But the old man did not hear his child’s cry of despair. He remained as unmoving as a corpse. But she was powerless. Dimitri. He seized her once again. She could do nothing about it. The Prince haunted her, even at the bedside of her crucified father, the father she had never been able to love. He pursued her. He devoured her. He was under her skin. Daddy, don’t look at me. Crystal again felt the burning in her body. It’s not my fault, Daddy, I called for help, but no one came to help me. He took me.
Being possessed by Dimitri – she saw it again : him, driving himself into her, skin to skin, forehead to forehead. A wave of heat passed over her again at the memory of their sweat, their panting like wild beasts. Her fingernails digging into the bands of muscles on his back, his teeth biting the soft flesh of her neck. A sigh, a moment suspended in time, and her hand sliding from his back to clench the damp sheets. Crystal arched her back, transfixed by the wave of pleasure, and she fell back, dead, while the Prince collapsed on top of her.
Overwhelmed, body to body, they no longer moved, and she would have liked to remain dead with him forever. But slowly, in the sticky atmosphere of the bedroom, there was a breath of air, and Dimitri’s muscles shivered. Gently, he slid his arms under her. On the pillow, Crystal’s hair spread outward like a halo of silk and light, coming alive. She raised her head and leaned her lips toward him and he took them in a slow, torrid kiss. Firmly, the Prince ran his powerful hands down her delicate arms. He stopped at her fragile wrists and encircled them. She moaned. He looked at her, his green eyes dark abysses burning with flames. A moment of expectation. His hands freed her wrists and caressed her until their fingers interlaced. She arched toward him so that he possessed her once again, in a dance that only the dawn brought to an end.
Dimitri had not stopped ; not after the first time, nor after the second time, nor after those that followed. He had fucked her all afternoon and all night. He had fucked her. No, not that. He had made love to her. He had loved her so powerfully that she had not believed she would ever be able to recover. He had loved her.... Crystal banged her head on the edge of the bed, disgusted with herself.
In his sleep, the All Powerful moaned. Finally, he opened his eyes. The young woman jumped.
“Daddy.”
A smile lit the old man’s exhausted face, and she wanted to throw up all the suffering that she had inflicted upon her father. It was the first time she had called him that. That she recognized his paternity.
“I wanted to come immediately. But Glory stopped me. She was sure that it was too dangerous. But I’m here now. I’m here,” Crystal insisted in order to stress what that meant.
The All Powerful seized her hand and his child surrendered it to him. Finally.
“My darling, my daughter. Don’t be afraid, I understand. And I want you to know that when I am in the night sky you will be my only star. I want you to know that I will always be with you. I want you to know that your father loves you and that he believes in you. But someone is killing me, Crystal. I wanted to be able to protect you for while longer....”
The young woman felt tears roll down her cheeks. She bent over to press her lips against the venerable hand of the All Powerful.
“Don’t say that, Daddy. We’re just getting to know each other. Tell me that you’re going to live. Tell me that you will fight. For me.”
“Yes, I’ll fight, Crystal. But that’s not what’s most important. You have to know the truth. The Damned aren’t what they believe they are. There are secrets... go, go to the library in the Palace. There are answers there... our people....”
The All Powerful gave a long rattle of pain. His eyes rolled back in their sockets. He nodded his head and fell back unconscious on his pillow.
Crystal swallowed her sorrow. She placed a kiss on her father’s forehead.
I will save you.
She had searched for a long time, determined to ignore everything. She did not want to think about Dimitri or Falada or any of her disappointments anymore. She finally had a goal to she could devote herself to in order to avoid falling apart.
After having wandered around the Palace, Crystal took the path through the garden. She followed a lane that crisscrossed through the woods and found what she was looking for in a clearing.
The midday sun struck the forest with clear brilliance, and Crystal’s white dress was almost blinding in the pitiless light.
Glory and Falada were sitting on a park bench. Dollface rested her head on the Paladin’s shoulder and was speaking very softly to him, and he was smiling at her. They seemed so happy in this stolen moment of intimacy together ; so calm and so close. As if having chosen each other gave them a secret world of fulfillment.
Standing behind them, frozen a mere few yards away, Crystal felt oppressed by the images of violence that marked out her own life. Dimitri sexually assaulting her, her father dying. Then she steadied her spirits ; armed herself with courage to forget what life refused to give to her. To remember that although simple happiness might not exist for her, her destiny remained. Her reason for being. Then she walked toward the couple that she hated, that she loved, that she envied and despised with equal intensity.
“I’m not disturbing you, I hope ?”
Falada and Glory turned around. When they became aware that she had surprised them, they caught each other’s eyes, looking for a solution. Their instinctive reaction only increased Crystal’s suffering. She shrugged her shoulders, in the hope of driving out her pain.
“Don’t bother making any grand speeches, I know that you’re lovers.”
The Paladin stood up, visibly embarrassed. Could he possibly be unhappy ? He stared at her with an expression that made her heart melt. In spite of his betrayal, in spite of the evidence, she still wanted to believe him. But not a word could redeem Falada. He knew it and she knew it. In the look that he gave her he told her that. Through his silence she felt as though he was apologizing to her. That he was telling her : I love you even though I belong to another woman. That he was telling her : your sadness makes me sad. I feel your sadness and I wish I could make it go away.
Glory, on the other, had not moved from the bench. She didn’t feel guilty. She watched the silent link that united the Paladin with Crystal, powerless and nervous under the mask of her coldness. The mute dialogue that they exchanged without speaking. And she was jealous, too. Jealous of this pure love between them. A love that took them back to childhood. The part of the dream which refused to come true. The part of paradise that was lost.
“Little flower,” whispered Falada.
“Don’t say anything,” the young woman said forcefully. “Don’t say anything, anything would be too hard to hear. Don’t say anything, it’s already hard enough. Go away, please.”
So he left. In order not to hurt her more. He left without looking back. In order not to hurt them more. He could do nothing else.
Under the exceedingly heavy sun of midday, the two women followed his shape with their eyes until he disappeared.
“I was always charmed by his gentlemanly side,” Glory said, pretending to make her words light. “After having known many powerful Damned men, I realized that Falada was the only man who had class. Did you see how elegant he was when he faded away so we could settle our girl problems ?”
“I didn’t come for girl problems,” Crystal replied, contemplating her friend with unequalled shrewdness. The strength that emanated from the young woman made Glory blanch. For the first time, the Paladine had doubts. Did her protégée have in the depths of her soul the will capable of sweeping everything aside ? Was she a rival about to reveal herself ? Crystal’s hair radiated under the raw sun of midday, and all the power that slept in her appeared to emerge. She leaned her head to the side and Dollface felt cold shivers run down her back. Her student had just tilted her head exactly as Dimitri did.
“I’m not sorry about Falada. I love him. And if we never told you that, it was to protect my career, not to hurt you,” Glory, close to losing it, ju
stified herself. Crystal lowered her head and sat down on the bench. She looked like herself again, which temporarily soothed the Paladine.
“Fine. You aren’t sorry and I can’t forgive you. But I told you, I didn’t come for that. We have other problems. You taught me that there are priorities that eclipse everything. My father is being killed, Glow. I need your help. We have to pull him out of this. You’re the most powerful of the Paladines, you have to do something !”
“I know. Believe me, I’m trying. But there are things that escape me. Black magic is destroying the All Powerful, acting through a poison. A poison so powerful that only a Damned one with great power could have created it. We know all that ; we detected it. But the problem is that we don’t understand how the poison is being administered to your father. And as long as we don’t know the how, we can’t find the remedy.”
“I’m sure it’s Prince Dimitri. He’s using someone to do this. There is a traitor among us,” Crystal said with assurance.
“No, there are many,” Glory admitted frankly. “But we have to find out which one is tough enough to attack the All Powerful directly. To break your father it would take at least... a Paladine. Or a Paladin. I don’t think it’s one of us, so we have to turn to the Paladins. Just so we’re all on the same page, Falada and I are discretely investigating. We can’t do it openly ; you can imagine the scandal.”
The young woman clenched her fists.
“I don’t give a damn. Find them. I’m going to be searching, too.”
The Mediterranean Sea, Island of the All Powerful, Palace Library
An hour later, Crystal entered the library, accompanied by Helen and Miranda.
In the hall, the three women raised their heads. Thousands upon thousands of books stretched in front of them, stacked from floor to ceiling, as far as the eye could see.
“Tell me it’s not a book we’re looking for,” the sorceress said, discouraged, running desperate eyes over the shelves of ancient wood.
Scornfully, the historian tapped the parquet floor with her heel.
“What else would we be looking for, stupid ? There’s nothing here but books and dusty scholars. I know it well, I spent my life here.”
“Now at least we know where the cobwebs in your head come from,” Miranda dared to say, reddening at the feeble joke.
Totally absorbed in her thoughts, Crystal shook her head no.
“My father never talked about a book. Let’s split up, maybe we’ll stumble on something... it doesn’t cost us anything to try.”
Without waiting for a reaction from her friends, she disappeared into the labyrinth of shelves. The wooden floor creaked slightly and the height of the shelves loaded down with ageless volumes gave the atmosphere a mysterious quality. Not a sound apart from Crystal’s footsteps. Not a breath of air apart from the silent respiration of the grimoires.
At the end of the row, she let her fingers drift across the books, arranged by subject. She read a few titles at random. Some were too old, faded practically to invisibility. Some were in unknown languages. Millions of texts that contained the wisdom, history and magic of the Damned. Crystal felt odd. She glided lightly, feeling as if she were floating under the effect of a spell that made her languid and serene.
At a bend in a bookcase, she noticed a small secret staircase. With absolute certainty she knew that she had found what her father wanted her to see. Unable to explain it, she guessed that the staircase had revealed itself only to her. It was so narrow that it seemed to be made for children – in the country of dreams. The strange mist that glittered on each step was like an invitation.
Crystal called the girls.
Miranda and Helen had followed her up the staircase and now all three of them stood in a minuscule square room. On the back wall, a single book, inlaid in the stone, was displayed prominently.
“Wow, you found it in two minutes. Pathetic. When you think that I’ve been studying in this place for years and all you have to do is snap your fingers for the library to reveal its secrets to you,” the offended historian exclaimed.
“A mystical force is helping her, probably the strength of the All Powerfuls. Look at the pupils of her eyes ; you’d think she’d done twenty lines of coke,” the sorceress explained, pointing at the young woman. Then to the latter :
“Crys, put your hand on the book.”
Still feeling as though she were deep in a dream, Crystal walked toward the wall and placed the palm of her hand on the black leather cover of the volume. The wall trembled. Rumbling and murmuring. Welcome to the world of enchantment. To the place where magic slumbers. And it is within me as well. I have felt it more and more powerfully ; I’ve felt it since being possessed by Dimitri. I’ve felt it since my father’s agony began. I feel it growing. Welcome to the country of monsters.
Slowly the book disappeared and the wall cracked. The gray stones moved by themselves, opening onto an arched passageway. Behind Crystal, the two Paladines held their breath.
Without speaking, the three women descended into the cavern that had just opened. They went down into the heart of the earth, to the heart of the island, and arrived at the Palace tombs. Vaults upon vaults, everything white. Gold and marble, the most powerful of the dead Damned appearing asleep in their glass coffins, lined up one after the other.
“I suppose it’s no use telling you that we are profaning a sacred place,” preached Miranda. “Or that we could get lost because the tombs cross practically the whole island !”
“For once, I agree with you,” Helen acquiesced. “Naturally these caverns are fascinating from a historical point of view. Having said that, I suggest we leave,” she added, tense, remembering all too well the episode in the subway tunnels.
“We won’t get lost,” Crystal reassured them in a distant voice. “It’s the next hall on the left, where the All Powerfuls are entombed. Don’t worry, I’m sure.”
The sorceress and the historian looked at each other, stunned. The young woman seemed to be possessed. But she was right. In the cavern of the All Powerfuls, the three women discovered a chest placed between two tombs.
Miranda tried to open it, and failed.
“Great, it’s ‘magic’. It’s going to take me months to get to the bottom of this. How do you want to transport it out of here without being noticed ?”
“I have an idea !” Helen exclaimed abruptly. “Wait for me, I’ll be back in 15 minutes,” she said before leaving at a run.
The sorceress raised her eyes to the sky and ended up seating herself on the ground. She contemplated Crystal, who had returned to her normal state.
“You’ve changed. The way you act in magic classes... what happened ? Tell me.”
“I can’t,” the young woman said sadly. “I would like so much to believe in love, but after everything I’ve seen, I’m afraid. If you knew, you wouldn’t love me anymore. Maybe you would detest me as much as I detest myself at this moment.”
“Are you crazy, or what ?” Miranda chewed her out. “I love you, Crys. I’m not just your Paladine, I’m your friend. You can tell me anything. I will always be there for you. So talk to me. Talk to me, please. I can see very well that something is wrong.”
The young woman took her face between her hands.
“Oh Mimi, if you knew, if you knew, I....”
“Be quiet and check this out !” Helen, who had just appeared out of nowhere, was triumphant. Crystal raised her head and looked at her, lost. Miranda frowned.
Jubilantly, the historian faced the chest and threw an orange powder over it. There was a flash and the chest was reduced to the size of a hand. Helen smiled brilliantly.
“Shrinking ashes,” she explained. “Now we can transport it. I’m going to take it to New York so we can study it. Glory is going to be proud of us.”
The Mediterranean Sea, Island of the All Powerful, Falada’s room
Half naked in her tight latex bodice, Glory picked up the glass of white wine sitting on the bedside table and emptie
d it in one gulp.
“I’m going to sleep in my room,” she spit out, getting up to put on her dressing gown.
Falada caught her by the wrist.
“Don’t touch me if you don’t have a hard-on !” she snapped, frustrated. He had always satisfied her. Always. And now, now... it was all Crystal’s fault.
Glory tried to release herself from her lover’s grip, but he put more pressure on her arm and made her fall into his embrace. He squeezed her against him until she calmed down, clasping her firmly and tenderly. She ended up giving in and let herself go against the Paladin’s so-familiar skin.
“I’m sorry, darling. I’m preoccupied, that’s all. I should have confessed to Crystal the instant I understood that she was falling in love with me. Making her suffer is killing me.”
Glory pulled away from her lover.
“And me ? It doesn’t bother you to make me suffer ? It doesn’t bother you to be incapable of making love to me because you’re thinking about another woman ?”
“It’s not what you think,” Falada contradicted her, running a tired hand through his hair. “I don’t love her the way you imagine. It’s not sexual. I love Crystal the way you love an angel. And you – I love you like a woman. You’re not in competition, but neither one of you seems to understand that !”
Glory burst out in joyless laughter.
“Maybe because we’re a little more perceptive than you. At the end of the game, one of us will win. The question is, who are you going to choose ? The whore or the saint ? You’re a guy through-and-through so it will be the saint. And that’s it ! Crystal wins the heart of the nice, good-looking hero. But surprise, surprise : Bambi might not be all that pure.”
Crystal and the Damned - Possession Page 14
