Of course, I knew better, but I could always hope.
The stab in the back of my head was working its way forward, but for the moment it was bearable. I was sure that I couldn’t count on that lasting for long. I sighed and went back to considering my lack of visual input. I knew I was awake, so it wasn’t part of the nightmare. As my eyes worked at focusing, it became apparent that the nothing I was seeing was actually a dark pattern. I shifted slightly and the pattern moved, brushing softly against my cheek.
Raising my arm, I pushed the pattern away and found that it was the comforter, which at some point I had pulled over my head. Blinking, I now found myself face to face with a pillow on the opposite side of the bed. The only problem my brain found with that picture was that my wife’s head wasn’t on it.
I pushed myself up on one elbow, eyes drowsily searching the room. Before any unwarranted panic managed to set in, however, my ears caught the sound of rushing water and a porcelain throated burp as the toilet was flushed.
Dropping my head back onto the pillow, I mentally chastised myself for letting my fears get the better of me and then rolled over to face the wall. I was tired, and it obviously wasn’t morning yet, so I closed my eyes.
The nightmare hadn’t been so bad this go around. Maybe it really was just a product of my overactive subconscious.
This time.
* * * * *
The reprieve had been too short, but then they always were. It’s just that this one was even shorter.
Footsteps advanced once again up the stairs, pausing only for a moment, then proceeding, coming closer with each hard strike against the wooden planks. The sobbing filled in the short voids between them.
But, there was something different about their sound.
They were still excited.
They were still cruel.
But there was something acute about their tone. No longer the familiar thud, they had become a sharp clack. However, different as they were, I knew they belonged to the same monster.
And, the fear they brought with them bit deep into my soul, for this time I knew they were coming for me. How I knew, I couldn’t say. But, there was no doubt that I was to be her chosen victim, and there was no escape.
I began to pray, but my request had changed drastically from what it had once been. Instead of asking to be spared as I had countless times before, now I prayed to die quickly and not linger, suffering for days—even weeks—like some of the others. I could hear myself whispering in the darkness, even above the growing cries and awful footfalls.
When they stopped outside the door, I was more than just simply aware my time had come. I could feel it deep within every inch of my body, and that just made the panic grow.
The door creaked on un-oiled hinges, allowing a swath of dim light to fall across the room. I couldn’t keep myself from trying to raise my head, but try was all my weakened muscles could manage.
Terror made me strain and pull, trying to escape, even though I knew I was held fast. The flight reflex made me try yet again, but my wrists and ankles screamed with pain as something bit sharply into my flesh. I was left with no choice but to give in to my fate, horrific, as I knew it was to be.
The door creaked again as it swung wider, then the steps clacked closer, stopping near my head, just out of my sight. I felt my stomach tighten, then heave, as it tried to expel contents it didn’t have. The bile rose in my throat, burning and making me gag. But even through that, I continued to pray.
There was a shuffle, and then the steps continued, clacking away across the room. But, I knew they would be back.
The moans of the others hummed in my ears, punctuated by animalistic wails that were born from the bowels of hell.
A sudden, loud clunk sounded in my ears, and bright light flooded into my eyes. I had been in darkness for so long that the luminance brought only pain. A searing pain that made me squeeze my eyelids tightly shut.
The footfalls came again as they moved across the plank floor, returning to their station at my head. I continued to hold my eyes shut and struggled through a gasping breath as I began to sob with the others.
Now, instead of the acrid stench of rot and excrement to which I had grown so accustomed, the sweet smell of perfume burrowed deeply into my nostrils. Its thickness caused me to gag again, and my chest began to tighten.
Another shuffle and pair of excited steps met my ears. A moment later a pressure settled across my belly making it even harder for me to breathe.
I began to beg. God wasn’t listening to my prayers, so I had no other choice.
As the mumbled words started tumbling from my mouth, a sharp sting lashed across my cheek, and a feminine voice, dripping with false sweetness drawled, “Wake up…”
I was jolted awake by the intense feeling that someone, or something, had just struck me hard in the face. My heart was pounding and my chest was tight. I felt as if a weight were resting on my stomach, causing me to labor for each breath. My head was throbbing with unnatural pain, and I was beginning to feel sick to my stomach.
The nightmare had returned, and this time the abject terror was fully intact. I started upward as I had done countless times before when awaking from this horrific vision, but got nowhere. In fact, not only did it feel as though something was pressing me back downward, an odd sensation bit into my wrists and arms. Confusion joined the pain in my grey matter as I fought to reason out what was happening. I was almost certain I was awake. I didn’t have the odd feeling of disconnection that so often came with channeling a spirit. And, I had the headache. That was a pain that always remained within the boundaries of my wakefulness. Light was streaming in through the thinness of my eyelids, blood red and far too bright for comfort. I found that I was still holding them tightly shut, an artifact of the nightmare I assumed, but one I didn’t mind. Since it appeared that light was now also invading my corporeal world, I knew its sudden influx would only serve to make the headache even worse.
Still, something was definitely off kilter, and I needed to know what it was. I was just about to take the plunge and open my eyes at least enough to get my bearings when another lacerating sting tore into my cheek.
This time I knew it was real.
“I said, time to wake up, little man.” The nightmare woman’s voice rolled into my ears, heavy with a sugary Southern drawl.
My eyes flickered open, and as I suspected, the glare of the overhead light acted as an accelerant on the ache in my skull. Blinking my way toward some semblance of focus, I looked upward toward the direction of the voice. Staring back at me was a visage that would have been comfortingly familiar had it not been for the frightening expression it wore.
My wife was straddling me in the bed, looking back down at me with an imperious gaze. No longer wearing her pajamas, she was now scantily clad in something black that appeared to be composed of tight-fitting leather and a touch of lace. It was something I didn’t recall ever having seen in her wardrobe before, and that told me that perhaps I was now getting a glimpse of the contents from the overnight bag, up close and personal.
Her face had obviously been in recent contact with more than just a touch of makeup and was accented in such a way to enhance the severe expression lining her features. She continued looking down at me, and I started trying to convince myself that I wasn’t really awake.
After a long pause she gave her head a toss then giggled and said, “That’s better.”
Even though the sentence was no more than two words, the uncharacteristic geographical drawl was obvious and intact.
Following the utterance, she placed a cigarette between glossy red lips and drew on it hard. The end grew bright, sizzling audibly as I watched the paper and tobacco slowly burn a full one-half inch down the length right before my eyes. In a fluid motion, she pulled the cigarette from her mouth, flicked the spent ash at my face, then pursed her lips and blew out a long stream of smoke.
Never once had she taken her eyes from mine, and now her mouth spre
ad into a contented smile. I started upward again; knowing suddenly that telling myself this was a nightmare simply wasn’t going to make it so. Fear was definitely starting to work its way into my spine.
Again I found myself unable to go far and realized that my arms were outstretched to the sides and above my head. I cast a quick glance to the right and saw my wrist encompassed by a wide, leather-looking cuff that was securely fastened to the bedpost. I didn’t have to look to the left to know it too was similarly bound. I didn’t feel anything around my ankles so I tried to move my legs, only to find they were bound in some unseen way.
I instantly regretted being a heavy sleeper.
“What’s wrong, little man?” my wife asked.
Actually, it was the voice asking the question. It just happened to be coming out of my wife’s mouth.
“Felicity?” I questioned out of reflex.
I didn’t catch the blur of motion, but I definitely felt the sting of her palm against my cheek as she slapped me hard enough to crank my head to the side.
“And, who, pray tell, is Felicity, little man?” she asked.
“You are,” I replied with a groan as I turned my face back to her.
Judging from the force of yet another slap that immediately followed my reply, apparently, it was the wrong thing to say.
“You will call me, Mistress Miranda, little man,” she commanded.
What I had earlier thought to be fear was just a trial run of the emotion. In the grand scheme of things, it had been nothing more than a shot of anxiety with a confusion chaser just to get the ball rolling. Hearing the sentence just spoken by the evil inhabiting my wife’s body was the catalyst, and now true horror set in.
At this stage of the game, I wasn’t sure what this Lwa feasted on, but it was a good bet that pain played into that picture, and I suspected fear was at the very least an appetizer. If that was true, judging by her satisfied grin, I was apparently serving up the first course at this very moment.
“Oh, what’s wrong?” she asked, feigning concern. “Am I scaring you?”
“No,” I returned.
“Liar.”
“Guess it’s your word against mine,” I said, mustering whatever semblance of calm bravado I could.
She sat back and regarded me coolly. Felicity truly didn’t weigh much more than one hundred pounds, but with the panic starting to well in the pit of my stomach, even that amount of weight on top of me was making it hard to breathe.
After taking another long drag on the cigarette, she pulled it slowly from her mouth and smiled then let the smoke out in a thin stream.
There was no way I could read what was going on behind the still pretty, but frighteningly severe, mask her face had become. In retrospect, given what I knew from the crime scenes, I should have been able to at least predict what she was going to do. Unfortunately, a by-product of terror is that one doesn’t always think straight.
I suppose that’s why it came as such a complete shock to me when, without a word her smile grew even wider, and she began to slowly grind out the burning cigarette against my bare chest.
CHAPTER 26:
Something kept me from screaming out in response to the pain. I wanted to in the worst way, and in fact, I even tried. However, the yelp instantly caught in my throat and remained there, emitting little more sound than a soft groan. The only reason I could imagine for the abrupt stifling was that I knew the spirit was feeding on my pain and fear, and I supposed it was just my subconscious attempting to deny it the meal. Of course, whether or not I screamed probably was a moot point. It knew I was afraid, there was no doubt of that, and my body definitely betrayed me in the pain department.
I tensed in reflex even as the sound stuck in my windpipe, gurgling quietly through my clenched teeth. As she continued to grind the burning ember into my flesh, I sucked in a quick breath, steeling myself against whatever might be yet to come. I couldn’t help but notice the odor of singed hair and skin. If that wasn’t bad enough, it had joined the spicy scent of her perfume, mixing on the air to become a peculiar, sweet funk that did little for my already queasy stomach.
Even though I was fighting to deny anything to the evil that had invaded our home, the look on my wife’s face told me I was losing the battle before I had even started fighting back. No longer was she wearing the wide, mischievous grin. She had gone far beyond that. Now, her face was molded into an expression of near ecstasy. Her eyes were closed; and her lips were slightly parted as she slowly tilted her face upward. She began to pant, and suddenly a bizarre moan filled the room. It was something I could only describe as a poorly synchronized disharmony of sound, both human and inhuman. The worst part was that I knew they were both coming from deep within Felicity. One of them the product of her own hijacked voice, the other from somewhere on the other side of the veil, dwelling in an inky darkness that was blacker than I ever wanted to imagine.
She arched her back as the sigh of pleasure grew louder, and its jarring duality grew even stronger. Her posture served only to make her look like a player in an adult movie acting out the generally accepted portrait of an earth shattering orgasm for an unseen camera.
Unfortunately, I knew all too well that this wasn’t acting.
This was for real.
My wife began to sink as she literally allowed herself to slump backward. Her breathing grew shallow, coming in rapid pants as the unearthly sound continued trilling through the room, joined by a rapturous whimper of corporeal origin.
The initial shock of the lit cigarette against my chest had now faded to a dull burn that took up residence in the background, hiding behind my many other ignored pains. Lifting my head, I watched as Felicity tensed and twisted, all but writhing in unfathomable ecstasy. She was still straddling me but was pitched backward at an angle, bracing herself with one hand on the edge of the bed while the other roamed her body of its own accord. Had I not been fully aware of the why and how this was happening to her, it would have been an immensely humbling sight, being that I wasn’t responsible for it. However, my prowess in regard to pleasing my wife was the furthest thing from my thoughts at the moment. What lived in the forefront was the horror of knowing that by succumbing to the ethereally dispensed pleasure, Felicity was only cementing her bond with the Lwa.
Of course, her ability to resist had been negated the moment the spirit had assumed control, and even in my present state, I recognized the power of what I was witnessing. Though I had no doubt that my wife had not initially given herself over to the Lwa willingly, I almost wouldn’t have been able to blame her if she had. The apparent reward she had just received in return for what was, in the grand scheme of things, a fairly mild act of cruelty, was one that could not be easily refused.
I dropped my head back down and twisted it to the right, looking toward my hand. Without my glasses I couldn’t see much detail, but the leather-looking cuff appeared to have a metal buckle and D-ring type of hardware securing it both to my wrist and then to the bedpost by a short strap. I twisted my arm slowly and found that the restraint was loose enough to allow movement within it. I glanced back quickly and saw that Felicity was still in the throes of her experience and paying little or no attention to me for the moment.
Rolling my head back to the side, I rotated my arm once again, this time pulling as well. The heel of my palm slipped down into the cuff and stopped cold, the hard edge of the restraint bit sharply into the back of my hand, and I could feel it abrading the skin as I kept applying the downward pressure.
Casting my glance to the left, I tried the same tactic on the other arm, gaining the same fruitless results. Still, I didn’t give up until I heard my wife’s breathing begin to come under control and then felt her weight shifting back fully onto my stomach as she pushed herself up and forward.
She was wearing an expression of pure contentment, with her eyelids drooping heavily and a pouting smile caressing her lips. But, simply the way she was breathing told me she wasn’t going to roll over a
nd go to sleep—nor did she have plans for cuddling.
No, Miranda was just getting started.
“Hmmmmmm,” she purred. “That was good.”
“Glad you enjoyed it,” I quipped, unable to contain my disdain for the spirit inhabiting my wife.
She giggled, almost musically, looking down at me with a wicked smile.
“I did,” she replied. “Didn’t you?”
“Not particularly.”
“Hmmmmm…” she purred again, a thoughtful tone underscoring the hum.
She rocked to the side, lifting up and planting her stocking clad knee in the center of my chest, then pitched forward and placed her weight on it. I grunted as the air was forced out of my lungs, and I felt my ribcage flex inward. I heard her quickly shuffle something off to the left of my head, then she rocked back and slid her knee down as she dropped herself hard onto my stomach, forcing me to huff out the breath I’d only just managed to suck in.
Settling herself in, she slipped the wrapper from a cigar and then nipped the end of it with my guillotine cutter. I recognized the stogie as one of the real-deal Cuban smokes a friend had recently brought back for me from a trip to the Caribbean. How he had gotten them back into the country I hadn’t asked—not that it mattered now.
She was watching me watch her, and she seemed to find it amusing. After a moment of fiddling about with the dark brown roll of tobacco, she waved it in front of my face.
“You don’t mind, do you?” she drawled in a mocking tone. “I helped myself.”
“Go ahead,” I returned. “Tell him it’s with my compliments.”
“Him?” she asked, cocking her head to the side.
“Papa Legba,” I replied.
“What makes you think it’s for Papa?”
“Educated guess.”
“Hmmmmm,” she purred once again.
Without another word she double-clicked a lighter then brought the long stream of flame against the foot of the cigar, rolling it slowly. Then, she carefully placed the tight roll of tobacco between her lips and proceeded to set the end alight, twisting it slowly and puffing hard. A cloud of blue-white smoke billowed around her, and she didn’t even flinch. Just one more sign that my wife was no longer my wife, as she would have gone into a sneezing fit immediately.
All Acts Of Pleasure: A Rowan Gant Investigation Page 25