“Trust goes both ways, Clarissa.” Margaret Ann held up her glass, watching as the flashing lights from above hit the contents of her drink, catching the subtle movements in the living blood; the essence. “How can we trust you if we can’t be sure you completely trust us? We are after all the monsters in this game. Only a fool sides with the beast.”
“Then I must be a fool,” Clarissa stated, putting heat and passion into her voice, “Because I’m absolutely crazy for the beast.”
“Alright, ‘Belle’, we give you that one,” Maude said, making a reference to the story of Beauty and the Beast. She puckered her glossy lips in thought, staring at Clarissa in an odd look that reminded her of Cyrus when he gave her that intense stare. “You do care for my brother. More than I think is good for you or any of us. If you know his history then you know he hasn’t had much in the way of human affection. Nor does he give himself away so easily. With you he seems a different man. Even around us, and we’ve known him for years. He’s shown less constraint with us and I can assume it is your doing.”
“I would never hurt your brother,” Clarissa said to the group of women. “And I’m learning to trust you, just as you are trying to let yourself trust me. I don’t expect a welcome party, nor am I oblivious to the truth that we were once enemies. But I don’t feel like I’m that woman any more. My death has given me a new set of eyes.”
“Those are pretty words,” Debora spoke up, twirling her Isadora inspired scarf around in her hands. “But words are just that, words to fill the empties on a page. But it will be your actions that will make us see if you can be trusted.”
“Fair enough,” Clarissa said. Then she thought of something. “If you want trust then I will give you something about myself that not even Corrigan knows yet.” That caused their collective mascara and shadowed eyes to light up in sudden interest. They leaned forward in the booth or closer to Clarissa as she decided the best way to word this secret declaration.
“Yes,” Helen prompted after several seconds.
Clarissa mentally cleared the blockage in her vocal chords. This would indeed be a statement fit for any eager gossiper and would reveal her trust of these women.
“There is a bokor that the Eidolon community has been able to convince to come to our city and see to the matter of all of you.” She watched their expression closely. Debora and Margaret Ann frowned and looked to one another. Helen nodded her head waiting to hear more. Maude’s expression remained blank of anything other than what could be called feigned interest as if she already knew what Clarissa was going to say.
“But what no one knows, not even Corrigan, is that this death bokor used to be my teacher. He was a university professor known for being eccentric, but he was so charming and handsome that people forgave him. Olivier taught the craft of vodou that had been taught to him by his grandmother. He said I had a natural gift unlike any he’d ever seen in a person who wasn’t born into the faith. We became close, going over the line of teacher and student until I convinced myself that I was in love with him. He was truly evil, he enjoyed hurting the monsters we were sent out to destroy because we believed it was the right thing to do. But he went too far and I couldn’t take it anymore. We started arguing a lot and I refused to go out on more and more cases. I told him I didn’t love him anymore and that I would never marry a hateful creature like him. He got angry and used my dagger against me.”
Clarissa lifted her top so they could see the pale flesh of her stomach. The grinning skull stared out at them, a happy thing waiting to be reunited with the dagger. “It looks like the one on Ambrose’s shoulder, doesn’t it?” Maude and Margaret Ann shook their heads nodding a yes at the same time.
“He murdered me and almost completely destroyed me completely.” Clarissa put her shirt back down. “But I was – am strong and I didn’t want to move on to the next plan of existence. So I am a ghost because I was selfish and wanted more of this life.”
“We are all selfish,” Maude said. Her eyes almost softened as she stared at Clarissa. “I’m glad that you told us this secret. We will keep it as long as you want us to. Won’t we girls?” They each nodded in agreement.
Something caught Maude’s attention as her eyes shifted to a mass of people across from them. Helen touched her arm and Maude nodded a wordless message to say that she was doing something and needed a moment.
Shouting could be heard, which was odd because the music should have been too loud, making conversations blur together into a single mass. But Clarissa could hear it too, a single argument sticking out in the overlapping conversations. She closed her eyes and reached out to the heart of the noise. It was a man and a woman, he was older and she was scared, her heart racing inside her frail chest, her blood pumping speedily in and out of the organ while her brain fired off endless messages to a body too broken to accept them.
“He wants her to leave with him, but she doesn’t want to.” Maude’s eyes were shut, her face relaxed as she concentrated. “He likes to use ‘lost ones’, those that are frail and without family or loved ones that would miss them if they were gone. If he hurts her it will be because she wasn’t listening and it would be her fault; not his if she dies.”
“How many of them have there been?” Margaret Ann asked as she reached out to touch her sister’s hand that rested limply on the table.
“I see so many of them, I can’t count them all.” Her mouth tightened and her eyes too. “Their faces are so young, some of them not long out of childhood. The horror on their faces as he looks down at them, the light escaping from their eyes as they lose consciousness, then his face is red with their blood as he licks their dead skin.” She shuddered as her eyes opened and she was once again looking toward the other side of the room.
Maude leaped onto the table and off of it, managing not to knock over any of the glasses. She turned to look at Clarissa, a heated intense stare that made her almost afraid.
“Come,” was all she said and Clarissa was following her. Pushing through the mass of people, they came to the man and woman still arguing, paying little attention to the two otherworldly creatures approaching.
“Excuse me,” Maude said to the man. He was dressed in a black dress shirt and black dress pants, a skinny tie decorated with tiny white spiders hung loose around his throat. One silver spider dangled from one ear lobe.
His head whipped around, his eyes widening in surprise as he found Maude standing next to him. She was a stunning beauty with her hair loose and falling in soft waves behind her, but anyone with eyes could see she didn’t fit the part of this club. The man’s eyes raked her from head to toe and his expression read exactly that.
“What do you want?” he barked out in a gravelly voice. It wasn’t his real voice, just one he thought fit with his image tonight.
“Could I speak to you in private for a moment?” she said in a syrupy sweet voice. Maude turned to give the shaking living woman a warm smile. The woman blinked at her, wide eyed as if she was looking at a ghost. She wasn’t, she had yet to notice Clarissa standing so close to her.
Clarissa leaned forward, close to the scared women’s ear. She was young, far too young to be living on her own and falling under the deceptive wing of this monster; one that was of the living persuasion.
“You don’t have to go with him. Do not trust him. He is not what he seems.” Clarissa slipped something into the women’s clutched hands. It was a card with a number she could call, a support hot-line.
When Clarissa glanced up, Maude was leading the man into the back of the club. She caught up to them in time to watch them walk out the steel back doors into the dark night.
Clarissa followed them out, letting the heavy doors close silently in their wake. This man would never cross this threshold again. At least not in this life and if he believed in karma it would be only as the lowliest insect or a politician, whichever one was worse.
“What do you want?” the man said snidely, folding his arms over his chest in an aggressive pos
ture. He was used to women cowering in his presence or fawning over him in adoration. Maude did none of that.
Maude sauntered up to him slowly, so close that only a breath of air was between them. She flashed him her canines, a quick peek to show him the beast inside her. He actually smiled, thinking it was a kinky thing and not the first clue to his quickly approaching demise.
“I wondered at first,” he said with a grin. “What with the outfit and all, but I see you’re just like me.” He flashed his own set of points, which were very expensively put in by a doctor who charged a hefty price tag for the look.
Maude smiled a Cheshire grin at the man, showing her beautiful yet deadly teeth to the man. He was obviously dumb because everyone knew that when an animal showed its teeth, it wasn’t friendly, it was a sign of aggression.
In this case it meant that he would never have need for his expressive teeth improvements. Maude was on the man before he realized she wasn’t playing around. His neck was thrown back by the force and a quick snap took out a large section of it revealing tendons and meat, blood gushing out in splendid acrobatic maneuvers. He fell in a fleshy heap onto the dark cement, his mouth moving wordlessly, his eyes wide with fright.
He wore a similar expression to those of the women he had hurt. Now it was his turn. Maude crouched over him, letting a drop of his own blood drip onto his ashen face.
“I will never be like you,” she whispered. “You won’t ever hurt an innocent again.” Then she bent down even further to place a kiss on his forehead, leaving behind the imprint of her lips in blood on his skin. “May the good lord have mercy on your retched soul, for he is both merciful and wise in these ways,” she said as she stood up and away from his body.
Clarissa turned as the door behind her opened revealing the other sisters. They were silent as they made a procession line toward the body of the dying man. He was still breathing, but just barely.
Debora was the first to bend down, taking an arm and bringing it to her mouth. She watched Clarissa as she bit down, blood running in little rivers from the open wound down on the ground. It was like a challenge, like when med-school students eat their lunches while standing around corpses. It was a challenge to see if Clarissa could stand to watch them eat another human being.
The other women gathered around the man, taking appendages into their mouths, some of them watching Clarissa, others focused on the meal in front of them. It was quiet except for the occasional noise from the almost dead man. Little by little he was disappearing, turning to nothingness just has he had done to his victims.
Clarissa’s cell phone jangled loudly in her clutch purse. She quickly pulled it out thinking it was Corrigan. But when she read the number it was Jackson’s name scrolling across the screen.
“Hello?” she said, as she answered it. There was a moment of dead silence on the other end. Then the sound of scuffling in the background followed by a short cry before a voice spoke through on the other end.
“Clarissa,” said the soft voice. It was Leah. “Are you there?” Her voice rose high on the last syllable causing a creeping sensation to steal down Clarissa’s spine, metaphysical spine that is.
“Leah, what is the matter? Where is Jackson?” She was cut off when a new voice spoke through the other end.
“I thought I’d call to give you a heads up this time, death bokor.” His voice sounded ragged like it took a lot of effort for him to speak. “Wouldn’t you like to watch me take this witches life? Her life’s essence is so strong.” Then there was a scraping noise like something metal crawling over a floor.
Clarissa closed her eyes, trying to pinpoint where the call was coming from. All the while she was trying to think up logical reasons why Jackson was doing this. Leah was his friend, why would he want to harm her and for what purpose?
“Time is ticking for her.” Jackson made a maniacal laugh in his throat, one that she had never heard from him. He wasn’t himself. It was almost like he was possessed of something evil and it flowed through his voice into the phone.
A loud high pitched scream cut through and then the phone went dead.
Clarissa dropped the phone. Actually it fell through her hand onto the ground, cracking on its way down, breaking into so many pieces that could they never be put together.
Helen’s head jerked up then, a drop of blood holding onto dear life on the edge of her lip. “What is the matter?” she questioned, after swallowing what was in her mouth.
“That was Jackson, he has Leah,” she paused reaching out to find them. They were at the Government House, inside one of the chambers. “He has her and he says he’s pleased by her strong essence. He intends to kill her for her essence.”
Maude looked up then. “This girl is a strong psychic and her life’s essence is stronger because of it. That is what the boy wants. She is human and he must kill her to get to the essence. It is found in the blood and tissue of the living, but only we would have use for it. I don’t know why he would want it.”
Debora discreetly wiped her mouth with a bit of fabric from the man’s shirt. “If he is possessed then he would have use of it. It is what allows the creature to walk among the living for longer periods of time. The demon needs to replenish his host with the essence of others or he kills his host’s body.”
Jackson must be possessed, Clarissa thought. Then a most terrible thought occurred to her. Jackson was the one who had murdered all the S.S. members. Because of their psychic ability they were prime targets for him and would replenish the demon parasite inside him.
“I have to stop him,” Clarissa said in a frantic tone. “He has to be stopped before he kills anyone else.”
Clarissa reached down for the remains of her phone, when her hand was stopped by Maude’s steady warm hand, the blood of her victim coursing through her. She looked up to see the other woman holding something in her hand. It was her dagger, the one that Corrigan had been hurt by. The same dagger that had ended her life and until seeing Olivier she’d forgotten all about it.
“Where did you get that from? I thought I hid it?” She took the dagger, holding it tightly to her chest.
Maude shook her head, no. “Ambrose had it in his study. I knew it belonged to you. It practically screamed your name at me. I'm giving this back to you now and trusting that you use it wisely. You are our sister now.” She looked to her sisters who affirmed her statement. “We help a sister, no matter what.”
“Then help me save them both,” Clarissa exclaimed, clutching the dagger tightly. She would have wondered why the dagger hadn’t hurt Maude, but her thoughts were only on Leah and Jackson.
“We will if we can,” she answered. Clarissa rounded them up so that each of them was touching a part of her body as she imagined them at the Government House. They disappeared.
Chapter 26-
The Government House stood quiet. On weekends it was closed to the public, but Clarissa still had access to the locked doors with the information needed to manifest the appropriate key. She unlocked the doors, quietly as possible, slipping inside with her new sisters’ close behind her.
Margaret Ann taped her shoulder, forcing her to look back at her. She made a motion with her hands that said she and the others were going to wait inside one of the side rooms, out of the way but close, in case she needed them. They had agreed that Clarissa would go in alone so that the possessed Jackson would think he had the advantage.
Clarissa’s heels echoed on the marble floor as she walked quickly down the hall toward the farthest chamber where she knew Jackson had Leah. The younger woman’s frightened thoughts were like buzzing bees inside Clarissa’s head. And the feel of panic rose high in her system as did the level of evil malevolence coming from the closed double doors.
The dagger was concealed inside her skirt, between the fabric and her skin, the hilt resting against the grinning skull on her stomach. She mentally held it there, warm against her cooler flesh, like it was happy to be home, enjoying being close to her and the kiss it h
ad left on her.
Clarissa opened those double doors to a sight straight out of some horror novel. As most humans would, she focused her attention on the center of the scene where Leah sat on a high chair made of forged steel and metal, ghoulish designs and symbols etched into the curving layers of the chair along the arms and legs and the high back. Her legs barely touch the ground and Clarissa could see by the sudden jerking motion that she was pinned somehow to the chair by an invisible hand.
Clarissa walked further into the room and the doors slammed shut behind her, the sound of it echoing in the quiet room. Then someone stepped out from a small door behind Leah, coming to stand next to her. The lights were off and only the glow of several lighted candles illuminated the grim scene.
Leah’s throat struggled to speak, the veins in them bulging in effort, but nothing emerged from her sealed lips. Her eyes were on Clarissa beseeching her to do something, a tear slipping from her lilac colored eyes to fall into the waiting hand of Jackson.
Jackson brought the warm liquid in his hand to this mouth where he made a great show of licking the salty moisture. “Even in her tears you can taste the essence of life,” he said in a voice not his own.
Clarissa could see his eyes were glazed over like he was in some kind of drugged stupor. But this was so much more serious than an intoxication of the senses. She started to draw closer to them as he stepped back behind the chair.
“Do not come any closer,” he barked.
Clarissa stopped mid-stride. She saw him not for the monster he was now, but the boy she had grown to think of as her friend. He was not himself. “Jackson, you are possessed by a demon,” she said.
“No,” he answered back with an evil grin. “I am using my abilities just as you told me to do. Leah’s witch magick will be a perfect addition to my own powers. What do you think, Clarissa? You and I could be unstoppable.”
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