The Paladin's Message

by Richard Crofton

  “This will be our last session together,” she told him. “Don’t worry. After today you will be ready. You will be free of all worries.” She continued to speak to him, but instead of breaking him down, she gave him words of encouragement, convincing him that he was strong and able to do, “…anything I tell you. You are mine, George. You are a part of me now.”

  “I am yours. I am a part of you now,” George answered in a dreamy voice.

  “When we’ve finished here, you will go back to work as usual. You will go home at the end of the day, and you will be as you’ve always been. You will be the George Summers that everyone knows. But soon I will call on you, and when I do, you will do as I say. You will no longer be George Summers. You will no longer be anyone… or anything… but a part of me.”

  “I will no longer be anyone… or anything… but a part of you,” George repeated.

  “By the power of the dark lord, I seal your fate to me.” Then she pressed her lips to his; her own signature method of binding, as if by demonic contract, the remaining life force of the man she would now control to do her bidding.

  When she released him, Diana counted backwards from ten, and George’s eyes opened. “Well,” she had commented with a business-like tone, “that just about does it. We’ve made a lot of progress today, George. If you would be so kind as to leave your payment at the front desk on your way out, we’ll be all finished here.” George had said nothing, only nodded and left quietly like a harmless ghost.

  “I’m impressed,” Sonny said after office hours had ended, and he and Diana were driving along the highway. The May weather had been fair that early evening, and Diana put the Mercedes’s top down to sport its convertible option.

  “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” Diana giggled, imitating a southern drawl. “After we get a bit of dinner, I’ll take you to your special treat I promised you.”

  Sonny smiled with perfect teeth, but the smile was terrible all the same. “One thing I’m curious about,” he noted, “is why you ask your clients whether they truly want to fix their problems…”

  Diana waved her hand. “It’s how I select who my targets are. The ones who don’t want to better themselves are not as strong in their hearts as those who do.”

  “Are you unable to manipulate the stronger ones?”

  She hesitated for a moment. “Weak minds are easier,” she finally answered. “The stronger ones… I can bend them to my will partially… temporarily. Usually I can make them forget something that happened, or remember something that didn’t happen. And I can even make suggestions that will alter their choices or behavior. It’s how I help the ones that want the help.”

  “But why do you even help them?” Sonny interrupted.

  Diana laughed. “Referrals, baby. Anyway, the weak clients; it takes time, but after so many sessions, eventually I reprogram them altogether. The others, I suppose I could do the same, but it would require much more time and energy… too much for me to even bother. And there’s the possibility that I wouldn’t even get a complete hold of them. It’s an invariable that’s not worth risking all that time I’d have to spend on them. People like George however; I have complete control of them… permanent control.”

  “And what do you do with them?”

  “Whatever I want,” she grinned. “They no longer have any connection with their previous life. They don’t even know who they are, or were. All they know and desire is to serve me. Ordinarily, they stay in a simple facility that I own. They remain there and keep the place clean, and they do daily workout routines to get into shape. I usually use them when needed, to carry out orders needed for us to complete our goals. Many times, they’re used to help in abductions or to stand guard during our rituals. Other than that, they stay at my facility and just eat, shit, and sleep.”

  “How many of these… whatever you call them, do you have?”

  “Several. Not an entire army or anything like that; the more mouths to feed, the costlier. I just keep enough to do what’s needed.” She paused for a moment. “and I call them my Erased.”

  “Erased?” Sonny raised an eyebrow, glancing at her quickly while driving the Mercedes more slowly than he would have liked, but he was enthralled in learning about what Diana’s practice really entailed.

  “That’s very well what they are: erased minds, erased lives, erased souls.”

  Sonny didn’t say anything. He was too occupied with taking in everything Diana was saying. And the thought that he would one day be able to do the same… erase minds, then control them. Such power.

  “What I can do, Sonny,” she went on, “took years of training; years of absorbing the life force of countless sacrifices. And since we’ve started the Cycle, it’s become even easier for me to control people. When we’ve finished, when we’ve completed a Dark Year, then I’m sure I’ll be able to control anyone, no matter how strong willed they may be.

  “That’s why I want you to be patient. Because as much as you’ve learned, there’s so much more, more than you can even imagine. But you’ve got to understand that it will take a long time.”

  “How long?” Sonny asked immediately.

  “It depends on the person, dear. Some agents showed such higher-level abilities after five or six years. Some can take as much as twenty.”

  “How long did it take you?”

  She smiled darkly. “Three years,” she boasted.

  Sonny nodded. “Quick learner,” he noted.

  Diana leaned in close to his right ear. “And I’m a good teacher too. That’s why you’ll want to stick with me, and one day you’ll be able to do what I do… possibly even more.”

  Sonny’s smile widened. “Seems very convincing.”

  She laughed beautifully. “Just wait, baby. After tonight, you’ll be more than convinced.”

  After a nice meal at a local Japanese steakhouse, when darkness had fallen over Lancaster County, Diana directed Sonny to drive them to their destination: a quiet neighborhood on the upscale side of town. They arrived at a well-kept, two-story single home with a circular, brick driveway. The two agents exited the Mercedes, and casually walked up the cobble stone walkway to a white painted front door. Diana rang the bell.

  A teenager answered. She was wearing pink, athletic shorts and a white tee shirt that read Attitude in bright, yellow lettering across the chest. “Can I help you?” she said with a cute smile.

  “Hi there,” Diana answered in the most disarming voice Sonny had ever heard from her lips. “Is your father home?”

  “Sure,” the girl said plainly. “One sec.” She shut the door, and Sonny heard her call out “Daddy!” in a pleasant voice.

  A few minutes later, the door reopened, and George was standing before them. “Dr. Palmer?” he stuttered.

  “Hello George,” Diana said in a low, seductive tone. She leaned close to him; “It’s time, dear. Time to do as you’re told.” Very slowly, she pulled from her leather handbag a black, shiny pistol with an attached silencer, handed it to George, whose eyes began to fade to a blank stare, and she whispered something inaudible in his ear.

  George took the pistol, gripped it tightly in his left hand, and turned around, walking back across the threshold and into his house. Sonny and Diana followed him as he turned the corner of the well decorated foyer and hallway into a nicely furnished dining room, where the teenager and an older woman were sitting at a dark, wooden table and enjoying their dinner. “Who was that, dear?” the woman asked without looking up from her plate.

  Sonny watched George approach the woman, whom he determined to be the man’s wife, and quickly shoot her point blank in the face. Blood sprayed in all directions as Mrs. Summers fell backward in her chair.

  The surprise and shock that overcame his teenaged daughter at the unexpected suddenness of what just occurred kept her from reacting in any manner that could have caused her to attempt an escape. She only jumped up out of her chair, knocking it over onto the tile floor. Blood from her mother’s face had pro
jected onto her shirt, partially covering the Attitude. For a mere second she stood, stunned with disbelief, eyes as wide as the dinner plates on the table.

  Before she could scream, Sonny rushed to her and held her tightly, covering her pretty mouth. “Hold her still baby,” Diana instructed as she approached. Then she gripped the girl by the face and forced her eyes to look into her own. She began speaking in a strange tongue that Sonny had only seldom heard, but didn’t understand. Whatever Diana said, it sedated her captive as if she had been drugged.

  Within moments, George Summer’s daughter went limp. Sonny let her go, smiling as he watched her fall to the floor. Her eyes were still wide open, and her voice was letting out long, quiet grunts. Diana’s bizarre spell did not render her unconscious; it only left her paralyzed. But completely aware of everything.

  “George dear,” Diana said sweetly, “would you be so kind as to drag your daughter… what’s her name?”

  “Darlene,” George answered in a monotone voice.

  “Would you drag Darlene to the living room, where you’ll have more space?”

  The zombified man placed the pistol on the dining room table, grabbed Darlene by the arms, and drug her body along the floor, pulling her over the blood-faced corpse of his wife, until they were farther into the house, in the beige carpeted living room. Sonny followed while Diana detoured to the nearby kitchen before she met back with him. She had retrieved a thin, razor-sharp, filet knife from a drawer.

  With a smile more gruesome than the most sadistic clown in any child’s nightmare, Diana handed George the knife. “Now take her pretty clothes off her, and cut her pretty skin… everywhere. Not too deep now, darling; just dozens of shallow little slices. And I want you to take your time.”

  George did not hesitate, but his motions were methodical and slow. As he slid the blade of the knife perpendicularly along his daughter’s bare legs, she shrieked and screamed through clenched teeth. Her eyes were streaming tears down the sides of her face as she gazed up at the ceiling above. She could not move a muscle, but could feel everything that her entranced father was doing.

  Sonny had paced around to the head of the girl. He was curious to look at the expression on George’s face as he was torturing his own flesh and blood. He was amused by the man’s expressionless eyes. There was no pain, no guilt or horror from what he was doing. Nothing but a blank stare, as if he were deeply lost in thought while carving a Thanksgiving turkey. After he had made many slices across both of his daughter’s arms, he began to trail the knife’s blade horizontally along her belly, from the bottom, making his way upward.

  The girl was crying and screaming in the most agonizing way even Sonny could imagine, and he felt himself quivering with ecstasy. “You may want to cover her mouth, George,” Diana suggested to her newly Erased. “You don’t want me to get a headache now, do you?”

  “No,” George answered plainly as he pressed his free hand forcibly upon Darlene’s mouth. He continued his work, making vertical slits up and down her supple, blooming breasts. Her screams, though now muffled under her father’s large hand, grew in agony. Sonny felt his manhood growing inside the crotch of his khakis; if he observed much more of this, he was sure he would start salivating.

  Diana must have noticed Sonny’s arousal from the scene, because she walked gracefully to where he stood, turned to watch the scene as well, and backed herself closely against him. As George began to slowly cut into Darlene’s tear-streaked cheeks, Diana started moving her rear end in circles against Sonny’s genitals. He was breathing heavily, and without even realizing he was doing so, he slid his hand inside her blouse and started to roughly massage her left breast, his fingers pinching and twisting her hardened nipple. Diana returned the favor by reaching back and sliding her hand into his pants, then she began pulling on his hardened penis.

  Finally, Darlene was bleeding from head to toe. Countless slits upon the surface of her skin oozed the crimson liquid down the sides of her body and onto the carpet beneath her. “Oh that’s lovely,” Diana commented through her heavy breathing. She was passionately heated, both from what Sonny was doing to her, and from the gruesome scene before her. “You deserve a little reward, George. Let’s see… you enjoy cheating on your wife, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” George answered with no emotion whatsoever. He was kneeling in front of Darlene, just staring straight at the wall in front of him.

  “And truly, in your heart, you don’t want to stop cheating, do you George?”

  “No,” he answered.

  “Then go ahead. Cheat on your dead wife. Darlene’s in pain, dear. Make her feel better.”

  To Sonny’s delighted surprise, George unbuckled his pants, stripped them down, then set himself upon his only daughter. His own shirt and bare legs instantly became stained and smeared with her blood as he pressed his body against hers, raping her through her terrible, muffled screams. Diana pulled her hand from Sonny’s pants, pulled down her own skirt, and began to grind her naked bottom against him harder. He instantly pulled his hand from her blouse to unbuckle his belt…

  “Harder,” Diana moaned. “Make her feel how strong you are…” George immediately began to use more force, ramming himself into Darlene. Sonny instantaneously increased the power of his thrusts, pressing his manhood deeper into Diana. “That’s it,” she all but screamed with pleasure from Sonny’s massive rod inside her, “pound her! Pound the shit out of her, George!”

  The two couples were engaged, full-speed, in violent, hard-core sex. Sonny and Diana, never took their eyes from George and Darlene, father and daughter. Their attraction to the sickening, twisted activity was fueling their own lust and delight. They were two goblins, completely mesmerized by the perverse fire in front of them. Both pairs of their eyes were beaming with gluttonous ecstasy. Darlene’s eyes were filled with disgust and terror as her pulse weakened. George’s showed nothing as his pace quickened. He neither enjoyed nor loathed what he was doing to his daughter. He didn’t even know who she was, or who he was for that matter.

  Within minutes, Diana screamed through her orgasm. Sonny pulled himself from her, and laughed maniacally as he ejaculated his semen upon the bloodied, incestuous couple below. “Oops,” he continued laughing, completely amused by his own impish behavior.

  “Oooh, you bad boy,” Diana giggled teasingly. George had also finished his unwilled sexual assault upon Darlene. His face remained unchanged throughout the entire ordeal. He lifted himself from his daughter and remained on his knees in front of her. He was entirely drenched, not only by his own sweat, but by her blood as well. The girl had stopped screaming, but she was breathing rapidly and heavily. Her naked body, the parts of it that were not crimson stained, had become deathly pale.

  Diana pulled up her skirt and fixed her blouse as Sonny also dressed himself fully. Aside from the abused girl’s waning breaths, the atmosphere of the room had become strangely still and silent, quite contradictory to the intensity that had filled the air just minutes before. Sonny quietly knelt beside George, and peered into his face, inspecting him intriguingly. “That’s right,” Diana said with a she-devil’s smile upon her lips. “Look at him. As I told you, he’s completely dead inside. From now on, he will do nothing unless I instruct him to. He’s completely mine to control however I wish.”

  She knelt beside Sonny, placing her hands on his shoulders as she began to whisper in his ear: “This is just a small example of what you’ll be able to do. It may take a few years, it may take ten years, but you will have this power… if you let me help you.”

  Sonny’s lips widened to a smile that matched her own in its lustful evil, as he stared at the blank face on the man who was once George Summers. He imagined this man being under his control. The things he would make people do, once he would learn this power, would be far more sickening than what he’d just witnessed. He almost chuckled to himself as he pictured the future, when he and Diana would, on their spare time, compete with each other in a sadistic game of Who
Can Make His or Her ‘Erased’ Perform the Most Indecent Action?

  “So,” Diana concluded still whispering in his ear, “was my little demonstration here tonight convincing enough?”

  Without taking his eyes from the shell of a man, who was remained motionless as he knelt over his dying offspring, Sonny responded, “I’m looking forward to our partnership, Dr. Palmer.”

  “Likewise, Mr. Williams,” she said as she quickly licked his ear. “Now I think it’s time to call it a night.” She rose from her place near the brutal scene before her, taking Sonny’s hand to get up as well.”

  “Are we taking him with us?” Sonny asked, motioning to George.

  “No need,” she responded simply. “I have enough Erased to do my bidding.”

  She turned to her client after adjusting her hair in a nearby mirror on the wall. “Oh George, thank you for an entertaining evening. We must be going now. Would you do us a favor and slit Darlene’s throat once we’ve gone? Then your own, please.”

  “Yes, Dr. Palmer,” George responded in a monotone voice.

  After Diana retrieved the pistol from the dining room table, where Mrs. Summers’s fresh corpse still lay, the sinister couple strolled from the house, toward the Mercedes, as casually as they had arrived.

  ****

  Sonny began to quicken his pace down the road. The recollection of what had transpired with Diana the previous week had gotten him all worked up, and he felt himself becoming aroused again. It would be a little awkward to arrive at his destination with a bulge in his crotch, so in his mind he decided to go over the details of how Diana was able to hypnotize her clients.

  She had said it would take time, and he understood. Still, he thought now was as good of a time as any to begin practicing. Though he was not yet allowed to participate in the Agency’s formal rituals, though he was not yet experienced enough to even observe, he knew the basics. Like certain elite agents tied to their cult, he was permitted to learn the details of how to conduct a ritual of sacrifice. Privately, he had used the script given to him to perform them on countless animals and several homeless drug addicts who were so far gone, no one would have come looking for them. He even, against the warnings of his more cautious brethren, superiors like Senior Arnett, currently referred to as Father Paul Cunningham, abducted and murdered a couple of runaways who had not yet reached puberty, in the name of the dark lord. Of course, he had to inject his victims with a syringe filled with a potent sedative, but he longed for the day when he would be able to perform such an act with his voice alone, like Diana or Senior Arnett could do, once he would achieve such a level and learn the dark language.