by Marcus James
Kathryn backed into Kuri, moving her body serpentine against his crotch.
“Come on...” he said in her ear, guiding her out of the kitchen. They passed the dining room-where people did more lines and women in spandex sat in the laps of the guys at the table-and moved down the darkened hallway, and into a bedroom in the back.
There was nothing on the walls, and clothes were strung about the floor, along with an ashtray, and more empty bottles of liquor.
He threw Kathryn down on the bed and crawled over her, covering her lips and body in kisses, his sex hard against her thighs. He pulled down her dress and ripped her black lace bra, gripping her breasts in his hands and teasing her nipples with his teeth and tongue, then Kuri made his way down her stomach, until he was between her thighs, slipping his hands up underneath and sliding her dress up.
He kissed her thighs as he made his way closer to her aching sex, kissing the trimmed down of her pubic hair and slipped his tongue inside.
She buckled against the skill of his tongue, she had never felt this kind of sensation before, this pleasure that moved through her body and made her terrible on the inside.
She moaned in pleasure, and when she came, she could hardly remember herself. She didn’t stop him from tasting her juices, she didn’t consider the Legacy or that she could be condemning him to death. All she could feel was this moment. All she could do was ride this ecstasy.
Kuri moved on top of her again, and Kathryn slipped that leather jacket off of him, kissing him and feeling his firm, glistening body with her hands as she reached down and unbuttoned his jeans.
Kuri’s mouth tasted of whiskey and nicotine, and he smirked as he finished the job, slipping out of his denim with ease. He was without underwear, and his hot, thick cock was firm, brown, and waiting for her.
Kathryn’s legs opened to Kuri, and he slipped himself inside of her. She was tight, and there was a mild pain as he made his way deep inside, and as they began to rock, Kathryn was almost certain she was leaving her body.
He pumped fast inside of her, and she worried that soon she would no longer be able to control the sounds of her pleasure. This passion was immense and primal. It was Dionysian and barbaric. It was the kind of fuck that she had needed. It was the orgy at the witches’ sabbat under the light of the full moon, deep in the dark.
It was the Sabbath of folklore and superstition. It was the nightmare of Puritan men and the Church. It was the Great Rite.
A vision flashed before her. That ancient city of the desert lands, rivers overflowing with a trentrchal rain the likes of which she had never seen, rain that fell so hard and fierce that one could hardly see through it, and she saw great winds and that growing sea begin to fill it and bring those Ziggurats and towers to their feet.
Another flash, and she saw those creatures now, so clearly, those bird-creatures, only along with the three, she counted four more, and they brought the storms and the growing flood. They swooped down and took hold of the humans in their ancient skirts, lifting them with those sharp talon hands and tearing them limb from limb and ripping out intestine.
Kathryn opened her eyes and looked into Kuri’s. She saw their brilliant incandescence and was taken over by another wave of pleasure.
Kathryn ran her fingers along his back, and she was startled by two thick scars that took up most of the sides of his shoulders.
Another flash of the city falling and these creatures in flight.
Kathryn saw a cluster of giant men with long legs and long arms and hands, trying to defend themselves from these winged beasts.
They were mutilated and their brain and heart were removed and purposefully rejected instead of being devoured.
“Fuck!” Kathryn called out as she began to cum. She wanted to push Kuri off of her, she wanted to get him out of her before she came, but it was too late. Suddenly Kuri pulled out and came on her thighs and on the sheets.
She was grateful to him for that. Last thing she wanted to do was risk getting pregnant or killing him because of her sudden inability to regain her senses and get him a condom from her purse.
What was that? Kathryn tousled her hair with her hands. I’ve gotta get out of here.
Kathryn slipped her dress back up, not bothering to pick up her torn bra. “You’ve got a souvenir,” she said to Kuri with a grin. Kathryn stood and realized one of her heels had slipped off during the tryst, and she removed a cigarette from her case and lit it while she slipped back into the shoe.
“Where are you going Kathryn?” Kuri was sitting on the edge of the bed, taking a puff from his cigarette.
She picked up his aviators and slipped them back on her face. “Back to the party.”
She opened the door and made her way back down the hall, finding Magdalene standing out on the patio in front of the crystalline blue swimming pool, smoking a cigarette.
“Hey,” Kathryn said to her.
“Hey back.” Magdalene continued to stare straight ahead at the Strip beneath them.
“Where’d Niiq go?”
Magdalene shrugged. “I think he realized I wasn’t going to fuck him, so he found someone else.”
“At least one of us is level-headed.”
Magdalene turned quickly, her eyes locked with Kathryn’s. “You didn’t?”
Kathryn nodded. “Yeah, I did.”
“How was he?”
Kathryn smirked. “Not bad. Where’s Angelina?”
“She disappeared with that Arish guy. I don’t know. Probably up to the same thing you are.”
Kathryn nodded and thought again on the things she saw. She turned to glance back into the house, seeing that Kuri had yet to leave the bedroom. For all I know, he’s back there fucking someone new.
Doubtful.
She didn’t understand why, but she just had a feeling that his only interest was her. That he was fixated on Kathryn; that they all were. You are not many, you are one alone. Wasn’t that what Angelina had told her? Wasn’t that the message she divined from the Orishas?
What did the band have to do with all of this?
Kathryn walked back into the house, making her way through the living room, finding a bookcase stacked with books on Sumerian mythology and Babylon. Magic Without Tears by Alistair Crowley, books on hauntings, books on necromancy and summoning spirits.
“What the fuck?” she hadn’t meant to say it aloud, but the books on the shelf were unexpected. She knew a lot of metal guys who had books like these, but this was different. Something about the feeling it gave her was more than rebellious curiosity. This was serious study and devotion.
“Angelina?” Kathryn called, making her way down the hallway opposite where Kuri’s room was at the other side of the living room. The music filled her with its dark and delirious sound, and she began to feel as if she were losing focus.
She reached a door halfway down the hall, and heard cries of pleasure coming from the other side. Kathryn placed her hand to the door and closed her eyes, feeling her hand become hot as her witchcraft pulsed, reaching through the door and flowing back in, showing her visions of Angelina on the other side of the door, crying out in pleasure as Arish and Niiq took turns entering her, kissing her cheeks, neck, shoulders, and kissing one another.
Their hands were all over her body, all over her breasts, and along their chests, taking hold of each other’s cocks.
Niiq slipped down between Arish’s legs, swallowing his balls while Arish’s sex moved back and forth inside of her.
Kathryn pulled her hand away and began to make her way back out into the living room, back into that candlelight and dangerous music.
She found Magdalene at the front door. As if she had already known.
“We need to leave.” She said to Kathryn.
“I know, but Angelina...” Magdalene’s amber eyes told her everything she needed to know. Angelina wouldn’t be leaving any time soon, and they needed to get out of the house. They needed to get as far away from this place as possible.
“Wait!” Kathryn raced over to the record player and removed the album; everyone was too fucked up and in drunken conversations to notice. She found the sleeve on the carpet and slipped the record inside. “Let’s go.”
They shut the door behind them and walked as quickly as possible down the street back towards Devlin Drive, Magdalene and Kathryn using their witchcraft to blink out all of the lights behind them and above them as they passed, immersing themselves in darkness.
They got back to the corvette undisturbed, and Kathryn let out a deep breath, tossing the record to Magdalene, who held it tightly in her lap as they made their way back to the Chateau Marmont, Kathryn recalling that face in the crowd; that ghost of Sheffield Burges.
She felt those familiar pangs of guilt and tried to dismiss them before they had a chance to become debilitating. Not tonight.
When they got back to the bungalow, Kathryn kicked off her heels and put the album on the record player, making her way through the dark hall and stepping into her room.
Her breath caught in her throat and her heart stopped for just a moment as she glimpsed that dark thing standing there on the other side of the glass, standing at the edge of the patio; staring at her.
Kathryn stepped closer, walking cautiously towards the patio door. What did she mean to do? She wondered. Did she intend to step out to the dark and confront it? No. for now she would simply try to study it, to try to see any details.
Kathryn curled her fingers around that sheer drape and parted it slightly, a sliver of patio light falling on her face as she focused on the being. It was as if it were made of shadow, and yet she was certain that in its shape she could see wings.
“You’re not welcome...” she whispered. The patio light suddenly blinked out and as her eyes adjusted to the electric orange of the skyline she saw that the apparition was gone, and all that was left in its parting was the rustle of foliage.
Kathryn turned and made her way back out into the hall and towards the bar; pouring herself a drink and trying to shake the visions of that ancient city and those helpless giants being ripped to pieces. She was tired and wanted to sleep. There was no fighting this exhaustion.
She would call Angelina in the morning. She would find Richie and apologize for flaking on him, and she would stay away from Nephilim. She would keep her distance from Kuri, and she would unravel this mystery.
Kathryn felt as if her very soul was in the middle of it, and she was so close to losing it. The devil had sent his agents and they were coming for her, and she hadn’t the slightest idea how to stop it from decimating everything she loved, and taking her away forever; into their desolate abyss.
VII
Sheffield Burges sat in the round metal patio chair, painted gold with a seat and back made of strips of orange and gold plastic, one strong tanned leg resting on the other, dressed in thigh-length forest green shorts, his lean chest was exposed and glistened with the thin sheen of sweat, and there was a thin trail of black hairs that led from his abs to the sex beneath the hem of those shorts.
He took a drag gingerly from his cigarette and the gold Rolex on his left wrist danced in the light as he brought the filter to his lips. His beautiful mouth was framed by the five o’clock shadow that followed the structure of his classically chiseled features, like Carey Grant or Rock Hudson, only much more alluring with his youthful features and skin that was naturally tanned, as if he had grown up in the Mediterranean.
His dark hair-the color of chocolate-short and brushed to the side-glistened in the late morning sun, and through the black of his wayfarers, his emerald eyes stared absent mindedly into the angled pool in the center of the green courtyard of the Sunset Marquis, which reminded Sheffield more of an apartment complex than a hotel.
He sat with his coffee on the glass table, thinking of the night before, and his certainty that he had seen Kathryn Blackmoore emerge from the Whiskey –a-Go-Go, along with her cousin Magdalene, and some others, dressed in a tight black dress, short and clinging to her statuesque body, her head thrown back and that mane of deep auburn seemed to glisten in the street lights.
His heart had come to a stop when he glimpsed her. Everything stopped. There was no time, and there was no one else on the sidewalk, and there was no music thundering from the bar, and when she looked at him-and he was sure she had-it was as if the world had suddenly tilted and he felt as if he were going to lose his balance and fall to the pavement.
Their eyes had connected. He felt it, and he had to believe that she had felt it as well. He had yelled for her, shouting her name over and over again, but the music and the crowd trying to get in had drowned him out.
He had been roaming the Strip trying to hunt her down. He had remembered all of the places she had ever said she wanted to go to when they read issues of Creem Magazine in her bedroom, listening to The Clash or Blondie, and absorbing the rock and roll shenanigans of the Strip.
He had already stopped into the Troubadour, and had been making his way to the Whiskey, determined to check every place he could think in Los Angeles that Kathryn would be, and the only place that she had ever cared about was Sunset.
Sheffield grinned. He had been right, after all. Sure, he didn’t get her attention, he didn’t get to wrap her in his arms and cover her neck and face in kisses. He didn’t get to feel those soft cheeks against his lips, tasting her mouth and smelling the delicious perfume of her skin, but he had the confirmation that he had been right, that even after these eight years, he still knew her.
They had always moved together. They had always felt so symbiotic-a balance that had always put them on an even keel-and knowing to go to the Strip and knowing where he would most likely find her, was comforting, because if he had taken off to LA, the Strip is where he’d have gone to hide and its night life would be where he would live to reinvent himself.
It was why he had never been able to forget her. Kathryn Blackmoore would always be there, and it wasn’t because he feared she had cast some sort of spell on him, the real witchcraft was love.
A passionate, all consuming, can’t-think-can’t-eat-because-it-hurts-too-much-to-breathe-kind-of-missing-someone-that kept Sheffield from simply moving on, because his heart knew only the ache, and those nights after too much drinking that made him cry at the thought of her.
He just needed her back. He needed to make it right. He just needed to look into those cool, pale blue eyes, and plead his case. Sheffield wouldn’t beg. He knew she didn’t appreciate begging, and Kathryn lost respect for anyone the minute they began to beg.
No. he needed to explain himself, he needed to give her the same honesty that he had always given her, had given her that afternoon eight years ago. He couldn’t take it back, there was no way to. It happened. He needed to own it, and he needed to own his decision.
It was what he felt at the time, and yes, it had taken time to wrap his head around the Blackmoores and the superstitions that were nearly all true, and as a result he had questioned the existence of God. Not if God existed in the sense that suddenly humans question if God is actually make believe, but suddenly going from the certainty that no God existed-a true atheist-to suddenly wondering if perhaps it was all true?
If witches were real, then was God real? And if God was real, that meant the Devil was real, and if Satan was real, did that mean that Kathryn’s soul belonged to him?
But finally he determined that it all must be true. That every god, every deity-male or female and everything in between-were real, that there were dark and evil things out there, worse than any killer or bedroom prowler.
The nightmares of youth were the reality, and he had realized that hiding under the covers would do nothing to protect him from it.
The terrors of the dark could do monstrous things, and it meant believing all the old ghost stories and it had been something that he just wasn’t ready to accept eight years ago.
But his love for Kathryn always brought him back to one simple truth; it didn’t matter. None of it. All
that mattered was loving her, kissing her, listening to her throaty laugh at something he had said, and seeing her smile and knowing he was the reason for it.
If Kathryn belonged to the Devil-if she were destined for hell-then he gladly offered up his soul to be with her. Present to him the contract and prick his finger so that he could commit his name to it in blood. He would do it. There was no heaven-no paradise beyond if Kathryn Blackmoore wasn’t in it.
But he knew she wasn’t destined for any sort of hell. He knew there had been no pact-no selling of the soul. He believed her when she told him about the old gods and that witches had always been, and that there was no time when a Blackmoore wasn’t a witch.
Yes, even back in Savannah, the rumors were that the Blackmoores had met with the devil in the Irish wood and exchanged the soul for infernal powers and great wealth. Stories of human sacrifice and the devouring of infant flesh, but he knew she told the truth when she said nothing came from the devil and she had devoured no flesh.
Kathryn had never believed it. No matter what the people of South Hill had said and what those priests and nuns at Sacred Heart had said. No matter what her father, Trevor Mayland had said.
His fear of the Devil, and his belief in the Church, and his confidence that if his wife, Annaline, and his daughter just refused to indulge in their powers, and went to daily Mass, repentant and avoided movies or played card games, then they would be good before God, and perhaps be shown mercy in heaven.
She knew it had all been bullshit, and even though she missed her father, his death had also freed her from breaking his heart.
All of this she had confessed to him that night after they had buried that body in the orchard, sitting cross-legged on the grass, looking at the loose earth from what they had just done.
She had revealed everything she was to him, and he had believed her.
He may have not been able to deal with it at the time, and it had terrified him and shook him to his very core, but he had always believed her.