The corridor took a sharp bend to the left and led down a flight of stairs into an antechamber. At that moment, a figure emerged into the antechamber through an arch at the side of the room. A tall, rather thin, blond figure like a half-grown labrador puppy. Luckily, she recognised him before he noticed her.
‘Oh my God – it’s Geoffrey Potter! What’s he doing here?’ Mara took a step backwards in her panic. There was something not quite right here. Something very much not right. Twice she had shaken off Geoffrey and twice he had reappeared, with that same amiable and yet slightly malicious smile. And then there was the incident with the white deer.
I’ve got to get out of here, thought Mara, turning to flee. It was stupid, she knew that; but she knew something terrible would happen if she came face to face with him again. He’d changed and the change wasn’t for the better. He would do something to prevent her rescuing Andreas.
She dodged back into the shadows and Heimdal followed her, grabbing her arm and forcing her to look at him.
‘What’s the matter?’ he demanded.
‘Quiet!’ she beseeched him. ‘There’s someone out there – someone I mustn’t meet. I think he might be dangerous to us. We’ve got to find somewhere to hide until he goes away.’
They couldn’t easily go back the way they’d come without crossing Geoffrey’s line of sight – besides which, Mara was afraid of falling if she tried to hurry back across the narrow footbridge.
She looked around desperately for some other place to hide and as she slid along the wall of the chamber, in the shadows, she stepped into an alcove.
It was a short side-passage – a dead end, perhaps fifteen yards long, curving to the right and ending in a rough rock face. Mara slipped inside, out of sight of Geoffrey, and Heimdal followed her.
‘Look – a door. We can go through there.’ She pointed to an archway on the left side of the passageway, dark and forbidding but offering some prospect of a better hiding-place.
‘What doorway? There’s no doorway there – just a blank wall! Have you had a touch of the sun or something?’ Heimdal shone his torch on the wall, revealing nothing but smooth limestone, marked here and there by the workmen’s chisels and axes.
Mara reached out and touched the wall. He was right. The place was solid, cold, smooth, just like all the rock around it. But she could still see the outline of the doorway with perfect clarity: a square arch, with hieroglyphics painted in red above the lintel, and leading through into an utter blackness which the torch-beam could not penetrate.
‘I can see a door,’ she replied, her voice trembling. ‘There is a door.’
She heard a voice in her head – Andreas’s voice, very far away now – crying ‘No, no, no, no!’ over and over again.
But another voice, smooth and seductive and far more powerful, whispered softly in her head, stifling Andreas’s cries and pushing all thoughts of him far, far back into the deep, airless darkness.
‘The Phallus, Mara. Use it now . . .’
Half-instinctively, her own will suddenly drained from her like blood pumping from a severed artery, Mara reached into the canvas bag and took the Phallus from its box. It was warm and lively in her hands, pulsating like living flesh and yet glowing with the same bright green fire that had wrought such destruction at Burzenheim.
The world around them, the world beyond that tiny passageway, fears of pursuit: all faded away as Mara held the Phallus of Osiris in her trembling hands and watched the lightning fork from it, engulfing all – herself, Heimdal, the corridor – in a blinding green light.
When the light faded, Heimdal and Mara found themselves looking through a square arch into a cold chamber. In the centre stood a small stone altar, on which burned a sodium-yellow flame.
A flame that had burned alone in the darkness for four thousand years.
Slowly, Mara walked into the chamber, Heimdal following close behind.
The walls were decorated with paintings, as bright and perfect as they had been on the day the artist finished them. The first showed a young woman and a tall young man in priest’s robes, fucking before the altar of a temple. Another painting showed the priestess fucking a naked man, blood oozing from his throat where her teeth had pierced it. In the next scene, the woman was shown being captured and tortured by a dozen priests, who were stripping and violating her as she lay on a stone slab. And the final scene depicted her tightly wrapped body, being lowered into a coffin.
Mara’s mind reeled, overcome by the memory of the recurring dream she had had, those months ago before Andreas’s disappearance. The dream of a young woman, violated and buried alive in a room just like this one.
And, propped up against the far wall of the room, stood an ornate wooden coffin. On its lid, it bore the portrait of a young woman.
A young woman who bore a striking resemblance to Mara Fleming.
Mara stood in stunned silence, lost in the contemplation of this other self from four thousand years before. This young woman who had been buried alive and in terror, in punishment for some crime which Mara could not even begin to understand.
A voice behind her made her turn round suddenly. The smooth, seductive tones froze her blood and the Phallus fell from her hands, rolling away across the floor.
‘Hello, Mara,’ said the voice she knew only too well – the voice of all her sufferings and torment. There was a universe of hatred in that voice. ‘I’ve so been looking forward to meeting you again. Don’t you remember me? I’m the Master.’
She gazed into the cruel, unsmiling face that had once been Andreas Hunt’s, and sank to the floor, merciful unconsciousness veiling the spectacle of victorious evil.
18: Renewal
‘Run, Mara, run!’
Andreas’s silent screams of anguish filled earth and heaven, the spiritual expression of his impotent rage and fear. He yearned for physical power to scream and destroy and run and run and keep on running, until at last he could reach Mara and drag her away from the danger.
But he was powerless to help her.
The gift of sight, the curse of awareness, had brought the knowledge of danger to him; and he had watched, unable to turn away or close his eyes, as Mara walked as meekly as a lamb to her own slaughter.
He understood now. The truth imprinted itself on his brain with horrible clarity. He wondered why he hadn’t realised it before. The Master was going to force him to watch the death of Mara Fleming. Andreas’s torment would be sure to bring him the most immense pleasure. Yes, that must be it. He had robbed Andreas of his body and now he was going to rob Mara of her life.
Andreas screamed, and his soundless anguish filled the brooding skies over Winterbourne with heavy storm-clouds. Nearby, a dog howled its discomfiture, and others joined with it: a modern-day wolfpack, baying at the moon.
All nature, all life, felt the force of Andreas Hunt’s rage. Thunder built up in the darkened skies, a thunderous heaviness that made Delgado’s head ache as though it were about to split open. He rubbed his temples and glanced out of the window into the apocalyptic darkness, sensing the storm closing in on Winterbourne. A sickly moon had cast its pallid light over the black clouds. A dull flash and a distant rumble signalled the beginning of the storm.
Puzzled by such unseasonal weather, Delgado loosened his collar. It was winter, and yet there was a sulphurous heat in the room, a stifling sensation that dried the throat and constricted the windpipe.
He took a quick drink of water, and got up from the Master’s favourite leather armchair. He must get a grip on himself. He turned to look at the sleeping girl slumped on the settee, her legs still splayed obscenely wide and all her juicy treasures on display. It had taken him only a few days to turn prim little Alexandra into an accomplished whore. A trail of semen had spilled out of her, soiling the costly leather. He made a mental note to get it cleaned up before the Master’s return.
Mustn’t let the Master think he’d been abusing the power he’d delegated to him during his absence.
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br /> A wave of terrible anger and pain washed over him and he clenched his fist in frustration. A chance to serve, that’s all he was asking. A chance to serve his Master’s sublime evil throughout eternity. A chance to vanquish death, as he and so many others had done. Was that so much to ask in return for his loyalty, the gift of his life?
He opened the desk drawer and took out the crystal ring. No one knew it was there, save the Master and Delgado. And Delgado would not have known, if he hadn’t seen the Master putting it in there shortly after the ceremony which had brought him into his new body.
He picked up the ring and caressed it. It was cool, smooth, and yet full of inner fire. He knew that the ring had something to do with the gift of eternal life-in-death. If he wore it and fucked one of the undead whores – say the ice-maiden Joanna Konigsberg, or impressionable little Alexandra – mightn’t its power persuade her to bestow upon him the Kiss of Death?
And once he was in the ranks of the undead, once he had shown such initiative, the Master would recognise that he had been wrong to deprive him of the discipleship which was his by right.
The Master would not punish him. He was sure of it.
Andreas raged in his silent torment, and the latent power within him burst to the surface in the only way it could, sending out shock-waves into the threatening, black skies. Lightning forked to earth suddenly, lighting up the sky and the skeletal arms of the trees surrounding Winterbourne Hall. Delgado drew the curtains, slipped the ring onto his finger, and went out of the room.
‘My darling, my own and only queen, my princess, my Sedet . . .’
Mara opened her eyes, still dizzy and sick from the faint. The voice was soft and smooth and exquisite, filling the room with a silken web of whispering evil.
She tried to get up, but could not. Struggling, she realised that her wrists had been attached to two iron rings set into the tomb wall, at about waist height. A dark-haired woman was gazing at her, her lips curled in a pitying half-smile.
Wait. She had seen that face before. A picture . . . Recognition dawned. One of Andreas’s photographs – some society girl he’d been trying to trace. Ann . . . Anastasia, that was it. Anastasia Dubois. Very dark, very beautiful, with scarlet-painted lips that reminded Mara of the bright wetness of fresh blood.
And beside her, a tall, fair-haired man with blue eyes.
‘Geoffrey . . .!’
‘Silence!’ He spat out the words, and slapped her across the cheek so hard that her eyes watered. She hardly recognised him as the innocent youth who had befriended her, only weeks ago.
The Master was kneeling, caressing the naked body of a dark-haired young woman, which lay amid the discarded wrappings of a mummy. And yet, this was no mummified corpse, brittle and dry as dust. The flesh was perfect yet pallid, strangely bloodless, and the woman lay lifeless as a wax doll on the hard stone floor.
‘Sedet, my queen; soon your loyalty shall be repaid, and you shall reign once more by my side. Patience, my queen, and I shall bring you back from the wastes of death into your own glorious inheritance . . .’
Mara watched in blank incomprehension as the Master picked up the Phallus of Osiris. He held it aloft for a moment, and Mara saw it glowing in the half-light.
The Master then turned to Heimdal and offered him the Phallus.
‘You have done well, my son. You have outwitted the white witch and brought this priceless treasure to me at last. Yours shall be the honour of initiating the ceremony.’
He undressed, and Mara recalled with pain how often she had seen that same, naked body; how often she had caressed those large, firm balls and taken that hardened shaft into her mouth. The body of Andreas Hunt stood before her, transformed into an empty shell, inhabited by an evil heart, a cruel parody of the man who had so often fucked her until she screamed with pleasure.
The Master braced himself against the wall, his backside thrust out towards Heimdal. Heimdal stepped forward and pulled apart the Master’s arse-cheeks, pressing the tip of the Phallus against his arse-hole.
The thick shaft of the Phallus disappeared into the Master. He gasped, clearly feeling pain as his flesh stretched to accommodate the intruder. Heimdal reached round in front of the Master and took hold of his stiffened shaft. He began to thrust it in and out, at first gently, but then gradually harder and faster, until at last the Master’s semen spurted out onto the painted wall of the burial chamber.
The Master took the Phallus from Heimdal’s hand and spoke once again. His voice seemed to come, not from the lips of Andreas’s old body, but from the very depths of an ancient and evil soul:
‘By the power of almighty Osiris, I shall end your imprisonment and bring you back to life!’
He took a knife from his belt and drew it across his wrist, letting the blood flow freely from the wound and over the shaft of the Phallus. Mara watched in amazement as the wound began to close and heal. Within seconds, all signs of its existence had been obliterated, and only the bloodstained Phallus remained to bear witness to its transient existence.
The Master knelt down beside his Queen and caressed her body with the Phallus, running its tip across her waxy flesh; touching nipples and lips and fingers and belly with the bloody shaft.
Gently, the Master pulled the young woman’s legs apart to reveal the surprising pinkness of her cunt. It was as though all the life that remained within this frame had been distilled into her womanhood, as pink and moist as any living flesh.
As the tip of the Phallus nudged into Sedet’s cunt, all life seemed to freeze within the burial chamber. Everything was enveloped in a bright green light; and Mara watched in terror as the scene was enacted in slow-motion before her eyes.
It was as though at that moment she, too, was an immortal, with no need to breathe, no need for the blood to pump through mortal veins. There was only the overwhelming compulsion to watch and the unbearable sensation of pleasure as Mara realised that, through the strength of her own psychic powers, she too could feel the power of the Phallus thrusting into her . . .
The Master was fucking his Queen: fucking her with the mighty Phallus of Osiris, the Phallus that had, even after death, impregnated the goddess Isis and brought forth the sun-god Horus. The Phallus, which generations of sorcerers and savants had sought to find for their own ends, had at last been found, and its mighty powers were being harnessed to the ultimate evil.
The Queen’s cunt grew moister as the Phallus thrust into her again and again; and Mara realised that the woman’s flesh was growing less waxen, as the warmth of blood brought a rosy tinge to her limbs and belly.
The Master slid his finger between Sedet’s cunt-lips and began to toy with her clitoris, rubbing rhythmically in time with the thrusts of the mummified penis.
And something miraculous and terrifying happened.
As Mara watched, the Queen’s body began to move and a low moaning seemed to issue forth from her lips. At first the sounds were incoherent but then they began to resolve themselves into words:
‘Master . . . my Master . . . you have come to me at last . . . How I long for you to fuck me . . . Master . . .’
The Master withdrew the Phallus from the Queen’s cunt, and the waxen doll was transformed into the living, breathing body of a young woman with long, dark hair and violet eyes. A woman who bore more than a passing resemblance to Mara Fleming.
Mara gasped in horrified fascination as the woman got to her feet, at first unsteadily, but then more confidently. She was fine-boned, full-breasted, her fertile thighs dripping mingled blood and cunt-juice. She reached out her slender hands, red-tipped like talons.
‘Master . . .!’
But as their fingertips touched, the Queen gave a terrible screech of fear and pain. Her body began to tremble and she tried to clutch at the Master’s arm for support, but her hand passed straight through him as though he were a ghost.
Grey appeared in her hair. Her skin began to grow flaccid and lined. The Queen was ageing fast. Decades, centuries, mil
lennia flooded in on her, tearing her apart, desiccating her flesh, snapping her bones with a hideous cracking.
And as Mara watched, the Queen’s body crumpled up like a paper bag and fell to the ground, where within seconds it had dried away almost to nothingness, leaving behind it nothing but a small pile of dust and bone fragments.
‘No!’ screamed the Master. ‘I will not be cheated a second time!’
He paused for a moment, deep in anguished thought; then picked up the Phallus and, with a horrible, thin-lipped smile, advanced towards Mara.
Delgado stroked Geena’s hair. She really was a most impressive young woman – a tangle of glossy dark-brown hair, smooth olive skin and dramatic, emerald-green eyes. She reminded him of a very beautiful, very dangerous jungle cat.
The large Victorian conservatory at Winterbourne had been an excellent choice for a jungle scene. Delgado himself had supervised its installation and fitting-out: a controlled heating-system, to produce just the right amount of hot steaminess; lots of lush vegetation and thick-stemmed vines hanging from a canopy of dense green foliage. Parrots and a gaudy bird of paradise flitted about in the branches, their cries adding that final touch of authenticity to Delgado’s masterpiece.
It was hard to believe that, outside, a terrible storm was raging, though flashes of lightning occasionally lit up the interior of the conservatory.
Delgado stretched out on the soft green grass beside the sunken pool in which gaily coloured fish swam lazily back and forth in endless, joyful idleness. Beside him lay Geena, the leopard-skin she wore leaving one breast bare, its brown tip already puckered with desire.
He bent to kiss the little scars on her throat, with a reverence born of desperate, yearning ambition.
‘Want to fuck me, little wildcat?’
She bared her teeth playfully and he noticed with approval how perfect and white and sharp they were.
She cut two lengths of strong creeper and bound his wrists to the pillars which Delgado had had transformed into jungle trees. His cock reared in joyful anticipation of one of Geena’s savage little games; and the crystal ring sparkled enticingly on his finger. Would its power lure her to defy the Master’s commands and bestow upon him the precious kiss of death?
The Phallus of Osiris Page 30