within an inch of the woman’s eye.
She nodded, a small movement to avoid puncturing her wet orb on the needle.
“Keep your eyes open, or I will sew them open. Got it?”
The woman nodded again.
“And no more talking to your God.”
Her aura dimmed. So, that’s what made her glow with the coveted power. God. The deceiver. How far could she push this woman’s spirit? What would it take to make her light blink out, to make her turn her back on the one who created hell on Earth? She would find out.
Though she couldn’t trust the wretch, she had to leave for another tool. With a light step, she ran downstairs to the kitchen, eager for the lesson to begin. She slipped in a crimson puddle and slid into her late victim’s leg, catching herself on the countertop. Breathless, she kicked the dead woman in the ribs for daring to hinder her. Maneuvering around the blood and the body, she grabbed scissors out of the cutting block. Red footprints marked her passage back to the bedroom.
She jumped onto the mattress and straddled her new pupil, then squatted and held the teaching instrument in front of her face. She yanked the sock out of her mouth and twisted the nylon that had held it in place over her head.
“What are you?” Aludra demanded.
“What?” the woman stammered looking from the shears to Aludra’s eyes and back again.
Aludra opened the blades and pushed a sharp point into the woman’s cheek, dimpling the flesh. “I said, what are you?”
Women Scorned Page 10