Reign of Ruin

by Bene, Jennifer

  ‘Yeah?’ She smiled sleepily as she turned to look at him.

  ‘If you loved me, why did you let them take you?’ There were no more dimples in his cheeks. Instead, he looked upset, brows pulled together as he looked at her.

  She shook her head. ‘I didn’t let them, Christopher, I—’

  ‘Why did you let them take you away from me? From your dad? From Mary?’ He frowned, reaching out to touch her arm. ‘What happened to Mary?’

  Panic clutched at her lungs as she held onto his arm. ‘I don’t know, but I’m here now. I’m here and—’

  ‘Do you think they did the same thing to Mary? Do you think everything that happened to you… happened to Mary too?’

  ‘Why are you saying this?’ she asked, fighting back the tears. She tried to sit up, to cover her ears, but Christopher grabbed her shoulders and pushed her back to the bed.

  Leaning over her, she couldn’t do anything but stare into his wide blue eyes. ‘They took you away from me. They took Mary. Just like they took our moms, just like they took everyone. The Church took you away from me.’

  Memories broke inside her, remembering the day the sky burned. The panic she’d felt the day her mother hadn’t come home from work. The way Mary had kept asking where mom was, the way her father had made phone calls and paced. It was the last day her father had let them out of the house.

  ‘Do you think they killed me like they killed your father?’ Christopher shook her as she started to cry. ‘Or do you think I joined them?’

  ‘No!’ she shouted, but he just shook her harder.

  ‘They took you away from me. Why would I have refused?’

  ‘Please stop!’ She wrapped her fingers around his arms, holding on tight as she pleaded. ‘I don’t want to talk about this. Please, can’t you just hold me?’

  ‘No. That is not possible, Danielle.’

  ‘Why not?’ she asked, sniffling.

  His eyes were empty, his voice too quiet as he leaned closer. ‘Because they took you.’

  The bed disappeared behind her back, and she fell. Away from Christopher, away from warm sunlight and softness and gentle kisses, down into the dark where she collapsed on rough wood. A hard kick landed on her ribs, knocking her to the side as she coughed, whined.

  ‘Stupid whore, this is all your fault.’ Another hard kick to her stomach, and she retched, holding out a hand to stop him.

  ‘Don’t. Please don’t…’

  ‘They said you need to suffer, whore. That’s the only way to end this insanity.’ He reached down and grabbed a fistful of her hair, wrenching her upright. ‘If you hadn’t sinned, if all of you bitches hadn’t sinned, none of this would have happened.’

  ‘No!’ she shouted, unable to understand how the asshole believed any of it, but he backhanded her hard.

  ‘This is all your fault,’ he growled and shoved her back to the floor, pushing her thighs apart as he climbed on top of her. Catching her hands when she tried to fight, he slammed them to the floor above her head and spit in her face. ‘You have to learn your place, whore.’

  ‘NO!’ Danielle screamed just as he thrust inside her.

  The rage burned the memory away, and she opened her eyes to the dull gray darkness and realized she was still screaming. She remembered everything. Every good moment before the sky burned. Every horrible moment after. She remembered the insanity of The Church. Their broadcasts, their messages, their call for a return to ‘The Laws.’

  They had destroyed everything.

  Her life, her family, her world. They had destroyed her.

  “They tried to,” the thing purred against her back as she felt gravity return, and it placed her on her feet. “But they failed to destroy you. Instead, they made you strong.”

  “That wasn’t a memory,” she growled. Nausea creeping up the back of her throat as she felt the wrongness of Christopher.

  “Not at first, that was something… more.”

  “It was you,” she accused, already knowing it was true before she even heard its rumbling chuckle. She could feel the ache it always left between her legs, and its seed was leaking down her thighs.

  “Yes. I wanted to feel you again, and you prefer Christopher, do you not?” Smug satisfaction in its voice, and she clenched her teeth against the urge to rant and rave — it wouldn’t make a difference.

  “Why ruin it with the asshole at the end then?”

  “Oh, your call to service? That was real. Your first.” A soft hmm buzzed through the air between them. “Just a reminder. He was so righteous as he hurt you, simply because The Church told him that it would fix everything.”

  “Another lie,” she spat. Barely able to contain the hatred she felt as she remembered her sister’s screams, her own screams. “What do you want?”

  “I only wish to give you the opportunity to destroy them, Danielle.” It grabbed her wrist, pulling her arm forward until her fingers brushed metal. The door. “Call out to them. The men will come for you.”

  “And then?” she asked, head pounding as her heart raced. Remembering the cardinals in their crimson robes, the horrors they’d inflicted. All of it was because of The Church. The men who led it, the men who had hurt her. So much pain.

  “Then you will set us free. Then you will have your vengeance.” It released her wrist, brushing its fingers across her hair. “You will know what to do.”

  She felt its presence scatter behind her, the dull rumble of its power vibrating the door and the stone beneath her feet.

  “Ssssound ssscared,” it whispered from the darkness, many voices echoing.

  Running her hands along the door, she tried to find a handle, but there was none. Not in its prison. Slapping her palms against it, she shouted, “Let me out! Please!”

  It wasn’t hard to summon the tears, she could still remember Christopher’s face from her real memories, his smile and his dimples. Could still see the panic on her father’s face the last time she’d seen him alive, could feel the terror when she heard Mary scream.

  She hit the door harder. “Please! Cardinals, please, help me!”

  To her surprise, she heard the metallic scrape of a key in the lock, the tumble of the mechanism. A second later, light blinded her. Grabbing onto the frame of the door, she stumbled forward, hearing a man gasp and mutter a prayer. One of the cardinals. Cold hate washed through her, and she moved towards the sound, forcing her eyes open as they watered, revealing the blurry shape of the man in his red robes. She grabbed onto them, fisting the fabric to pull him closer.

  “It is a miracle,” he whispered, just before she grabbed him by the throat and squeezed.

  “No. Not a miracle,” she growled, feeling the fragile bones in his neck grind. His eyes were wide, panicked, and she knew he’d ignored the same expression on her face. The silent plea for mercy, for kindness, as he’d violated her along with the rest of them. With a twitch of her hand, she felt his neck snap. So brittle. So easy to give him the death she longed for.

  The door.

  Turning around, she saw the empty black of the doorway, and then looked at the stone around it. Intricate carvings by the hundreds, and on instinct she slammed her fist into one of them. It cracked as pain radiated up her arm, but then it was gone. The ache disappearing as she did it again and again. She could feel it inside her, its seed still leaking down her thighs as shouts rose behind her, and she struck the next block of carved symbols again. Knuckles bloody before the first man touched her, she recoiled instantly. Twisting, she struck him in the chest to knock him back, moving to the other side of the door to slam her sticky fist into the other side. More cracks spreading, thin sparks of light escaping as more stone splintered.

  More.

  A dull rumble shook the wall, fragments of stone falling as two of the robed men grabbed her and yanked her back. Somehow, she pulled away, backhanding one, and she watched as the hood dropped away and a crimson arc flew from his mouth as he fell.

  “Don’t touch me!” she roared, a
nd the floor rumbled beneath her feet.

  “My child, be at peace. You have been blessed and—” One of the cardinals started to speak and she screamed to silence him.

  Again. The door.

  “Don’t!” another of the cardinals shouted as she faced the doorway and brought her fist into the next section of unbroken stone, reveling in the gratifying way it buckled. Too old, it was brittle and ancient. That was why it spiderwebbed with cracks as she found the central carved piece at the top of the door and hit it even harder. The sound as the stone split in half was loud, echoing through the massive room with an earsplitting snap.

  Then the floor was shaking, a localized earthquake that she held no fear of as the darkness bled out of the doorway and she stepped back, moving aside just in time for it to pour out like thick, oily smoke.

  The cardinals screamed as it covered them, but Danielle just stared. Watching as sprays of blood flew through the air, accompanied by the strangely wet sound of snapping bones. It played out before her in slow motion. Gore and horror that didn’t summon a single feeling of pity inside her. The smoke purred as the last body fell, and she felt its voice rumble out of the haze. “Take your vengeance, Danielle. Destroy them all.”

  “No. Leave the women alone,” she whispered at the towering cloud of black. “Please,” she added, remembering that it could hurt her too if it wanted. “They’ve suffered enough.”

  “As you wish,” it growled, and then it flowed fast. Almost swimming through the air until more of the black robed men came through a door in the wall. They were carrying swords, actual swords, like out of some old movie. It sped toward them, cutting through them with ease, bodies falling as it passed, leaving pools of ichor on the ground beside clattering steel — and then it was across the room just as fast. Shattering the door she’d first come through when they’d brought her to this hell.

  That was the way out.

  But… there were still cardinals here.

  She could hear their prayers, their pleas for mercy to a God that had never listened to anyone inside Eden. Walking over the bodies in front of her, she moved slowly to the table where the fire still burned behind it. The stone table was gone, but the massive oval one was exactly where she remembered. Several of the cardinals were hiding beneath it, babbling, and she wondered if this was the first time they’d ever felt fear.

  “My child! Danielle!” The head cardinal crawled from under the table, pulling himself up by his throne as he looked between her and the doorway it had gone through. “No matter what it whispered to you, you should not have released it, you—”

  “Oh God,” one of the cardinals whispered as he crawled from beneath the table with another. “She has been blessed.”

  “Silence!” The head cardinal snapped. “Danielle, you must come with us, my child. We will protect you until it is safe. Until it leaves this sanctuary.”

  “No,” she answered, and she knew it was the first time they’d actually listened to the word. They glanced at each other, and she felt the cold swirling inside her. All of the emptiness that craved their deaths, their suffering. Penance for the things they’d done. To her, to everyone. “What did you think would happen when you fed me to that monster?”

  “It was God’s will, you—”

  She screamed, cutting him off as she stomped forward and grabbed him, dragging his frail body onto the table with a jerk of her arm. “Was it God’s will for you to torture me? To hurt me over and over and over?”

  “Only through suffering can women find absolution! The first of you ate of the tree, woman damned mankind. You sinned and dragged man down with you. It was God who chose your punishment. Your monthly pain, your pain in service, your pain while creating life, which before only He had the power to do. And so, yes, you have suffered. God gives with both hands, my child. But, now, you are chosen. To set this world free and—”

  Suddenly, her hand was inside his chest, just under his ribs, and she felt the wet warmth, the flickering pulse of his heart as her fingers closed around it and ripped it free. For a moment he continued to blink, blood staining his lips as he stared up at her and watched her throw his heart into the fire. She growled, hoping he had enough awareness left to hear her. “I am not chosen, and I am not your salvation.”

  Turning away from the corpse on the table, she prowled around the end of it towards the cardinals frozen in fear.

  “I’m not yours at all,” she whispered, and they ran. It wasn’t as difficult to catch them as she’d imagined. It was even easier to break them. But their screams did nothing to ease the emptiness inside, the cold quiet as she thought of Mary, Christopher, her father, her mother. Everyone alive in the flickers of memory that her mind was still trying to process.

  Leaving the cardinals behind, she walked out of their secret space. Through the darkness and up the spiral stair. When she came to the carpeted hall, she saw the wine-colored stain of blood in a thick streak, followed it until it ended at the closed door of the hospital room. There was no strike of fear as she opened it, no moment of horror as she saw the mangled corpse of one of the priests on the floor. A fear-filled shout drew her attention to the cruel priest, another of her tormenters, only now he was bound naked to a bed in the middle of the room.

  A gift.

  She could sense the thing somewhere inside Eden, moving fast in a random pattern, and she was sure that the quiet whisper in the back of her mind was its voice. It didn’t matter, all she cared about was that it didn’t hurt when it whispered behind her eyes.

  Low, gurgling shouts came from the cruel priest as he jerked against the straps. Panicked, trapped, vulnerable like she had been. Blood spilled from his mouth and she moved closer to see that his tongue was gone.

  It almost made her smile.

  “Do you think that you’re beautiful in your suffering?” she asked, tilting her head as his fists clenched on the other side of the straps. “Do you think your God will forgive you for what you’ve done? Absolve you because of this pain?”

  More incoherent noises from the man. And he was just a man without the robe. They all were. Wrapping her fingers around his limp dick, she stroked and watched as he shook his head.

  “No? You don’t want me to touch you? Hurt you?” Rage flooded her suddenly, the memory of the agony she’d experienced at his hands clenching her fist tight, and she heard him wail as flesh tore. But as she opened her fingers, all she could think of was how ecstatic he’d been to tear into her. To make her scream and sob. “You should be joyful in your suffering,” she hissed, but all he did was scream as she tore his mangled flesh free.

  Sneering, she wiped her hand off on the sheet, watching as his eyes rolled, limbs pulling at the straps like they would suddenly fail to hold him when they had held her down to a similar bed.

  Slowly, his struggles waned, turning into quiet moans of pain, and that was when she turned away. Leaving him to bleed out, to suffer, as she walked out of the room. She could still hear his sobs of pain as she wandered the long hall, but not even those noises could bring her any kind of feeling. Danielle felt numb. Broken. Emptied out as she found her way back towards the wooden door where the gentler priest had fed her before he’d turned her over to be violated.

  The door opened easily, revealing the simple room where Priests were huddled near the benches. In the quiet place where for so long they’d eaten warm soup and lied. She recognized their faces from flickering glimpses of memories she wanted to avoid, and as she stared, they begged, pleaded, promised that God would still forgive — until she broke the first bone. Then they only screamed, damned her, cursed her to an eternity in the pit of fire as they died. Danielle could remember being afraid of them, of their power, but they seemed so small now. Weak and small.

  It was as she climbed the wood steps that she finally heard the chaos happening above. Feminine and masculine voices alike, all drowned in fear, but still muffled behind the doors. Danielle opened the first one off the narrow hall, passing into the stark ro
om where priests pretended to make the violence okay. Pretended that it was grace, love, from a God that had abandoned all of them.

  She wanted to burn it all down.

  A thrumming rumble passed by the door, in the main hall, and she knew it was the creature. An old thing leaving blood in its wake, taking revenge for its captivity on the monsters that had taken a broken world and bent it to serve them.

  Danielle stared into the small fireplace, wondering why she had never been brought to the room where a fire burned. Ready and waiting to dry her off, to ease the ache of the cold baptism baths. If they had wanted to pretend grace, they could have at least offered her that. She traced the backs of the chairs set up in a half-circle around the flames, soaking in the heat as her flesh turned pink.

  What would it have cost them to offer such a small kindness?

  They could have fucked her on the wood floor here just as easily as they could have in any of the other rooms. She could have gone to her knees and sucked the cock of whoever wanted it as she enjoyed the warmth. Without question, she would have, like she always had when they’d demanded it.

  Another flicker of rage and she threw one of the chairs. It snapped against the wall, one of the legs breaking off, and she picked it up. Eyeing the fragile wood, the wooden planks beneath her feet, and then she stuck the end of the chair leg into the flames. Watched as the tip blackened, burned, and finally caught fire. A weak flame, but still… fire. A fitting way to destroy Hell.

  “This is for your gentle touch, priest,” she whispered, dragging the fire across the desk where papers sat askew. Hissing as they burned, as the flames hungrily spread, devouring the handwritten pages. The door banged open behind her, and she felt its presence. A heady buzzing in her head as she refused to look at it.

  “Come,” it commanded, and she did. Carrying her makeshift torch with her as she followed, watched it tear priests and other men to pieces as its shadowy mass engulfed them. She wanted the sight to bring her joy, relief, something — but there was just not enough left inside her.