by Barbie Wilde
She cleaned up and gathered up everything that had belonged to him. She stripped him of his clothes and put them on. She emptied her purse and put everything into a black leather satchel that she’d found in the closet. She took all of her clothes and burned them in the fireplace. She unceremoniously shoved Varazlo’s body under the bed with his shoes, the only things that she couldn’t adapt to wear herself. She was barefoot, but she didn’t care.
When Valeska was ready to leave, she listened at the door and was momentarily alarmed to hear the sound of voices nearby. Then she remembered what she was now: not just a woman, not just a Seminal, but something else. There was a knock at the door and she opened it to find the man who had accosted her on the street earlier in the evening, accompanied by another who must have been the one who had attacked her.
They gawked at her—dressed in their leader’s clothes—and she gazed without emotion at them. There was a pause and then Valeska audaciously went on the attack, snatching up the silver candlestick and bashing the first man over the head so hard that he dropped pole-axed to the floor. His companion grabbed her and they struggled desperately in the corridor, until she pushed him violently into the wall and felled him with a vicious well-aimed kick straight to his genitals. Valeska reached into the leather satchel and grabbed Varazlo’s silver blade. She briskly cut the men’s throats—arterial spray spurting across the cream-colored wall. Valeska didn’t waste any time and quickly exited the building—finding herself somewhere in the rundown harbor district of the old part of town.
Valeska walked by the docks in the early morning drizzle. She didn’t feel the cold. She didn’t feel the rain. She didn’t bother going home. Her enemies knew where she lived now. She had to start all over again in a different town, a different country, perhaps even a different continent, but first she had a big decision to make about the creature growing in her womb. Not just for her, but for the future of her kind ...
The Cilicium Pandoric
(Part II of the Cilicium Trilogy)
“Hell Needs a Little Glamour ...”
Sister Cilice was a first level Female Cenobite of the Order of the Gash and she was bored ... She yearned for a break from the eternity of exquisite, controlled experimentation on those souls whose reckless pursuit of pleasure for its own sake had led them to the Cenobites. She paced her ascetic, lead-lined, monkish cell in the Second Quadrant of the Labyrinth, ignoring the squawking pleas of her pet crow Xibalbá, who constantly begged for his favorite treat of human eyeballs marinated in red wine.
She fancied a little weekend jaunt away from Hell’s environs, so Sister Cilice resolved to visit the Toymaker, a legendary creator of Pandorics, unique playthings and mechanical birds. And she’d never been to Paris, a fabled city that was considered far too sinful when she was enduring her first incarnation as a desolate, sex-starved nun in a dismal, run-down convent in the Vendée region of Western France.
Sister Cilice was fascinated by the idea that a mere human could somehow construct the glittering, mysterious Pandoric boxes that could invoke her hellish cohorts so readily. This was especially intriguing to her, because her method of conjuring up the Schism and becoming one with the Order of the Gash had been so different from the others of her ilk. Sister Cilice’s ceremony had involved offerings of blood and roses, a discreet sacrifice of a sick child, and chanting the incantations of the corrupt monk and sorcerer, Raphael Athanasius. (Athanasius had been a compadre to the infamously depraved 15th century French general, child serial killer and spendthrift, Gilles de Rais.) Of course, the crowning ingredient in her infernal recipe was ... desire.
Sister Cilice slipped into the Lead Cenobite’s quarters and “borrowed” the Ianua Mechanism, a device of luminous beauty whose platinum and obsidian components were fashioned from the designs of 14th century alchemist extraordinaire, Albertus Magnus, which he in turn had borrowed from the Greek mathematical and engineering genius, Archimedes. It was the only device that could open the rarely used Reverse Schism to enable the Cenobites to freely travel to the dimension of Homo sapiens—without the participation of humans themselves. Under the strict rules that governed the use of the Ianua Mechanism, Sister Cilice wasn’t allowed to use it for her own purposes, but as it was employed so infrequently, she doubted that the Lead Cenobite would notice it was missing.
Sister Cilice travelled through the time portal—arriving at the Toymaker’s eccentric residence in the artisans’ quarter of 18th century Paris in an instant. Rematerializing in a corridor outside his workshop located in the basement cave underneath his house, Sister Cilice entered the arched doorway to find him kneeling on the stone floor, deeply involved in the process of strangling yet another prostitute. (Prostitutes were easy prey for the Toymaker. He was able to entice them to his house for the price of a loaf of bread, where he killed them and boiled them down to their base components. The fatty deposits under their stomach muscles were an essential constituent for the greasing of the Pandoric’s precious gears.)
Sister Cilice intuitively knew that the naked young prostitute’s last moments were nigh, as her body was going through some thrillingly spasmodic death throes, so she stopped time for a moment. The Toymaker was frozen, but the girl was in Sister Cilice’s cocoon of time and space. She swooped down and clamped her lips over the girl’s wide open, imploring mouth. Sister Cilice was delighted by the girl’s warm, velvety tongue squirming inside her mouth. She sucked in the girl’s last breath—vacuuming up her soul in the bargain. The young prostitute juddered, thrashed her voluptuous, pale thighs against the floor and died.
Sister Cilice stepped back behind the Toymaker and resumed time. She was amused to see him trying to kiss the dead prostitute—no doubt hoping to get a taste of her last honeyed breath himself. When he realized that the wretched whore had already expired, he released his grasp around her neck with such disappointed abandon that her head dropped to the floor with a thud. This caused Sister Cilice to rasp out a desiccated laugh. The Toymaker swung around in surprise and anger, then fell prostrate on the floor with respect and humility, not expecting to see such a distinguished visitor without prior notice. He dared to raise his eyes to drink in her deathly presence: the dead blue-white skin; the bloodstained, black, tight-fitting, leather nun’s habit; the silver piercings that lashed through her face; the open wounds that would never heal; and the baleful, emerald-green eyes that looked at him with such scorn.
“Get up, Toymaker, and show me these wonders of yours,” Sister Cilice demanded. He leapt to his feet and proudly presented his wares: intricate, beautiful, artistic, musical Pandorics that would have astonished her if she was still human. However, even Sister Cilice could admire his handiwork, especially knowing the malevolent secrets and terrors of visceral carnality that the boxes could unleash upon their chosen supplicants.
Then an idea popped into her rebellious mind. It had always annoyed Sister Cilice that she was a Subordinatus to the Lead Cenobite. She wanted her own order, her own “scream” of demons. In her midnight plottings, she had already given the New Order a name: “The Sisterhood of the Cilice.” The idea of adding more females under her command to populate the vast dungeons of the Underworld was a delicious one. After all, Hell needed a bit of glamour.
“Toymaker, I want you to make a special Pandoric dedicated to me and me alone. A Cilicium Pandoric that will attract needy females desiring the ultimate in sensuality—with designs incorporating things of special meaning to me: blood-red roses, a murder of my favorite, vermillion-eyed crows (and how I delight in that particular collective noun) and silver cilices.”
The Toymaker was a bit hazy on what a cilice exactly was, so she showed him, lifting her long leather skirt to reveal her legs and vulva entwined with silver chains. The chains were adorned with tiny hooks that stabbed into her bloodstained flesh—the sanguineus fluids long dried and blackened. Like the hair shirts of old, cilices were designed to remind the wearer of the
suffering of the Savior. Ironic that they had become part and parcel of Sister Cilice’s depraved sexual fantasies back in her old life at the convent, before her Rapture—before her transformation into the dark-hearted demonic angel that she now was.
As they discussed the designs, Sister Cilice came up with her pièce de résistance: the alchemical symbol for female, —which was also a representation of the Greek goddess of love, Venus—had to be stamped on each box.
For two weeks, the Toymaker obediently labored over the design and construction of the Cilicium Pandoric, while a veiled Sister Cilice explored and enjoyed the seamier elements of Paris during the dead of night.
As instructed, the Toymaker was to test the box before delivery, so he plotted to meet with the beautiful, but notorious Duchess de Mortamour, whose reputation for everything transgressional was chattered about under the breaths of the powerful men and women of the court, but never out in the open. The duchess’s husband, the Duke de Mortamour, was far too influential with the king and no one dared to cross him.
The duchess was an admirer of the so-called Blood Queen, the Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed, who was reputed to have killed over 600 women and young girls in the early 17th century so she could bathe in their blood in order to maintain her youthful appearance. The duchess was also reputed to have dabbled in the dark arts and murdered a few young women herself, but since many of these rumors centered on women that the duke himself had dallied with, her bloodthirsty streak may have had more to do with jealousy than magic.
The Toymaker made an appointment with the duchess, promising her an intriguing Pandoric with bold motifs laced with intricate textures. His reputation preceded him and the duchess was eager to inspect his workshop.
A time was set for her appointment just after midnight. As instructed, she hadn’t told anyone of the assignation and arrived veiled and dressed in black via a hired coach and four.
The Toymaker escorted her to his workshop and the duchess was suitably impressed with not only the array of Pandorics laid before her, but also the lifelike mechanical birds that tweeted melodiously in the background. He took the duchess to a small private room in the back, where the Cilicium Pandoric was displayed on a table dressed as an altar next to some dried red roses and a decanter full of unspecified red liquid.
“Behold, my masterpiece, designed for your pleasure!” the Toymaker proclaimed with a wave of his hand. The duchess moved forward to examine the box and he withdrew from the room discreetly. He entered a nearby closet and removed a small portrait from the wall. Secreted behind the portrait was a peephole, where he could spy on the proceedings in the private room.
The duchess picked up the pandoric, admiring its silver, ebony and ruby encrusted designs. Her hands flew over the surface—moving the beautifully engineered segments as if she had designed it herself, then she stopped suddenly and put down the pandoric, as she was overcome with an almost stultifying wave of heat and nausea. Sweat broke out on her brow and her silken clothes, so comfortable before, became scratchy and burdensome—almost burning her skin. She tore at the buttons at her throat, trying to remember how the dress came off, because she was so used to maids dressing and undressing her.
In desperation, the duchess resorted to frantically rending the dress from her body, finally collapsing in a naked heap on the floor. It was then that she heard the discordant but compelling, tinkling melody of the Pandoric calling to her. She dragged herself up the altar, exhausted and burning with an internal fire. She swept the roses and decanter off the altar and lay down on her back—the Pandoric in her hands, fingers fiddling with the moving panels, feverishly desiring an answer, craving an escape from her boring life at court, yearning for a sensuality beyond anything offered here on earth. The device felt her wet, pulsating fingers and heard her panting desires and the panels began to move by their own accord, fashioning themselves into a different kind of mechanism—one designed to give pleasure to solitary women.
The duchess was thrilled at this new love toy and placed the Pandoric between her legs. She slowly inserted it inside her vagina, which was more than ready to embrace the device’s vibrating pleasures. At first, the experience was almost overwhelming—more than any man had given her over her years of debauchery. The duchess shuddered and orgasmed, screaming her release.
Then the noises from the Pandoric changed tune. Its vibrations became more urgent and the duchess became frightened. She tried to pull it out, but felt excruciating pain as tiny hooks sprang from the device and fastened themselves to her vaginal wall. She let go and the pain ceased, but the vibrations became more violent and she came again, fearfully, helplessly. For hours it seemed, she suffered the most exquisite, carnal sensations until she was nearly foaming at the mouth.
Finally, the Pandoric stopped its infernal pulsations. She cautiously pulled it out, gazing with wonder and exhaustion at the bloodstained device. That’s when she realized that she was no longer alone.
Sister Cilice stood in a dark corner of the room, smiling at her. She had witnessed the whole ritual and she was pleased beyond measure. Here was a woman whose capacity for sensational sexual suffering neared her own. A perfect addition to the Labyrinth.
“Who are you, wretched woman?” the duchess demanded. Sister Cilice smiled her wolfish smile again and said, “You called me, I came. Put the Cilicium Pandoric back where it was and I will show you such pleasures beyond anything you have experienced before.”
“I think I’ve had enough,” the duchess declared, attempting to get up, but she was frozen on her back, holding the device above her like a dagger. And then it transformed into something else. And the duchess screamed, but this time it wasn’t in pleasure.
* * *
Sister Cilice was delighted with the Cilicium Pandoric and rewarded the Toymaker well with five prostitutes that she had found huddling under a bridge during her brief exploration of Paris. She took the damned and mutilated duchess back with her to the Labyrinth, transforming her into an acolyte of the Sisterhood of the Cilice.
The Toymaker went back to murdering prostitutes and creating more Pandorics, never realizing that he may have played an important part in what became known later in hellish circles as The Cicilium Rebellion of the Female Cenobites.
Gaia
“Uranophobia, or The Gods of Delirium”
Just her luck to be christened Gaia, after the goddess personifying the earth. Her mother, determined to fit into American life—and yet still yearning for her old world, Greek roots—thought it was a beautiful name, but this was before the New Age, touchy-feely, environmentalist types popularized the Gaia Theory. Her “weird” name made her withdrawn and unhappy, and bullies made her school life hell.
Gaia’s mother would tell her the ancient myths of her homeland, never considering for a moment that these mesmerizing tales of abandoned cruelty could warp a young girl’s mind. But they did, especially the one about her namesake, the goddess Gaia, and her abusive husband Uranus, ruler of the starry sky. Created by the goddess as a companion and protector, Uranus soon descended into barbarism and raped her every night. Children popped out of her fertile womb and were promptly stuffed right back in again by Uranus, who was deeply paranoid that any offspring that he created would overthrow him and rule in his stead.
One son that avoided being forced back inside his mother was Cronus. The goddess persuaded him that Uranus was causing her unbearable pain, handed Cronus an enormous flint scythe and told him to sort his father out. Cronus crept into their bed one night, castrated Uranus and threw his blood-soaked genitalia into the sea.
Uranus was deposed, the goddess was finally happy and Cronus ruled until his own son, Zeus, came along to prevail over him. Uranus’s genitalia, for some reason known only to the dark minds of antiquated Greeks, metamorphosed into sea foam and then transformed into Aphrodite, the radiant goddess of love.
So, t
he dark and disturbing myths and legends of early Greece were the backdrop to Gaia’s childhood. As her mother cheerfully prattled on about gang rapes, beheadings, familial murders, betrayals and the other brutal goings-on of a time long past, Gaia’s imagination conjured up even worse things. Every day, she would walk to school eying the sky with distrust. Would the heavens open and suck her up to Olympus, the mountaintop home of the gods, where they would torture her, dismember her and throw her liver to the vultures? Gaia scuttled to and from school like a depressed beetle, bent over her books, terrified of looking up.
The only time that she felt truly happy was when her Uncle Abraxas was in town. Always travelling—for reasons never specified—Abraxas was not only devilishly handsome, he played a mean bouzouki as well. Evenings graced by his presence were always family affairs: lots of Greek food, dancing and chat. Gaia would put on her favorite red dress and dance for her assembled relatives—folk dances taught to her by her mother. As she whirled past Abraxas, he would admire her white thighs flashing by. He’d smile at her and she felt that maybe the world wasn’t so terrible after all.
One night, when Gaia was on the verge of her teenage years, Abraxas hit town again. He seemed haunted and her mother was concerned about him, but Gaia demanded another evening of fun and dancing, and so it was arranged.
That night, Abraxas played his bouzouki like a demon and Gaia danced in an almost ecstatic frenzy. Finally, after a couple of hours, they both had to stop. Although the crowd of relatives demanded more, the performers needed a time out.
Abraxas grabbed Gaia’s arm and they went outside to the backyard, sweaty and exhausted. Before she realized what was on his mind, he’d managed to pull her around to the side of the house. Suddenly, he was pushing her up against the wall, sticking his tongue in her mouth—almost sucking the life out of her. She tried to push him off, but he was too strong. He grabbed both of her wrists and held them tightly behind her back with one hand. He stopped kissing her for a moment and stuck the other hand into her mouth. She struggled to say something, but he whispered in her ear: “You are mine, my maenad ... you tempted me with your dancing and your wantonness. I know you want me. Why are you struggling? This was meant to be.”