Lambs

by Michael Louis Calvillo

  Please, don’t let him be dead.

  Please, don’t let him be dead.

  Heat misted and tears welled. “Arthur? Arthur baby are you okay?” He didn’t answer but his breath came out hot and fast on her forearm.

  “H-H-His f-f-foot.” Connor’s raspy voice made her jump. He was standing behind her, pointing.

  Melanie leaned into the cabin and craned her neck. Sure enough his left foot was drenched with slick, shiny blood. There was a large piece of glass lodged beneath the skin. Just looking at it drew shivers up and down her spine. She continued to hold on to him, rocking softly, stroking the damp hairs near his temples. “What happened?”

  Stammering and stuttering Connor told her that Leon, their night staff guy, went psycho. He lit their beds on fire and broke a bottle over Arthur’s leg. Connor tried to stop him, but Leon threw him down the stairs. “I-I-I r-r-ran b-back u-u-upstairs t-t-o s-s-save A-Art, b-but—”

  “We better go, okay?” She hated to cut him off, but the poor little guy was crying and it was taking forever for him to get the story out. Melanie eased Arthur’s seat back and laid his head gently upon the seat rest, shut the door and then ran back around to the driver’s seat.

  Once they started driving away Connor finished his story. The stammering was nearly incomprehensible, but Melanie got the gist of it. Apparently he dropkicked Leon, but couldn’t get to Arthur because the flames were too fierce so he ran down stairs and threw the coffee table through the window. As he went on and on about how glad he was they were “A-A-A-A-l-r-r-right” Melanie offered him some water. The little freak guzzled half the bottle in one long gulp. Thirty seconds later he was snoring as loud as a man twice his size.

  * * *

  She finished the drive lost in thought.

  What the hell really happened back there?

  The image of Connor dropkicking a grown man didn’t sit right. And it sounded like Arthur’s last words before passing out were somewhat accusatory. But again, she didn’t picture Connor causing any havoc.

  Really, none of it mattered.

  The only thing she should be concerned about now was whether Arthur was okay. She had her Sacrifice secure, minutes away from the Sentinels, and once she turned him over the rest of the process should go smoothly. She’d spend the next twenty-two hours mediating and reciting scripture, spend an hour delivering the Face to Face, and then it was on with the big show. After she drove the knife all she had to do was remember the Womanhood Entreaty, all six hundred words of it, fill the chalice, sip, and then that was it, the Blood Rites concluded for another year and she was officially a priestess.

  The Sentinels were smoking cigarettes, waiting for her in front of the warehouse. They wore their street clothes as not to arise suspicions from any passing cars (not that there were any) and waved at her giddily, the cherries from their cigarettes painting orangey zags into the night sky, as she pulled in. It was a strange sight, Brother Hanlon and Brother Pickett grinning from ear to ear pumping their arms in greeting like overjoyed kids.

  In a matter of moments they would be lugging Arthur and Connor below for some good old fashioned torture. Rules stated that they were to prepare the Sacrifice for the impending ceremony by reading to them from the Lord Father’s Creed and performing the requisite ablutions. However, the Torture Twins took things a little further than they were supposed to and everybody in the church knew it. Everybody approved and always winked or gave one another sidelong smiles when mentioning such. Melanie had always thought it was funny. This year things were different. Fake smiling in greeting, her stomach dropped and a lump lodged in her throat. They were going to make her poor Arthur suffer.

  “Well, well, what do we have here?” Brother Hanlon’s eyes glistened brightly. “Two little lambs?”

  Melanie held open the rear passenger door. She kept her voice as even as she could, “His friend decided to come along.”

  Pickett grinned wolfishly at his partner. “We were a little worried Sister Melanie, but hot damn if you didn’t pull through with shining colors.”

  She forced a giggle and then went to the front passenger door. While the Sentinels wrestled Connor’s tiny frame out of the backseat she opened the door and pulled Arthur’s head from his lap and held it close to her chest.

  The twins carried Connor to the warehouse. Before entering, Brother Hanlon gestured for Pickett to hold and then shouted back a few sentiments, “It’s almost over Sister. You must be strong now. This is the hardest part.” He gave her a fatherly smile and then nodded at Pickett. The two disappeared inside with Connor.

  Tears began to stream down her face in salty runnels. She pulled Arthur closer. Melanie had never been in like or love or anything of the sort. There were a few “boyfriends” who gave her notes and shyly looked at their feet when trying to talk to her. There were a legion of crushes, unheard boys who told her friends that they liked her. Their interest made her feel good, but she would never, in a million years, approach one of them. All of her friends had boyfriends since the fourth grade. Melanie never felt comfortable with any of it. Perhaps she was a late bloomer as her mother called her. She was always more interested in makeup and fashion and innocent girly things than she was in boys or holding hands or making out. Attending Blood Orgies probably did something to her psychologically. She didn’t find sex titillating, but gross and icky.

  But then, Arthur.

  The match was forced. Her time was upon her and she had to forge a relationship to make the Blood Sacrifice work. And she never expected it to actually flower. She figured she would fake her way through like she did with so many other rituals, like she would do with her Blood Orgy next year.

  But then, Arthur.

  Everything she was inside thrummed with hurt. It felt as if her heart had been torn asunder and dissolved within her stomach acids.

  Memory danced through her head and pushed the tears harder, wrenched the heart fiercer.

  Their first meeting. She bumped into him and dropped her books. Ever the gentleman, he recovered them for her and handed them over between nervous glances and shaky smiles.

  Hand holding. Her skin warm, soft, his clammy and rough. Somehow they fit and felt right.

  Their first kiss. Melanie expected it to be the grossest thing in the world. She knew she had to do it; they wouldn’t bond if she didn’t. Good thing Arthur had begun to grow on her. She liked his face, his mannerisms, so when he went for it during their seventh lunch date she met him halfway and gave it her all. The very idea of tongues touching and slopping around one another was mucho disgusting. Melanie was pleasantly shocked at the warm tingle that flittered through her body and dislodged logical thought. It wasn’t just about tongues, it was about chemistry, electricity and goddamn it felt good. She couldn’t stop and found her self craving his kisses.

  The Sentinels’ return pulled her from reminiscence. She didn’t want to cry in front of them, but it was too late. She buried her face in Arthur’s hair and held him even tighter.

  I wish I could keep you.

  I wish we could be together.

  I wish you could be mine—my first, not the church, not the orgy.

  I wish you could save me.

  Pickett was ready to push her aside and get a hold of Arthur, but Hanlon held up a hand. “Give her a moment. Whenever you’re ready Sister Melanie.” He motioned at his partner and the two stepped back.

  Melanie gave another tight squeeze and then let Arthur go and wiped her face. She stepped back, two, three, four paces and hugged herself. The Sentinels moved in. Hanlon went low and worked at pulling Arthur’s legs free.

  “Be careful!” Melanie pointed at the bleeding ankle.

  Hanlon nodded and took it slower. Pickett stood by, hand near Arthur’s shoulders, at the ready. Respectful of her wishes, Hanlon carefully moved Arthur’s right leg from the floorboard of the car to the pavement. Pickett heaved and got half of Arthur’s torso out. Hanlon went for the left ankle and began easing it upward when Melan
ie saw something that nearly stopped her heart.

  “He’s one of us!!!!” She pointed at the tiny mark on his inner left thigh. “Omigod! Omigod! Omigod!”

  * * *

  Everything had changed, but the Elders insisted that Melanie continue to follow protocol while they investigated matters.

  There would be a Blood Sacrifice, she would be inducted as a priestess, and as far as she was concerned the ceremony would carry on as planned.

  But it couldn’t and her heart somersaulted madly as it pumped joyful blasts of warmth throughout her system. They couldn’t sacrifice one of their own. It was like one of the cardinal rules. The Elders could meet and confer all they liked, there was no way she would be allowed to kill one of their own.

  Unless the mark wasn’t their mark.

  Unless it was a coincidental birthmark or a scar or something.

  But it looked just like their mark. Just like it.

  Melanie’s heart beat waves of warmth from the top of her head to the tips of her toes.

  * * *

  Diviner Edwin Parks had seen a lot of odd things in his day. Demon impressions, rifts in time and space, ungodly manifestations; he had been born with a gift (or a curse) and since birth had viewed the physical world through a metaphysical filter.

  He’d seen an acolyte with a black aura, which wasn’t even supposed to exist (and technically it didn’t considering the poor soul was killed the very next hour in an automobile accident—fate must have mixed things up and drained the soul’s color too early).

  At a Blood Orgy, fifteen years past, he’d seen a nearly translucent impression of the great Baphomet, his Lord Father’s legendary avatar, the winged, goat-headed beast that symbolized both male and female divinity, suspended in the air above a young priestess moments before it was his turn to fill her with dark light (aka his penis).

  Satan himself, whispered in the man’s ear, a voice Edwin had been following for the past thirty-five years.

  He was the rarest of Diviners, bona fide, genuine, a man that actually saw what he claimed. Each and every sect across the nation, all over the world, depended on a Diviner for guidance, and each sect had a man (or woman) to do the job, but as far as Parks knew he was the only one with a true gift. He’d met most of the others at annual conferences or through e-mail, and it was both disheartening (he was the only one) and flattering (he was the only one) to find that each and every one of them were no more Diviners than snake oil salesmen.

  Every Diviner he had met in person had an undercurrent of lavender brimming about their essence. Their auras waved around them in soothing arcs. They simulated truth and a spiritual link, but possessed no connection. Whereas his aura glowed white-blue with spiritual truth, theirs were imbued with the false power to soothe and deceive. Hucksters, every last one of them. Yet the churches were large, their reach vast, sects on every continent, in every country, in every city, and religious tenement required one Diviner per church. It infuriated Edwin to think that Diviners throughout the world were faking it, possibly leading their congregations to potential ruin, but what could he do? Not everybody could be Edwin Parks. Not everybody was touched by the hand of the Lord Father. So be it. Edwin supposed the Master spoke to whomever he wanted, however he wanted.

  Regardless of his superior ability and his vital responsibility, the late night call still pissed him off and he grumbled to the Lord Father all the way from his study, to his closet, to his car, to the warehouse twenty-seven minutes across town, to the holding cell where they kept the Sacrifice with the supposed “familiar” brand on his inner thigh.

  Yes, he’d seen some odd things in his day, but not a one was so important that he had to rush to the chambers in the middle of the night. Complain as he did, the Lord Father kept silent and those bothersome grumblings gnashed about like rocks in Edwin’s tired brain. The Blood Rites were tough on him. Staying up for a solid week wasn’t as easy as it used to be.

  It took some nerve to call a sixty-eight-year-old Diviner in the middle of the night and ask him to drive across town, Edwin thought as he breached the chamber entrance and descended the narrow stone staircase. He gripped the handrail for balance and mused aloud, “This better be good, for Brother Pickett and Brother Hanlon’s sake, this better be goddamn good.”

  The moment he entered the cell and laid eyes upon Arthur all of the petty frustrations knocking about his skull up and died away.

  Holy shit.

  Diviner Edwin Parks had seen some odd things in his day, none of which could hold a candle to the mess he saw before him.

  The Sacrifice was covered in blood. The poor boy’s throat was ravaged, skin hung in strips, glistening red and black and tender pink. His temples were charred and wet, chunks of meat forming ragged holes. The skin of his forearms hung loose, flayed, peeled apart to reveal the curvature of white bone and a wet work of multi-colored tubing. Upon first glance, Edwin thought the horror show was real. Fright seized his heart and he brought a hand up to his mouth to stifle a rising scream. He took a few steps back.

  The holding cell was tiny, a mere 10’ by 10’ stone enclosure. The steps brought Edwin into the hallway where his breath came easier and fear abated some as realization began to settle. Pickett and Hanlon seemed the least bit disturbed. They stood on each side of the chair that they had propped the unconscious boy upon and were staring at Edwin’s terror like he was the crazy one.

  “Diviner?” Hanlon asked. He gestured to another chair facing the boy.

  Pickett pointed toward the boy’s leg. “The insignia is in the proper place Diviner Parks.”

  It wasn’t real.

  It sure as shit looked real, but the Sentinels only saw an unconscious teenager. They were oblivious to the blood and ghastly wounds. Once it dawned on Edwin he caught his breath and looked closer.

  The boy’s aura shimmered red to purple to indigo and then back. Passion, a deep connection. The Diviner collected himself and stepped back into the room. Wonder replaced horror when he noticed the three dark figures standing, or rather hovering, lifeless, as if dangling from invisible ropes behind the boy. His heart skipped again.

  Ghosts.

  Lost souls.

  They flickered in and out of being like rolling heat, like interrupted light, like a mirage in reverse.

  There were two men and a woman, each with black, black auras, and empty, dark, cavernous eyeholes. The man on the boy’s left held a thick, knotty rope in his left hand. He wore a dirty duster and a cowboy hat pulled so low the brim concealed half of those disconcerting, empty eyes. A toothy smile, as wide as the entire width of his head remained stretched in place, permanent glee etched into his dead face. Just below the impossible grin, the meat of his neck (like the boy’s) was shredded and pulpy.

  The male to his right was a hulking monster of a man—broad shoulders, a stump for a neck, with slicked back dark hair that carved a wicked widow’s peak in to his forehead. His heavy brow was fixed above his black-hole eyes into an enduring scowl and his thick lips were curled into an ever-snarl. Two wounds, an exit and an entrance rimmed with charred, chunky meat, sullied his temples (like the boy’s). He held a black revolver in his bulky, right fist.

  The woman was striking. Her angular, pale face looked sad, a much more enduring quality than the manic grin of the cowboy or the malevolent frown of the mobster. She was in Victorian dress, complete with a ruffled collar that covered her entire neck, clasped with cloth buttons just below her jaw line. Other than the sullen look that painted her mouth in a tight line and dipped her eyebrows above her eye chasms, she looked calm, complacent. There were no evident wounds or twisted facial features. In her right hand she held a gleaming straight razor, its blade drawn and circling in tight, slow arcs. Though the baroque sleeves of her dress covered her wrists entirely, Edwin could see the apex of a gash (just like the boy’s) peeking just above her palms, especially upon the constantly fluctuating right arm. As her closed fist spun the razor in a precise, continual fan, the fabric o
f the lacy sleeve rose and fell, rose and fell, revealing a hint of the mangled flesh beneath.

  Edwin took a deep breath and sat in the chair.

  This wasn’t a novel thing. He had dealt with poltergeists before. Just like the Christian opposition and their overhyped exorcisms, his church had their fair share of purging. The Church of Satan didn’t go making movies or writing books about it, but the possession went both ways and in his time Edwin had performed two exorcisms. Pesky angels. As vile and tenacious as any infernal demon.

  Though these specters didn’t look like angels, nor did they look like demons. And if the brand turned out to be valid, the boy was one of their own which by right protected him from possession by either.

  Edwin raised a hand and gestured at Pickett, “The mark?”

  Pickett nodded and grabbed a hold of the boy’s left leg. He raised his eyebrows at Hanlon, “A little help?” Hanlon steadied the Sacrifice and held his right leg stationary. Pickett swung the left leg out and sure enough, as plain as day and as right as rain, the boy had the mark. He was theirs. Without a doubt.

  Edwin let out an audible sigh. This made things all the more complicated. “Gentlemen, I need to be alone with the Sacrifice.” He crossed his arms across his chest and waited for the Sentinels to comply. “When Elder Collins gets here send him in right away.”

  The Sentinels rested the boy in the chair, bowed in supplication and then hurried out of the chamber.

  Since the boy was theirs, Edwin had marked him. He was sixteen, seventeen years old tops and Edwin had been performing the baptismal ceremony for the better part of thirty years. But their flock was intact. No one…