by Rune Skelley
The tower of shame was gone. While that was good news from a mental health perspective, it left her with little building material. The rest of the birds returned bearing meager shards of Brook’s crystal coffin and thorny tendrils from Bramble’s thicket.
“Fuck.” The birds gave no response. Rook sighed. “Quoth the raven, ‘Don’t look at me, lady. This was your brilliant idea.’”
Rook had no time to dwell on her disappointment.
“Right then. Bring all of this, and take me to my core tower.”
Through the lonely, empty silence the birds led her to her tall, brick tower. The scab of shame crystals around the fractured opening had finished its transmutation into a dull, gray metal scar. The improvised doorway was only half its original size.
Rook gripped the edge of the cold metal and yanked. Nothing moved. She tried jerking it, hoping to force a chunk out of place. When that failed, she aimed a kick at a lower chunk, but again had no success.
The scar tissue was too resilient.
On the ground inside the tower Rook found the baseball bat she used to batter the half-closed archway. When she picked it up, an unwelcome knowledge crept through her.
She had to make another opening.
Gritting her teeth, she stalked through the empty skeleton chamber to the wall opposite the half-healed doorway, and swung the bat with all her strength. The bricks shifted under her barrage and some mortar crumbled out.
Grimly and efficiently, Rook pummeled the wall. Each blow kicked off sparks, showing flashbulb impressions of her life. Some were fragmentary memories, some like scenes from a movie. A buzzing ache built with each thud of the bat. The stroboscopic slideshow was laced with discordant emotions, now aloof and bemused, now lonely and frightened. Seeing, feeling, a succession of abandonments filled her with hopelessness.
Rook faltered, longing to drop the bat and fall down beside it.
She thought of Severin finding her in his house, of what he might do to her.
One last swing, and a brick fell.
Seeing this first indication of progress, this proof it wasn’t hopeless, pulled her out of her despair. Rook assaulted the wall with renewed spirit. The task still dredged up uncomfortable memories and feelings, but gradually more bricks came free until a narrow hole opened from shoulder height to the ground.
“That better fucking be enough.”
She ordered the birds to transport all the rubble to Kyle’s mind. If she worked fast, she wouldn’t have time to be afraid.
*** *** ***
Melissa twisted her neck to see what Severin was up to. He’d gone to his precious table to screw around, then the top almost came off the building, and now he stood there braying like a psychotic donkey.
Melissa was punch-drunk from the aftereffects of whatever he did, quivering with unnameable panic and rage.
“What in hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded in a constricted voice. Severin’s laughter reached the foot of whatever perverted defile it was tumbling down, but the way his eyes wandered the dusty recesses of the attic suggested he hadn’t heard her question.
“Uncle,” she barked, and he darted a dismissive glance at her. Melissa drew a sharp breath, feeling her nostrils flare. Severin grinned savagely, and she felt hot color flush her face and neck. She stood, meaning to shoo him out, but her nudity robbed her of any authority.
Severin appraised her, his dementia receding until it was only an exaggerated species of smugness. It seemed to Melissa she had his attention at last.
“What’s going on here?”
“Here? Nothing,” Severin said. “The interesting news is directly beneath our feet.” This cryptic statement contained a hilarity Melissa couldn’t grasp but Severin could barely hang onto. His shoulders bounced with stifled laughter. “She’s right downstairs. I could have tracked her down, but now it’s unnecessary.”
“Who?” Melissa tried to sound impatient rather than alarmed. “Who is downstairs?”
Severin had to chuckle for a moment before he could respond. “My daughter.”
Melissa’s innards froze solid. He has a daughter?
“I’m quite pleased to see how she’s turned out. It’s very pleasing indeed. We have so much to catch up on. I look forward to... bonding.”
Melissa’s knees wobbled as the import of this announcement resonated with the residue of the malaise induced by Severin’s mischief with the table. The sympathetic vibrations stacked up inside her skull, and she knew his table stunt was connected with this female.
Her heart raced and tears boiled. To be thrown over for another woman — again — was intolerable. She looked at Severin through narrowed eyes, but he wistfully surveyed his drafty little kingdom as he headed for the stairs.
He was on his way to her. Right now.
He passed Melissa without sparing a glance.
Melissa took a step after him, intent on pushing him as he stepped off the top tread.
In the next instant she rejected that plan as too unreliable. She needed something final, the most potent weapon imaginable.
And it was here in the attic.
“Uncle,” she purred, and he hesitated with his hand on the railing. “I felt something when you used your table a minute ago. It caught me off guard, but it was an impressive demonstration.”
Severin quirked one eyebrow at her.
“It felt... Well, I can’t describe it. But it made me excited.” She backed up a step, in the direction of the table. “Very excited. I’d like you to give me a lesson. Right now.”
Severin sneered. “You’re pathetic. Am I meant to be flattered by your phony arousal, or irresistibly drawn to your bony nakedness? My prize downstairs is far more beguiling than you ever were.”
Melissa trembled with rage. She passed it off plausibly, she thought, as a shiver of desire. “I don’t care what hateful things you say to me,” she simpered. “And I don’t care where you go after. I just know I need my lesson.”
She considered pouting, but feared it would be too much. The resulting indecision apparently came across as something her uncle enjoyed seeing on her face.
“That is in fact an excellent idea,” he said. “I’ll give you your final lesson. I will consume what little remains of you, and you will cease to be. But,” he paused to chuckle and unsnap his fly, “I’ll make sure you enjoy it.”
Melissa nodded and slunk backwards, holding him with her eyes. She slithered onto the table and rolled herself up in the sheet.
This was a ploy Melissa contemplated hundreds of times, but she’d conceived of it as a means of suicide. Fucking underneath the sheet, agitating the mysterious powers with the heat of their bodies until she was taken away, or incinerated.
Her sex tingled.
Severin shed his clothes and joined her under the sheet.
Immediately, they were copulating in direct contact with the surface of the table. Melissa felt the tide going out, her uncle draining her. She could let go, let him take it all and see what happened. She could...
No! She couldn’t. She couldn’t let the bastard win.
Melissa reoriented herself with the stump inside her. Severin increased his pull, demanding power from her. With effort she maintained her equilibrium.
The table responded to their passion. Melissa felt ecstatic tension building all around them, swelling toward release. Her own pleasure was a torrent sweeping her along. The sheet caressed and enfolded their flesh. The table, both lovenest and lover, rounded out their trio.
Severin too seemed overwhelmed, but strove to assert dominance over Melissa. He devoted all of his attention to conquering her, ignoring the table and how their gyrations charged it up. His voraciousness held the allure of oblivion, but Melissa refused to surrender.
The tidal wave building in the table couldn’t remain stable much longer. Melissa channeled her tantric vibrations toward it, favoring both of her lovers. Controlling Severin through his hunger, and the table through her pleasure.
She knew, but didn’t care, that if she missed the wave by the barest margin she would be destroyed.
Melissa let go, dumping all of her power into Severin, giving him everything. He took it, gorging himself and draining her to the verge of annihilation.
His thrusting, truncated limb erupted in a white-hot surge, a sudden writhing fullness in her loins.
Severin howled in triumph and gave a wriggling tug. As he replaced his arm with his penis, he displayed his reformed left hand to Melissa’s dazzled eyes for a moment before shoving the new thumb into her mouth.
The tidal wave crested and crashed at the same instant, and she drank the whole surge. It refilled her as Severin sucked away her life. It flowed in a million times faster than what he took out. It was not only more energy, it was different. Better, lighter, sweeter.
She was a goddess in a reeling universe of erotic bliss.
Severin, his power at an all-time high, glowed feebly between her legs. He hardly mattered.
In the eternity of a heartbeat, Melissa passed from the glory of orgasm into afterglow, and began to regain some sense of proportion. The power from the table washed through her, leaking back to its source. It couldn’t be grasped and held. She considered Severin again, drunk with her essence. That stolen power would remain with him for hours or days, not fade in moments like what she’d imbibed. In another few seconds, they might be evenly matched.
Melissa reclaimed her own energies. Then, casually, almost thoughtlessly, she consumed Severin and his energy, too.
His body, regenerated hand and all, transmuted into swirling green fuel for her furnace.
There were no remains.
The last of the sweet, ecstatic glow from the table ebbed back to its source, but Melissa didn’t mind. She owned her uncle’s power now. It was power she looked forward to employing.
She donned her sweater and went looking for this interfering minx he’d claimed was his ‘daughter.’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
GREEN GLASS PYRAMID
This letter is to inform whomever it concerns of my resignation, effective immediately. My departure has been prompted by the general deterioration of morale here, as well as getting a better deal elsewhere. I am taking copies of all my own work, plus related data, but unlike some people I’m not stealing the originals or any equipment. I guess I want credit for not being sleazy.
Cordially, Aaron Hapner (formerly ‘Acorn’)
TEF internal communication
Back in Kyle’s head, Rook finally understood her connection to the Divided Man. Both halves had incorporated some part of her essence into themselves. She had helped Fin willingly, providing blocks to rebuild him, enmeshing herself with him eternally. That was why she could always sense him, why their casual fling turned so quickly into a lifelong bond. She’d brought some of Fin’s volcanic ash into herself as well. They truly were a part of each other.
The same could be said of her and Kyle, she now knew. That their connection was not her choice made it no less real. These awful skulls were hers, forgotten remnants of discarded Brooks and Rooks and Brambles. The hum they emitted was her own. It excited the vibrant green splinters like a magnet would iron filings. Kyle invaded her mind and stole them, brought her secret pasts into himself, cementing their connection. The glass shards in her mind were his parting gift, a connection she had been ignorant of and could not break. Now she was going to add even more of herself to him, to rebuild him like she rebuilt Fin.
Would that strengthen her ties to her enemy?
Their original connection was unpleasant. It was based on thievery and something akin to rape. This time she would be helping him, if not voluntarily, at least on purpose. Would that change the nature of her feelings? By healing Kyle would she feel for him the way she did for Fin?
The thought nearly paralyzed her.
But there was another possibility. She had liked Fin quite a lot when she went into his head, and she’d come out the other side with her feelings magnified. She already hated Kyle. Where would things go from there?
The skulls were arranged in a rough square, so the structure she built from them would be, too. The thought of touching them…
Being here inside his mind was terribly intimate. It brought back awful memories. Rook worried about the influence they would have on his reshaped psyche. As she added remnants of Bramble and Brook she wove in the knowledge that it was these parts, not the true Rook, who responded to Kyle, so he would not be deluded into thinking she cared for him.
When adding bricks from her tower she cemented them in place with an understanding of the bond she and Fin shared so he would not want to break it again.
As she laid all the various parts of herself into place, Rook concentrated on building a better, gentler, less evil Kyle. It was exhausting.
Rook didn’t want to waste time scavenging more bricks, so she made the second row smaller than the first. She hoped it wasn’t cheating.
How long will it take for him to take over the healing?
When she started the third row, inset to mimic the sloping walls of a pyramid, the blocks began snapping into place as she moved them near.
Dull flickers of lightning blossomed on the horizon, and the air filled with the smell of ozone and black licorice.
The blocks fitted into place greedily. The lightning spread across the entire sky in a blanketing web. Brilliant green shards of glass flew out of the black vegetation and with sickening crunching and crashing sounds added themselves to what was now clearly a pyramid.
Rook was terrified of being slashed or impaled. She worked in a frenzy as the glittering knives flew around her. Not a single one touched her.
Kyle’s pyramid took shape quickly. The skulls anchored it. The slanted walls were a motley mixture of emerald glass, deep green shame crystals, prismatic shards of Brook’s coffin, and Rook’s red core bricks, all entwined with creeping thorny vines from Bramble’s thicket.
The vines grew and encircled the walls, blossoming in strange luminous flowers as the lightning scrawled warnings across the sky.
The last few bricks from Rook’s core tower lifted off the ground and flew toward the apex of the pyramid amidst a hail of green razors. Rook stifled a shriek and cowered in a low square doorway at the base.
Millions of glass splinters rose from the dense underbrush and sped toward the pyramid.
Rook shrank further into the recess. Behind her she could sense a large open area. As much as she didn’t want to enter Kyle’s core structure, she wanted to escape the serrated chaos outside more.
In here the walls were smooth plaster, the floor carpeted in astroturf. Stadium benches were arrayed like church pews, facing a pulpit with a huge bible and a TV. Wall niches held trophies and guns.
The pulpit drew Rook’s attention. It had a different feel from the rest of the collection.
As she approached, Rook realized it embodied the knowledge Kyle stole from Reverend Shaw. It was what allowed him to take over Shaw Ministries.
All this junk represented information.
Somewhere in here was what she came looking for: the location of the jewelry and knowledge of the security measures guarding it.
Rook stood behind the pulpit and examined the bible. White leather, with gold accents. The last thing she had any interest in was reading from Kyle’s enormous tacky bible, but it felt like the place to look for what she sought.
Rook flipped open the front cover to find a rumpled diagram pasted to the inside. Passing her fingers over it, she knew it was not about the jewelry. But she was getting close. She perused the massive tome, turning the pages faster as her impatience grew. Halfway through she discovered something meaningful.
Of course Kyle’s bible has a centerfold.
The image was animated, like a banner ad for a porn site. The page felt charged, as if it wanted to tell her something, but all she saw was a naked bimbo, a version of herself with a fake tan and fake boobs.
Disgusted, she fol
ded the page closed. The spark of meaning crackled when her gaze fell on Miss Deuteronomy’s turn-ons and turn-offs. One of the things that really got her going was all that body jewelry hidden away in the subterranean vault at the Shaw Ministries compound, and she got a major thrill just thinking about the tunnel system, with its concealed entrances and miles of buried passageways. But hottest of all were the secret access codes.
Rook sighed with relief. She had what she came in here for. A rash undertaking, but worth it. She and Fin would go to Donner, easily locate the cache of jewelry with its nefarious electronics, and destroy every last piece. By wiping it out she would make amends for her unwitting collusion in distributing it.
Around her, tendrils of green electricity crawled over every surface, sizzling like static, causing the fine hairs on her arms to stand up. Her blood felt alive, her heart pumping a warm glow that suffused her with pride and satisfaction.
The Completer’s task was fulfilled.
The Divided Man was Complete, both halves healed through her actions. Rook enjoyed the feeling for a fleeting moment, but then realized she did her job too well.
Kyle was waking up.
The exit from Kyle’s pyramid would serve as her exit from his mind as well.
Rook took one last look at Kyle’s secret knowledge, committing it to memory. She walked through the doorway.
A brief tug of vertigo and she was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring down at Kyle. His eyelids twitched.
Rook stood, smiling. She knew what she and Fin needed to find the jewelry and destroy it.
Her smile faded. Something was wrong. Horribly wrong.
Her baby was gone.
Rook clutched her abdomen. Flat.
Empty.
Thumper was gone. Severin had done something unspeakable.
There was a horrible silence in her mind. Alongside Fin’s and Kyle’s vibrations was an empty spot where the baby’s signal should have been. She had never been conscious of it, but now the silence was deafening.
Kyle sat up.
*** *** ***