Wickedly They Dream

by Cathrina Constantine

  Asa’s parchment face sloped to the side, a mere inch from the trembling woman as if seeing her in a new light. “Pleasure. Carnal. Lusting. Pleasure,” he said, “and the funds to have it all. Yes, you’ve struck an excellent argument.” Straightening, Asa stabbed Seeley with a look of revulsion. “The unborn infant has played out its part by bringing Seeley and Jordan to The Order.” He veered to Mariah, saying, “Kill it.”

  “No!” Seeley cried, shrinking into herself.

  As if waiting for her denial, Asa spun around, his diabolic eyes threatening. “Then you choose, Seeley.” Right before them, his ghostly physique transformed. A mottling veneer of reddish-orange stole up his parchment-skinned throat to his despicable fiery eyes. His features warped as he grew angrier by the second. Two knobby horns grew out of his forehead like birthing saplings. “Your firstborn or the unborn.”

  Seeley gazed fearfully at her vulnerable daughter, spread out like a victim above the sacrificial altar. “I choose neither.”

  “You must choose!” He roared in her face. “I shall finally bind Jordan’s spirit to Lucifer and receive my due recompense, and you shall have a baby to nurture in return.”

  “I. Choose. Neither!” Seeley howled a second time.

  “By your own stubbornness, you have chosen,” Asa pronounced. “Both shall die.”

  “What the hell?” Jordan squealed in a brave attempt to save Seeley from his madness. “Is Lucifer giving you grief in perdition?”

  “Shut up, you conniving little shit.” He whooshed about with malevolent intent, now facing Jordan. “How many times does it take to slice you in two? Why don’t you die?” His skeletal fingers clipped her chin, and he lowered to meet her gaze. “Jordan Chase. My obstacle and my catalyst. Where’s your guardian angel now?”

  He released her chin and bashed her on the side of the head. Stars exploded in her eyes before she even registered the pain.

  “Stop!” Seeley barged ahead to protect Jordan with her body.

  “Get away, Mom,” Jordan cautioned.

  Asa’s arm whisked out, catching Seeley in the shoulder and throwing her to the ground. “Mariah or Grogan,” he said. “One of you must perform the consecration. And then get rid of that . . . that thing growing in Seeley.”

  Seeley crawled to her knees, gripped the altar and wobbled to her feet.

  “Asa,” Grogan said, and sashayed to the altar from his vantage point among the cult members. “First cast the vote.”

  “Cast the vote?” parroted Asa, looking like a hot air balloon ready to burst. “Grogan, who commands who?”

  Mariah’s complexion brightened at Asa’s condemnation of the sorcerer. “Asa, I know the ritual.” She practically leapt like an over-fed gazelle to do his bidding. “In fact, I have the dagger in my possession.” Trawling in her black robe, Mariah withdrew a sheathed dagger. Her eyes shone in eager mania as she offered the dagger to Asa like a treasured gift.

  Just as his bony fingers neared the hilt, Mariah snapped it out of his reach, clamping it to her bosom. “Once I perform the ritual and Lucifer binds the warrior’s spirit,” she arbitrated, “I shall claim the designated accolade as the Supreme Leader.”

  The witch was incorrigible. A livid rumble ejected from Asa as his eyes flamed.

  “Without my influence, Jordan would not be present tonight,” Grogan said after perceiving their unholy alliance with calculating interest. “And I will perform the ritual.” With a terse snap of his fingers, the primeval blade bolted from her hands into the air.

  Jordan perceived the dagger flying above her like an oscillating boomerang. Despite the hindrance of her bonds, her psyche fastened onto the dagger. She felt a tug, as if someone else had lassoed the dagger.

  Out of the blue, a shape came winging into view, filching the blade.

  “Everyone has forgotten about me.”

  Flaunting a gawky mischievous smirk, Camille twirled the weapon between her fingers like a baton.

  VENGEFUL DEMON

  INITIALLY STUNNED, ASA’S exploded into laughter. “My dear Ronan, so nice of you to drop in.”

  “I changed my name to Camille.”

  “And where have you been hiding, Camille?”

  “Hiding is the right word,” Camille said. “Since your death, The Order’s been messed up. Kicked me to the curb. And look at this face.” Her trampled face begged for pity. Seemingly not afraid, she paraded within proximity of the beast.

  “Oh, that just won’t do. Once such a stunning girl,” Asa stated with pride and caressed a fingertip over Camille’s pockmarked cheek. “Surely an inventive sorcerer could perform magic on your behalf?”

  “Grogan and Mariah are equally skilled, though neither provides your quality of charming expertise.” Schooling her facade, she appeared to be an adoring prodigy. “I trust my face only to the grand sorcerer, Asa Trebane.”

  His eyes beaming at the girl, he said, “Hah. I believe Lucifer has found a new successor. And a child shall lead them.” He looked pleased. “Isn’t that how it goes?”

  “Why you double-crossing little witch,” interjected Mariah, stacking her palms on her ample hips. “We need to put it to a vote.”

  Asa rubbed his hands together. “The Black Order of the Cult never was and never will be a democratic governing faction.” He strode between Mariah and Camille, bringing the debate to an end.

  “But…but, it’s the code.” Mariah’s eyes flit from Asa to Grogan, curls joggling on her head. “We must follow protocol.”

  Asa flicked his head backward, his chortle festering like a meddlesome parasite. Jordan shivered.

  Camille nimbly removed the sheath from the dagger. Outwardly transfixed by the forged blade, she said, “Nice engraving. A satanic pentagram and the numerals six-six-six.” Chasing her fingers along the edge, she manufactured a fiery blaze, turning the blade red.

  “Come, my sweet,” Grogan coaxed, not giving up. “I will teach you everything I know. We will be sovereign rulers. Together, we will reap souls for our master. He will reward us with gratification beyond our imagination.”

  He orbited his hand over the girl’s face, and miraculously, Camille’s scars vanished. Her striking beauty radiated for all to see.

  “Not bad, Grogan,” Asa said, judging the girl with an austere eye. “I couldn’t have done better myself.” He steepled his fingers and tapped them on his lips. “Sovereign rulers, eh? A conjoining of powers will be an interesting delight. A plan I once had incorporated.” He glowered in Seeley’s direction as he drew back beneath the inverted crucifix. “Hell will prevail.”

  “I will not be shoved into anonymity.” Mariah growled. She raised her hands, her fingers flexed like wiggly spider legs. “You asshat, Grogan. Take that!”

  Jordan felt the searing hex fly over her body.

  Grogan ducked. A petrifying screech erupted as a nearby cult member went up like a flaming torch.

  Instead of helping the smoldering person, demons and humans watched the grisly sight with satisfaction.

  Fidgeting with her leather trusses, Jordan estimated that the bewitching hour had arrived. She searched for something, anything, to create a diversion. Her gaze halted on the sphere of blue lightning and the agonized angel within.

  I need to find a way to rupture his prison.

  A passing shape clouded Jordan’s sight. A garbled grunt dragged her eyes from the lightning sphere and turned her head toward the inverted crucifix.

  Grogan had snatched the forgotten sword that Mariah had balanced on the side of the altar, and wielding it akin to a swashbuckler, gutted Mariah in one stroke.

  Mariah’s eyes bulged in shock. She looked down at her hands clutching the hilt and gagged. Blood vomited from her mouth, spilling down her chin and staining the black robe. Her bloodied fingers groped the air as her eyes glazed over and death wheezed through her gaping lips. Mariah dropped like a felled tree.

  “That silenced the witch,” Asa quipped. The iniquity swelled through his domain like an impen
etrable shield. “Shall we begin the consecration?”

  Seeley lunged, screaming, “Jordan!” Lifting her magically bound arms, she tried to protect her.

  With a snap of his fingers, Grogan had cast a spell over Seeley. Her body became like a solid frozen sheet. Winding an arm around her waist, he lugged her to the ground. Muffled screams shrilled behind her locked jaw.

  As the chanting commenced, Jordan felt the implacable sin drilling into the marrow of her bones. Agonizing, she couldn’t restrain her juddering body or mind. It was essential to contemplate, but again, it seemed hopeless, someone or something was holding her telekinesis at bay. She veered her head to Camille bellying up to the altar. Camille’s eyes mirrored the lightning sphere, a blistering blue, and were riveted on Ezekiel.

  When will this hellish nightmare end? Tonight. It will end tonight, with my death.

  Jordan was afraid for her mom, afraid for the unborn baby—a sister or brother. Drawing in a quaking breath, she tried to stop the tremors. She wasn’t ready to lay down her life, least of all for Lucifer.

  It was then, she noticed Camille wink. What does that mean? Did she have a speck of dust in her eye? Did she wink to say, ‘See you in hell’?

  Camille and Grogan had mutually stacked their palms over the hilt of the dagger. Connected as the new Sovereign Rulers, they moved the dagger toward Jordan’s heart and chanted the cursed spell in unison to bind her spirit to Lucifer. The hypnotic chant spiraled, sending Jordan’s head into a tailspin.

  Was it an illusion or had Lucifer joined the party?

  A steamy mirage of Lucifer was gyrating not more than a few feet above. Jordan gaped at the aerial spirit. Her teeth chattered, but the rest of her body felt as if rigor mortis had set in.

  She was drawn to Lucifer’s eyes, smoldering embers drilling into hers. How uncanny to undergo his irreligious scrutiny. He flashed a sadistic grin.

  Jordan was powerless.

  His mushrooming wings spread over her, lubricated feathers dripping with tar and oil. She was caught like a mewling kitten in a cage.

  LIKE ANY MORTAL

  YOU SHALL DIE

  “GO BACK TO Hell. I will never willingly submit!” Jordan salvaged a vestige of courage. “I work for God. For God alone will I fight!”

  Lucifer’s features kinked, her deity’s name inducing a shudder. “Do-o-o i-i-it. I am ready,” he grated. His filmy image consolidated into a human-like body, presumably for the barbaric predilection of the cult members.

  Since proclaiming her loyalty to God, she felt fortified. Her fear and struggle frittered away like dust in the wind. God’s will be done.

  She stared at the dagger, resigned. The tip of the blade trembled. Grogan and Camille’s knuckles seemed to be turning pasty white. They seemed to be engaged in a game of hand wrestling. A strangled protest passed Grogan’s lips, and a pinkish bloat pawned on his face.

  An impaling voice thundered, “Never put God to the test!”

  Jordan yanked her head to the side to witness her glorious Markus. His resplendence saturated the darkness. She’d never been so overjoyed to see her formidable angel. His burgeoning wingspan of intricate colors awed the proximate demons. It appeared that she’d tampered with the satanic symbols enough for him to gain access, and wondered if her telekinesis would now properly function.

  Prior to putting it to the test, the noisy chanting subsided until Jordan could’ve heard a pin drop. Then, like worms, cult members shrank into the corners.

  Lucifer’s face magnified out of proportion, his head swinging in Markus’s direction. “You. Cannot. Enter!” He flew from the altar. “You are a fool, Markiel. How dare you come into my domain uninvited?”

  “I could’ve sworn I got the invitation in the mail.”

  Markus sounded glib, though Jordan knew that, due to the depravity, his inner spirit was sweltering.

  “You cannot win today’s battle.” Lucifer pointed at the lightning sphere. “Your brother, Ezekiel, is of no help whatsoever. He will watch you die.”

  “I am not easily threatened.”

  Markus obviously understood the consequences. The odds of surviving with his wings intact were grim, if not downright dismal. Even now, Jordan assumed, Lucifer was in the process of summoning the league of destruction.

  “This compulsive-obsessive disorder you have over Jordan is getting kind of neurotic. Don’t you think?” Markus said, inciting Lucifer.

  As one of God’s heavenly angels, imbued with sanctifying grace, Markus’s countenance bloomed in majesty, accruing strength and height. His flesh glowed with a brilliant luster, and his golden hair streamed over his shoulders. His sapphire eyes scanned the hedonistic church with superiority.

  The sulfur-entrenched room felt like a tinderbox, making it hard to breathe. Jordan coughed and her eyes watered. Then his last words to her buzzed through her head,

  ‘Doomed angels living in perdition receive pleasure in smiting virtuous seraphs. That is what awaits us in that hell house.’

  The building pulsated and Jordan’s chest was seized by fits of rage. She longed for some way to help him.

  Lucifer levitated in the condensed atmosphere like a menacing wasp. Jordan half expected him to morph into the fiery horned devil she’d witnessed once before. Instead, Lucifer raised his arms, palms up and fingers tensed as if it was the highpoint of a symphony’s crescendo.

  She bottled up a tirade of screams as she beheld the emergence of grotesque beings. Emerging from the brink of perdition, they lay siege around Markus. Deplorable creatures in soot-coated armor brandished weapons, corralling her angel as the guardians of hell. None looked as potent as Markus, though they far outnumbered him. The heckling creatures delayed their war, undoubtedly waiting for Lucifer’s signal.

  Markus extended an arm toward the heavens. A crystalline sword materialized in his hand, a glittering serrated icicle. Then in his left hand, a whip of gold electrum unfurled.

  “Bring me Markiel,” Lucifer ordered. His deep-gutted snicker reverberated as he savored the annihilation of God’s angel.

  Like hundreds of relentless cockroaches, hell’s angels attacked. Markus lashed the whip, splitting them in half. And twirling swiftly, the crystalline blade spliced dozens more. In a span of seconds, a maelstrom of coiling dark and light ensued. A fight to the death had arisen.

  “No-o-o!” Jordan sobbed. She endeavored to tug free, thrashing wildly over the altar and practically dislocating her ankles and wrists, ripping her skin raw. Odious squealing drew her eyes to the tumultuous melee.

  Markus hurled creatures at the blue sphere where they were sucked in and sizzled like moths to a flame. The ashy black beings multiplied tenfold, hacking at Markus’s wings, struggling desperately to get him to his knees. Blackness engulfed him on all sides, obscuring his radiance.

  Hoping she’d regained her abilities, Jordan harvested inner strength to throw a wrench into the battle. She searched for a soulless creature, one with severe decay. Locating the perfect specimen, she activated her telekinesis. Lassoing the demon from head to toe, she lobbed him into the mix, striking at least a dozen creatures and causing them to stall in confusion, looking for the culprit. Yes! It worked, but the internal drain sank her to the altar.

  A darting movement snared her eye.

  Camille had hip-checked Grogan to the side, tearing the dagger from his grip. Taking aim, she chucked the dagger at Ezekiel’s sphere.

  A detonation of catastrophic proportions shattered the church’s foundation, fracturing the roof into a gajillion airborne pieces.

  The devastating boom bruised Jordan’s eardrums. Recoiling from the raining timber, she closed her eyes, protecting what little she could from the blast. Suddenly, she felt a sheltering body on top of her, protecting her from the fatal remnants of glass and wood crashing down. She knew it was Markus, and immediately thought of her mother.

  “Mom,” she breathed.

  “She’s protected,” he assured her.

  An aftershock ri
pped through the eastern wall. Swaying dangerously, it collapsed, burying demons and cult members alike. To Jordan, it sounded like the end of the world. Screams, cries for help, and moaning rebounded in the particle-filled air. The falling night descended into the bowels of what remained of the building.

  Markus propped himself on his elbows over Jordan and stared into her eyes. The wounds on his handsome face appalled her.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “My leg hurts.”

  He climbed to his knees, straddling her hips, and swiveled at the waist to inspect her legs. A wooden stake had lodged in her calf. Markus dismounted from the altar and snapped the leather straps, setting her free.

  Dizzy from sitting upright, Jordan frowned at the stabbing piece of wood. She remained still while searching for her mom in the pile of rubble.

  “This is going to sting,” Markus said, eyeing the stake. “Stop squirming.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  Jordan flinched as he fingered the splintered wood and yanked it from her leg.

  “Owww!” She leaned and gripped her knee. Her jeans turned a dark red as blood soaked into the denim. “That hurt.”

  “Stop being such a baby.” He laid a healing palm over her wound.

  It felt like a soothing drink of hot chocolate that trickled to her stomach, only it was branching up her leg. As the throb subsided, she dredged up a thankful grin.

  He lifted her from the altar and deposited her safely on her shaky legs. Glancing around, he appraised the damage. “Ezekiel?”

  “Over here.”

  When Markus turned toward Ezekiel’s voice, Jordan was thunderstruck at the wood and glass shards sticking out of his back. “Markus, you’re bleeding.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Let me help you.”

  He walked to where he’d heard Ezekiel’s voice. “Leave it.”

  “But it looks really bad.” Jordan stumbled over a wooden beam, hobbling after him. “Markus, please.”

  “We need to help your mom first.”