It pained him to think that he had basically sanctioned kidnapping and then forcing a young woman into what amounted to slavery. Is that what it was like for the Crimsonata when she flowed? He had no idea. Even Binici wasn’t entirely sure, but that uncertainty was not going to be enough to make him divert from his course.
“Okay,” said Faure. “What do you need from me?”
CHAPTER 13
Elliot was trying to cheer Audrey up, but it wasn’t working very well. Driving along, he had spied a carnival and stopped. She hadn’t wanted to go, but felt bad telling him no. Instead, she let him drag her into the crowd, her anxiety winding itself tighter. She could feel it racing along her skin, her nerves electric.
Jittery, she tried not to think about all of the people around her. Loud and moving, a mass of humanity shambling about her. Grabbing Elliot, she hauled him over to a stand and made him buy her a lemon shake. She wished it was half filled with vodka. The stand next to it was selling funnel cakes and Elliot bought one of those, too. Audrey slurped on her drink and picked at the powdered sugar topped treat, trying to feel normal.
Some girls around her age, probably a little younger, walked by. She caught her brother checking them out and smiled. All three of them were attractive, clad in shorts and tank tops. She could be one of them, but she wasn’t. She never had been. Too weird, too dark, too distant. Even the people she called friends she knew weren’t really friends by normal standards. Those same people likely considered her just an acquaintance.
She hated feeling this way. Some days were worse than others, sure, but it was always there. The sadness, the fear, the emptiness. The anxiety and depression spinning in a vicious cycle, with paranoia as sprinkles on top. Closing her eyes, Audrey tried to shut everything out, only for a few moments, just to center herself.
“You okay?” asked Elliot.
“I’m fine,” mumbled Audrey.
“We can leave,” his said, concern in his voice.
“I’m fine,” she replied, opening her eyes.
Across the midway, standing beside the ring toss, was the man in the suit.
He was smiling at her.
The breath caught in Audrey’s throat. She grabbed at Elliot’s arm, almost making him drop the funnel cake. People continued waking through the midway, and in those few seconds, he was gone.
“What’s wrong?”
“I thought… nothing.”
Everything jumped out at her now, everything was menacing. She wasn’t even aware of Elliot leading her back through the carnival, back to the car. Too much was happening around her, too much threatened her. Carnies shouted madness while children ran screaming past her. Old people loitered in the middle of the thoroughfare while teenagers made out behind concession stands. A slice of pizza fell to the ground uneaten and balloons slipped away into the sky. Poorly played country music was performed on a rickety stage and trashcans overflowed. A line formed by the port-a-potties and the tilt-a-whirl spun out delighted shrieks.
A little boy ran into Audrey and she screamed.
The boy jumped back, equally scared. His mother ran over, protective and glaring at Audrey. She led the boy away as Audrey clutched onto her brother, unable to move.
“Come on, we’re almost out of here,” he said.
She followed him the rest of the way to the car, trying to ignore the chaos around her. She tried not to think about seeing the man in the suit again and what that could mean. She’d never hallucinated before and it terrified her to go down that line of thought. She remembered enough of her mother, that madness, and had always feared it would come looking for her.
Collapsing in the car, she couldn’t keep the tears at bay any longer. Breaking down in front of Elliot, letting him see her this way, made her cry even harder. He deserved better. He deserved a better sister than she could give him.
Expecting pity or even disgust, she instead found his arms around her, hugging her tight.
“I am so, so sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have brought us here, I shouldn’t be trying so hard. Whatever you need, okay?”
Audrey cried a little longer, her emotions trying to stabilize. After a bit, she pulled herself from her brother’s arms and sniffed. “I’m sorry, I got snot all over your shirt.”
“Have you met me? I get grosser shit than that on me when I eat.”
Audrey let out a little laugh. “And I’m sorry for getting like that.”
“It happens. It’s okay.”
“No, it’s really not.”
Elliot frowned. “Audrey, you’re my sister, and I love you. Get used to it.”
She not tried to start crying again. It was strange to not be alone, strange to know there was someone out there who loved her. Family. She simply wanted to be worthy of that love. She wished she could explain that to Elliot.
It occurred to her that she did love Elliot. She had never really thought about it before. He was a good person, a better person than her. He was her brother, half or not. She would finish this trip for him, no matter what.
“Can we go back to the motel?” she asked.
“Sure, if that’s what you want.”
“I want to rest. No, I want to get drunk. Please? I want to sit in some air conditioning, drink too much cheap booze, and relax with my baby brother.”
“I can ensure that happens,” said Elliot with a smile. “Any choice of cheap booze?”
Audrey turned on the stereo as Elliot pulled the car out of the parking lot. Lana Del Rey played as dust kicked up behind them. She lit up a cigarette and sighed.
“Get a gallon of crap lemonade and a fifth of gas station vodka. We’re drinking ghetto tonight.”
CHAPTER 14
The famed mythologist Joseph Campbell said Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. Professor Binici cared very little about faith, only about the facts buried beneath. The cultures that practiced these ancient beliefs were more interesting to her than the beliefs themselves. She left the stargazing to colleagues like Timothy Faure.
The summer was supposed to be spent working on another book, her first that would make veiled connections to the Crimsonata. After two years, it still didn’t feel anywhere near finished. Binici knew she would be lying to herself if she said that she didn’t hope the Wall found Audrey Darrow for her own personal gain. She had too many questions that a library of books simply couldn’t answer.
So many things nagged at her that she hoped Darrow could answer. How often did she have to perform the ritual and how long did it last? Would the process be visible to outside observers? Did blood truly flow out of her? What was the sensation like? So much could be tied together from all her years of research, speculations finally laid to rest.
Binici took another bite of her sandwich and placed it back on the paper plate sitting on the edge of her desk. Most of the desktop was taken up by books and paper. The sun was setting outside, but she had flipped on the two bright floor lamps an hour ago. Across from her on the wall hung a print of Ophelia by the Water by J.W. Waterhouse, one of her favorite artists. She stared at it while she took another bite of her sandwich, trying to clear her head.
There was so much information out there and it had proven difficult to discern what was relevant and what wasn’t. She was reasonably sure that while The Venus of Willendorf was an ancient symbol of the Scared Feminine, it didn’t tie into the Crimsonata. She wasn’t as sure about all of the supposed Grail Lore, although so much of it was conjecture. How did Mother Mary, or for that matter Mary Magdalene, factor in? From what Binici had deduced, the Crimsonata were exclusively a line of women. Could that have played a role in what was considered the historical Jesus’s remarkable birth? Perhaps it was all unrelated. The word “ritual” came from “rtu,” the Sanskrit word for menses, but that didn’t mean everything was linked.
Binici had found fragments of texts that tied her research to the Roma Gypsies and Greek Oracles, Druid Clans and Persian Scholars. An enti
re African Tribe had been built around their “Bleeding Chieftess” for generations until they were wiped out by a neighboring tribe. There were thousands of notations on wise women, priestesses, witches, and even queens, all of whom were considered magical due to something about their blood. Something about it that was different, that granted abilities.
The books Faure provided had been illuminating. Outside of the most basic historical texts, and their uncertainty, lay the superstitions. Often based on some type of truth, Binici found a host of things to ponder there.
Vampires she dismissed outright but found much of the conflicting stories fascinating. She read about the Egyptian goddess Isis and the Mayan goddess Ixchel, then about Lilith. While none of these specifically recalled Crimsonata lore, Binici could see where things could have been twisted. Aswang, Succubus, Harpy. She found it most interesting that the female Furies of Greek myth were birthed when drops of Titan blood fell upon the earth.
So much of that research took her back to superstitions concerning the menstrual cycle and Binici wanted to stay away from that. Not only had that line of academia already been thoroughly studied, it had very little bearing on the Crimsonata. At least as far as she knew. Everything pointed at the Crimsonata being about lineage, station, and ability. She had a grasp on the first two.
There used to be more than one Crimsonata, probably dozens. Although the world’s population had exploded, the Crimsonata’s numbers had dwindled. A patriarchal world society probably had something to do with that, plus a tightening of religious fundamentals in regions where religion wasn’t just simply dying out. There was no place in the world for them anymore. In the last two centuries, they had likely gone about their practices in secret, ostracized from the rest of their respective societies. Binici also guessed that many died without giving birth to an heir.
The Promethean Wall hadn’t even been aware of the Crimsonata until she brought the matter to them. When she spoke to the gentleman in Washington DC, he hadn’t seemed terribly concerned. Audrey Darrow was the last of her line, not even aware of what she was. That had been years ago. They had agreed to help her seek out what little information they could for her research on the condition that she keep them informed on any changes with Darrow.
Audrey didn’t know that Binici had been watching her for years.
Binici felt for the sad, lost young woman. There had been many times she wanted to break her silence and go to Audrey, to tell her everything. Perhaps that would’ve been for the best. Binici had played that conversation over and over in her head countless times, but it had never ended well. She hated that things were taking such a dark turn now, but part of her felt like they were always destined to go this way.
Her sandwich forgotten, she tried not to think back to that night in San Diego when she had officially joined the Wall. They had taken her to a warehouse and showed her something that had been birthed into this world through unnatural means. It lunged at the bars of its cage, thick mucus flung from its tentacles and splattered on the floor. Squeals, shrills and loud, had echoed throughout the building. The nightmare had a slobbering mouth at the center of its mass, rows and rows of tiny needle teeth. She was made to watch as they killed the horror, setting upon it with a flamethrower. She was made to watch so that she knew exactly what the Wall was up against.
That had been just one, one of many waiting to get in.
It was why Audrey had to flow.
CHAPTER 15
The booze had been procured and drank, and for a short period of time, Audrey felt at ease. Yes, the alcohol had helped, but Elliot was the main contributing factor. They had just lounged around the motel room and hung out, talking and laughing. He had laughingly sprayed a mouthful of chips across the room during her rant about Princess Leia. Audrey felt that as a twin, Leia should be featured as more of a Jedi badass like her brother. In her drunken state, she had made this impassioned argument full of cursing. As both a feminist and a geek, too, Elliot had to laughingly agree.
She let loose with her movie trivia, regaling her brother with countless tidbits of information concerning science fiction and horror movies. They talked over the merit of sequels, the dubious need of reboots, and the how neither of them were purists when it came to book adaptations. Elliot was far more into horror movies than she was, she more into comic books, but they agreed on a ton on stuff. Twilight fans were worse than the books, Ripley was the greatest heroine to ever grace the screen, and the loss of Firefly was a national tragedy.
Elliot had passed out on the bed, face down on the comforter. Fortunately he had taken off his shoes hours back. Audrey was exhausted but worried she wouldn’t be able to sleep. Worse, she worried that her brain would keep spinning while she laid there, dragging her back to dark places. Flipping off the lights, she unfastened her bra and pulled it out from underneath her tank top. She slid off her shorts and climbed into her bed, hoping she could find slumber under the sheets.
Surprisingly, it came quickly.
Unfortunately, things were waiting for her.
Audrey found herself on a hardwood floor, dressed as she had been in bed. Clad only in white underwear and a green ribbed tank top, she climbed to her feet. The room was dark and smelled horribly, like a cross between spoiled meat and burnt motor oil. The air was thick, humid, and there was some type of haze. She could make out a faint light and walked toward it on bare feet.
Another room, and then another. Weak light seeped in from cracks in the doors, promising other exits, but the doors wouldn’t open. In the third room, Audrey stopped. She wasn’t alone in the room. Something stood silent, motionless in the corner. No words would come to her, fear trapping them inside. There was a shuffling, like cloth against cloth. Whoever it was turned and exited through a door that hadn’t been there previously. Compelled, Audrey followed.
This new room was bigger than the others from what she could tell, the ceiling higher, but the haze thicker. The gloom threatened to envelop her, and Audrey began to back up the way she came. The door she had entered by was gone. She slapped her hands on the wall in a futile attempt to make it reemerge. Spinning back around, she found shapes drifting out of the miasma. Five, ten, dozens. They all looked like the mad woman who had attacked her and Elliot at the casino – men and women dressed in white rags, their faces sliced apart, and their fingers ending in claws.
None of them lunged at her or said a thing, as had the other from before. They moved slowly, deliberately. They came at her from the sides and began to encircle her, keeping a wide breadth in the center. They were herding her. Audrey was forced away from the wall and deeper into the room.
To her left, she saw a lattice-work of metal reaching to the ceiling. Men and women hung naked from it, many weeping quietly. They didn’t seem to notice her. A massive block of meat stood in the center of the room, glistening with oils. Behind it in the darkness, even darker shadows still shifted. Whatever they were looked to be immense and inhuman. She thought she caught the reflection of eyes peering down at her.
Nearing the back of the room, the circle began to thin out, leaving room for Audrey to see a stage. On it sat two chairs that appeared to be composed of some tar-like material that had hardened, as if they had exploded out of the ground in that shape and set. Two figures in black robes were seated on them, examining her as she was brought before them.
“So you are the Crimsonata,” spoke one of them.
“The jailer who would deny us our right,” said the other.
Audrey was trapped under their gaze, red embers that burned beneath their hoods. She had no idea what was happening, what they meant. This couldn’t be real, but it felt like more than just a nightmare. She held up her hands, her reason still abandoning her.
“Pitifully human,” one said. “And we thought she would be a threat.”
“Not to the Ovessa. Not to our great glory.”
Together they gestured toward the ceiling and Audrey looked up. For a moment, all she saw was haze, but then it
parted. It parted, and there was something more. Writhing and thrusting, it sat floors above. Hating and lusting, it wasn’t occupying any actual space, but existed between spaces. Ready to come through. A star of flesh, its grey luminosity filtering down to shine throughout the building. A perversity of natural order, the entity exuded sadism and control. It had risen up, so it could reign above.
Audrey saw all this, knew all this, and began to scream.
She screamed so hard she almost threw herself from the bed.
For a split second, she thought she saw the man in the suit standing there in her room. She blinked, and he was gone. Elliot wasn’t though, having been awakened by her scream. He fumbled off his bed, looking around, confused and ready to fight. But the monsters were gone, banished from her head.
Audrey collapsed back onto her bed, sweat soaked through her tank top. Terrified, she tried to piece together what had just happened to her. Something more than a nightmare? Either way, the question that worried her the most – what was happening to her?
CHAPTER 16
Everybody joined the Promethean Wall for different reasons.
Allison Roma had joined because of her sister. Her older sister had been murdered by a serial killer in the late 1990’s, one who was collecting pieces of young girls for a ritual. They had eventually found the killer, dead in his home. Mysterious circumstances. That had never sat right with Roma and she spent her life investigating it. Eventually she stumbled upon the Wall, and through them, the answer. It turned out that the killer had actually completed his ritual, at which point the extra-dimensional creature it summoned had simply drained him of life and went back home. the Wall had confiscated all of the arcane texts.
The Wall was everywhere. While not an officially sanctioned branch of the government, they had members and allies in all levels of all offices. It was believed that while no President had any direct knowledge of the Wall, so that he could claim plausible deniability, all except one in the past fifty years had been quietly supportive. The same could be said of the heads of state in over thirty countries around the world.
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