Cult of the Hexad (Afterlife saga Book 6)

by Stephanie Hudson

  “Nah, I let the horses out of their stables, so that should keep them busy…now stop worrying and come on, I have a surprise for you.” I stopped myself before bombarding her with loads of questions and number one on that list was ‘what if they knew it was her’.

  I followed her through to the back of the barn until we came to a rickety looking ladder that led to a mezzanine level. I ignored the next question I wanted to ask and just went on up. Once I reached the top I saw that this was obviously where they stored most of the hay. I looked back at Ari but she just nodded to a small triangle window that was the only source of light. I climbed my way over the bales to see someone had made what looked like a straw fort.

  “Did you do this?” I asked in awe.

  “Okay, so it’s no New York penthouse but welcome to your new home…for two days at least.” I looked around the hidden space finding blankets, pillows and best of all, a basket of food. She had even placed a small pile of books next to the make shift bed with a small flashlight resting on the top. I wanted to cry out my thanks and weep at the feet of the only person who loved me in this world. I said it once and thought it a million times before but I just knew I would never have survived without my twin.

  In the end I didn’t cry and crumble to her feet. No, I simply stepped into her body, put my arms around her and then whispered in her ear,

  “I love you.”

  “I know you do, Kay Bear.”

  “How did you have time to do all this?” I asked in awe. She looked back at me and the confusion was clear to see.

  “How long do you think you have been down there?” Now it was my turn to frown at her question.

  “I don’t know, ten, fifteen minutes tops…Ari? What is it?”

  “Kay, you were down there for hours.”

  Shortly after that Ari left so she could sneak back into the house and act like she had no clue what had happened. I spent that time eating the leftovers from last night’s meatloaf dinner with a piece of stale bread that would go unnoticed for that very reason. I also spent the time wondering how on earth I had lost so much time down there.

  I was trying to get my head sorted out and figure out what these dreams and visions actually meant. Had the figure at the top of the stairs been a vision of my Demon? Had that hellhole been where he had kept her?

  I turned my head to one side and frowned at my own thoughts. It seemed the most logical explanation but if that was the case then why did that idea not sit well with me? Actually the thought made me sick to my stomach and not just because I found it hard to believe anyone could do that to someone they loved. Now this was one thought that made me laugh out loud considering the things my own mother did to me. But it was something else within me that felt so wrong just thinking that it could have been him. Or was that just all part of his mind control?

  “Hey, I’m back.”

  “Jesus!” I shouted, jumping a mile when Ari popped her head over the top of the ladder.

  “That’s a sin you know.” She said but as soon as the words were out I no longer heard them being spoken just now by my sister.

  “What did you say?” I asked on a freaked out whisper. I saw her lips start to move but then softly the world around her started to change.

  “That's a sin you know.” A different voice overrode my sister’s, replaced suddenly by a man’s deep and sensual voice. It spoke to me and my hand went to my chest feeling it thump erratically under my palm. I felt my lips start to move and I frowned at the voice I heard playing back at me, one that was full of confidence and feisty playfulness.

  “This is never going to work if you keep creeping up on me and nearly scaring me to death!”

  “Kay...Are you alright?” I heard my sister’s voice as if it was being spoken at the end of a tunnel.

  “I…I…” I shook my head and closed my eyes at the painful pressure building at my temple.

  “And what do I get in return?” The man’s voice asked again and this time sounding just as playful as mine had. My eyes snapped open despite the pain and I gasped without making a sound. My mind tried to force my body to do as it was told and that was to turn around and run. But none of that happened. Not now…it was too late for running because there he was.

  Stood right in front of me.

  I looked down and let the shorter parts of my hair fall forward only to see my hand outstretched as if trying to take something from him. He had something in his hand and was keeping it from me, holding it behind his back. He playfully looked down at me given the vast difference in height and I felt myself bite my bottom lip, something I had never done before. He raised one eyebrow and smirked when seeing the evidence of what his presence obviously provoked from within me.

  “And here was me thinking that you were the type to just take whatever you wanted…oh well.” I said shocking myself enough that my instincts would have had my hands flying to my mouth in regret. But that never happened. Instead I turned my back to him only to find his speed was nothing short of superhuman.

  He was stood back in front of me by the time I turned and grinning at me like he…well, like he wanted to take a bite out of me! He held out what looked like a small phone and my hand reached out to take it with no choice on my part.

  I knew it was a mistake, I was screaming that mistake out at myself but it was all in vain. He grabbed my body, pulling it forward so I had no choice but to go to him. Then he spun me around so he was at my back and I felt my neck being arched to one side. Oh God, he was going to bite me! He was going to feed from me and then there would be no going back.

  I would be his forever.

  I looked up as my head was forced into the position he wanted me in and the sight I saw was like someone dumping me into an icy river. A large mirror stood in front of us, one that was framed in the exact replica of our church’s main window. I couldn’t understand what I was seeing but more so the sight of me as my other self, the miserable part of me in the broken window that was no longer looking so desolate. No, she was long gone and in her place was a girl that only needed one word to describe her…

  She was free.

  The blissful look on her face said there was nowhere in her world that she would rather be than in his arms. It wasn’t the frightened face of my world. It wasn’t the supressed girl’s hands that gripped onto his arm, holding him to her. It wasn’t the confining coarse dress covering a body quivering at his touch. It was her, not me and for once I hated it!

  “I want it to be me.” I said and just for a few seconds her image flickered to mine. As soon as this happened I realised my mistake as it wasn’t me that he wanted…

  It was her.

  His arm tightened painfully around my torso and anger overtook his once lustful face. His eyes found my frightened ones staring back at him in the mirror and they ignited into a deep purple fire that blazed at the sight of which girl he held captive in front of him.

  “It can never be you!” He hissed through gritted teeth and then it happened. Time seemed to speed up and in a blur of movement I only had enough time to see my doomed fate in the form of dangerous fangs flashing white before I felt them bury themselves into my jugular…

  My Demon wanted to kill me.

  “Katie!” I heard the name but for the first time it no longer felt like my own.

  “What happened? Are you okay?” My sister asked as I felt myself collapse to the straw bed in what felt more like defeat than exhaustion.

  “Katie?”

  “I don’t know.” I answered honestly wondering if I would ever be okay again. That lasting image of the Demon I was becoming obsessed with, trying to destroy me was one that I knew would haunt me for the rest of my days. It was almost as if he blamed me for something…or someone?

  “What happened just then, you started to go all weird, like you were hallucinating or something?” Ari asked handing me a cup of water she had just poured from a flask. I took great gulps of my water before answering her as it suddenly felt like I hadn’t
drank anything for days.

  “I don’t know, it’s never happened to me before…well before today that is. Something you said must have triggered a vision, like being in that basement did.” Ari frowned at me, folding her arms.

  “Okay, start talking Kay.” She demanded sitting down on an opposite hay bale. I didn’t think talking about it was a good idea but I found that once I started that I just couldn’t stop. I told her everything starting backwards with the vision I just had.

  “She spoke to me Ari.”

  “She spoke to you? But I thought you said…”

  “Yes I know but something must have happened. Something… broke through…” I said this last part leaning forward and in a whisper as though the reasons just hit me.

  “…The window.” I added before she had chance to ask me what.

  “The one you see your dreams through?”

  “Yes and the very same one that’s in our church…could it really all be inside my head? Could my mind really be making all this up because I will tell you Ari, it really doesn’t feel that way.”

  “I know. It doesn’t for me either. I was thinking about this earlier and I have a theory.” I took the last few sips left of my water and said,

  “Well thank God one of us does,” over my metal cup.

  “What if there is something more going on around here, you know apart from all that prophecy, Chosen One crap?” I closed my eyes again as if hearing all the Colony’s crazy wacked up shit caused me actual physical pain.

  The Six ‘Fathers’ or ‘Elders’ as they were also called, were like the leaders of the Colony and each had their own family household surrounding one communal farm. Mostly the Colony remained self-sufficient, growing its own food and our energy coming from solar panels and wind generators.

  However there was a blacked out van that would turn up once a week with what we gathered to be more supplies. We never saw what was being unloaded as we knew that as soon as the van was seen on the boundaries of our land we had to disappear inside our rooms. Only the elders knew what came and went in the unmarked van and no one questioned the Elders…ever.

  “Well needless to say that neither of us believes a word they preach and all this rubbish about Rory being the ‘Chosen One’ and carrying the prophecy inside her is just another way to control us.” I said knowing that nothing about this place was even on the radar of being normal.

  Our cousin Rory was a grade A bitch and there was no other way of putting it. But the Elders believed that she had been chosen when she woke up one day pregnant. Our Uncle, Rory’s father and leader of the Hexad Order just deemed it so one day and that was that, we had a new Queen Bee in Crazyville. No one knew how she got pregnant in the first place but rumours were born, even in a place as strict as this. Some of us believed it was one of the Elders themselves who had knocked her up but of course none of us ever dared speak our minds.

  “Yeah, but it’s not just that. Don’t you think it’s weird that one girl has been allowed to leave every month for the last eight?” Ari asked and to be honest I hadn’t even thought about it until now. All the ‘Fathers’ had extended families with not only children of their own but some were even grandfathers.

  “I guess.” I said wondering what she was getting at.

  “Don’t you think in a Colony this small the chances of having ten girls all becoming twenty five in the same year is…well, very unlikely.” Well putting it like that then yeah, the chances of that happening were…

  “And to add to those impossible odds is the fact that each birthday has landed on a full moon, as in, the exact day!” Ari carried on and like she said it added even more proof to those impossible odds.

  “Why hadn’t we thought about it before?” I asked now thinking how obvious it had all been to see.

  “I think it has something to do with our dreams. The last dream I had my Angel was trying to tell me something and the dream ended with him pointing to the full moon outside his window.” Even though there was nothing sexual in what she was saying I knew there had been a heck of a lot more to this dream, well that was if her crimson blush was anything to go by.

  “It was after that when I started to think about why this place is even here or why we are even having these dreams? And now both of us in the same night managed to break through and in one way or another, we communicated with them…it has to mean something, it just has to.” I could see now how much this was affecting my twin and I don’t think I realised up until then just how much her feelings mirrored my own. We both knew there was something more to these visions and each new day just seemed to lay more evidence to that conclusion at our feet.

  “I agree.” I said comforting her and placing my hand over hers that she rested on her knee. I knew my twin, better than I knew myself sometimes and I could see in her beautiful blue eyes how much of a toll this was taking on her. Ari was strong, much stronger than I but these dreams seemed to be grinding her down, almost making her desperate…or was it because our joint time was nearing for when we could leave.

  “It’s Bethany’s time to leave next isn’t it?” I asked making sure I had it right, as losing time in this place was easily done.

  “Yeah, tomorrow night is her leaving ceremony…why?”

  “Because now we suspect something isn’t right, it would be a good opportunity to keep a look out for anything …don’t you think?” Ari’s smile told me she completely agreed.

  “Well that is if I am let out from house arrest by then or you might be flying this detective mission solo.”

  “No way, mother wouldn’t dare keep you from a ceremony, not when the Elders teachings are all about strength in numbers when it comes to worshipping the Gods.” This I guessed was true, so all I needed to do was make sure I was back in that hole before nightfall tomorrow. As if reading my thoughts Ari said,

  “Don’t worry about it, everyone will be too busy on the other side of the house to see you sneak back in. You know what it’s like when someone leaves, ‘elbows deep in dough and pie making for us little woman’ and ‘fields need a’ ploughing for God’s righteous men’.” I had to laugh at the different voices she put on for each example. The squeaky woman’s voice sounded very similar to Bethany, the girl who was lucky enough to leave tomorrow night and the man’s was overly deep, the way our pompous uncle always spoke in his sermons.

  “Right, I’d better be getting back before mother thinks you need a cellar buddy and tries to stuff me down there as well.” I rolled my eyes thinking with that woman there was a first for everything and I would put nothing past her as long as it was cruel and unloving.

  I stood up with my sister and grabbed her hand just before she was about to leave.

  “Thank you Ari.”

  “What for?” I looked around the small straw shelter that looked more homely than my stark room ever did and said,

  “For all this, but most of all for getting me out of that place…the vision I saw down there…” My shiver was enough to describe how traumatic it had been and Ari pulled me in for one last hug.

  “One month.”

  “One month.” We both whispered at the same time, repeating it like our very own survival mantra.

  “Maybe we should have T-shirts made for the big day?” Ari laughed at me before pulling back and motioning with her dress.

  “What, and lose these lovely stylish and oh so comfortable dresses…are you mad?” She mocked making me laugh.

  “Good point.”

  “I think we hold off the T-shirt ordering until it can say, ‘Freedom Forever’.”

  “I like it and a lot catchier than ‘One Month’.” I agreed, thankful at least we could joke about our dire situation. Because facing facts, if we weren’t laughing, we were crying and I think our tears had dried up long ago for the both of us.

  I watched my sister leave and could only hope she wasn’t caught. It seemed these were my main worries these days…oh who was I kidding, these were my worries everyday living in this God fo
rsaken place. I had lost faith in what we were taught a long time ago as I could never believe this was the kind of life anyone would want for their family, let along the Gods that supposedly made us.

  Of course a lot of the others here would never have shared our view and believed in whatever they were told without question. They were told that we were chosen for a higher meaning. That the six Gods of the Hexad were to be worshipped at all times and in turn they would grant us favour when it was our time to be welcomed into heaven. None of this had ever sat well with me and Ari but we learned very quickly to keep our mouths shut when it came to our opinions.

  It wasn’t that we weren’t religious but it was as if somewhere deep down we knew the truth. Almost as though we had been told or even shown the proof. I didn’t know if this was because we had both been seven years old by the time we came here and this meant we had all the memories of a life before this.

  We remembered what it was like to watch TV and eat sweets. We remembered what it was like to play games and find comfort in our favourite toys. To have family BBQ’s with delicious home cooked food and be surrounded by friendly neighbours.

  So when we were forced into this life, it had just meant feeling like you had been ripped away from your old one. One that had been good and pure and something to rely on. Because you never missed the little things until they were taken from you. The resentment you feel towards those who refuse to give you back that life is insurmountable. And with every passing year it grows filling you with a kind of hatred you never knew you could possess.

  Which only meant one thing…

  Giving you the power to survive.

  Chapter 4

  An Icy Fear

  Two days of solitary time had been just what the doctor had ordered and as long as I wasn’t imprisoned down in that dungeon then this had felt more like a holiday than a punishment. Of course my mother didn’t know that and would no doubt expect to find what she had the last time she dished out this sentence. Well the last laugh would be on her if she thought to find me that way ever again. This time my dignity wouldn’t allow it.