She saw a girl attacked by many men. She begged Ariene to make them stop. Ariene honored the request by using Anna’s hand to stick a knife into the girl’s lower abdomen at least a dozen times. She made the men suck the blood from the dying girl’s vagina and comment on its taste.
Anna felt herself sucking the cock of a tied man to full erection and then while it was still in her mouth, cutting it off at its base. When the man screamed, she put her mouth over his and pushed his member deeply into it with her tongue. She stood back and delighted in his choking on his own penis while he bled to death on the bed.
Anna tried to block the memories but could not. A girl skinned slowly, another impaled on a long broom until only it’s gore covered bristles could be seen protruding from her body. All the time, Anna could hear herself laughing.
No no no no no no no!
“You’ve come to help me, and now you will.” Ariene now stood next to Anna. She placed a blood stained hand on Anna’s back and forced her on to the bed.
Stacy had watched Anna and Detective Malmann standing and staring at the bed. When she saw Ariene suddenly appear and push Anna, she managed to break free of the corpse’s hands that held her. She ran toward the bed, when she did Anna’s body fell from its chair to the floor.
“Leave her alone!” Stacy screamed.
“Of course,” Ariene was upon Stacy before she could react. Ariene kissed her cheek and ran her hand from her throat to her vagina. When she did, Stacey’s skin opened under her clothing and what had been inside spilled out. A look of absolute disbelief and horror filled Stacey’s face as Ariene hugged her and lowered her onto the carpet to die.
Anna tried to move off the bed, but she was now tied to it . . . and again laughing, enjoying what was happening as Ariene had so long ago. Renee was dancing around the bed, naked and fully erect. He held a bottle of brandy, from which Anna gladly drank.
Anna knew she was bound as tightly as any of the servants or street sluts had been, even though her wrists and ankles were secured with silk, rather than the spiked wire she and Renee preferred for their games.
Renee finished the bottle of brandy and opened another. He shared some with Anna and drank much of the rest.
“Oh, please monsieur, have mercy.” Anna heard herself say in French. It was Ariene’s voice that spoke. She was aware of the intense sensual delight she received from being tied to the same bed where what she called her “playthings” had suffered and died. She undulated with pleasure as they had writhed in pain.
Finding the second bottle empty, Renee threw it across the room, shattering the glass against the wall. He was very drunk. Renee approached the bed. He tripped and fell across Anna’s body.
“You idiot!” Anna screamed in French. “What good are you to me when you are like this?” She felt his now flaccid cock flop against her leg like a dying fish. “Perhaps it will be you tied to the bed next. Untie me now!”
Renee laughed, assuming Ariene’s pleas were simply part of the game. He rolled down her body and fell from the back of the bed.
“Now, Renee! The game is done.”
Renee heard Ariene’s words through the alcoholic fog that embraced him. The words were her command for him to stop and release her. They had done this dozens of times before.
“Of course mi amour. Immediately.”
Renee moved to untie Ariene but tripped. He stumbled backward into a chair.
“Renee!”
Renee tried to rise, but instead fell into a deep, drunken sleep.
Ariene struggled against the silk that bound her to the bed, cursing Renee and calling for help. No one heard her pleas. The heavy tapestries on the walls muffled her demands as much as they had her victim’s cries and screams. Finally exhausted, Ariene lay still in silent fury.
Anna felt the lids close over Ariene’s eyes.
It wasn’t until morning that there was a gentle knocking on the door and Ariene’s personal maid very timidly poked her head into the room. Before that, she had prayed, as she did every morning that the apartment would be empty. The maid had seen many terrible things, horrible things, but had been ordered to be silent and threatened with a tortured death to guarantee she obeyed. This morning, she saw Mademoiselle LaMoreau spread and tied to the bed, and an equally naked Monsieur Desan passed out on the chair.
Ariene looked at her. “Aidez moi,” she begged sweetly. “Aidez-moi.”
Through Ariene’s eyes, Anna saw the woman’s lower lip tremble slightly as she pulled her head back from the room and closed the door. With Ariene’s voice she heard herself scream. “Come back, bitch whore!”
Anna felt the silk, now soaked with Ariene’s sweat, start to cut into her wrists and ankles as she struggled to be free.
* * *
Servants and street people in the area had heard many rumors about the beautiful and very wealthy woman who lived at the Hotel Baronette. Rumors of young women and men lured by money or sex to their deaths.
Ariene’s use of servants for her physical pleasure was well known to all. The truth of the rumors was suspected by many. At least a dozen people had vanished, but anyone who even whispered the name Ariene LaMoreau in connection with these people was either ordered to be silent, declared insane or never seen again.
Only Ariene’s personal maid knew the real truth. While Renee usually had removed the body before she arrived, she had often been forced to assist him in cleaning up pools of blood and pieces of human flesh.
Once she had refused to remove a detached hand that remained tied to a bedpost. Renee, who always stank of alcohol, had whipped her until her clothing had torn away. He had then pushed her face down onto the blood-soaked mattress and brutally sodomized her from behind.
After satisfying his lust, Renee had forced her to untie the hand and carry it from the room between her teeth. She had never disobeyed him or Ariene again. Until now.
Chapter 31
Ariene’s maid was named Joselyn Corbet. She did not shed a tear as she led the others to room 531.
* * *
“Renee, you bastard,” Anna shouted in Ariene’s voice. “Wake up or you will die.”
Renee mumbled something which Ariene couldn’t understand. Still naked on the chair, he rolled onto his side and snored loudly.
* * *
It didn’t take long for word of Joselyn’s discovery to spread through the hotel and onto the street. Almost all of the servants had friends who had disappeared. One man had lost a sister, another—a child.
Joselyn told everyone all she had witnessed. On the way up the winding back stairway, the group of a dozen men stopped at the kitchen. Each selected the longest knife he could find.
* * *
Ariene screamed and vowed revenge.
* * *
When they reached room 531, no one said a word. Joselyn knelt down in the hallway, crossed herself and began to pray. The men pushed open the door and walked quickly into the room. Joselyn watched the door close behind them and heard the lock sliding firmly into place.
* * *
Anna, as Ariene, heard the door open and watched the men walk in. “It is about time,” she shrieked at them. She saw the knives and assumed their purpose. “Cut these scarves,” she ordered. “And then send Joselyn to me.”
The men stood still and silent, as if unsure of what to do.
“I’ll pay you well and fuck you later,” Ariene purred.
One of the men stepped up to where her right hand was tied.
“Hurry,” she snapped. “I will not tolerate any further delay.”
The man moved his knife forward, but instead of cutting Ariene free, he plunged it through her hand, impaling it to the bedpost on which it was tied.
“Diable,” he said as he pushed the knife deeper into the wood. “Devil.”
Ariene screamed. Anna felt the blade piercing her palm, splitting bone and emerging from the other side. Other men used their knives in similar fashion on Ariene’s other hand and both feet. Each ti
me she would scream. Each time one of the men would strike her across her face with his fist. The first blow broke her nose, the second her jaw. The final two shattered teeth and filled her mouth with blood, turning her screams into choked gurgles. Anna felt it all.
“Stop! What are you doing?” Renee tried to rise, but two men pushed him back onto the chair and held him in place to watch.
Anna could feel Ariene’s blood running down her arms and legs. She spat more blood and teeth from her mouth.
“Stop. Stop now. I will give you all what you want many times over,” Ariene’s voice sounded seductive and soft. Anna saw that it had no effect on the men.
One of them climbed onto the bed and knelt between Ariene’s legs. He pulled down his pants and worked his cock until it was hard. “You will suffer as they all suffered.” The man positioned his member at the lips of Ariene’s vagina. Anna felt its head start to penetrate.
“And you will die as the demon dog you are.” Blood sprayed from Ariene’s mouth as she cursed the man.
The man pulled his cock from her vagina and lowered its head. He pushed it deeply into her ass in a single stroke.
Anna screamed as she felt the pain of Ariene’s anus being ripped and torn open. The man fucked her as hard and savagely as he could.
“You will all die!” Ariene shrieked. “Your children’s children will all die!”
Another servant removed his shirt and shoved it into Ariene’s mouth, breaking more teeth and splitting her tongue.
The man inside her pulled from her ass and pushed into her vagina as he finished.
In the chair, Renee cried as each man followed the path laid by the first.
“Now it is time for the devil to die,” a man said as he held a knife up to Ariene’s face. He looked into her emerald eyes and quickly backed away. In them he saw pain, but no fear. He also saw fury, hatred and pure evil.
The man moved to the bottom of the bed, “Diable,” he said again before pushing his knife into Ariene’s vagina until only its handle remained visible. He was handed another and he pushed it into her ass. Blood spread out like a flood between her legs.
“You will destroy our children?” Another man said. “I think not.” He cut a deep slit from the inside of Ariene’s right wrist down to her elbow, while another man chopped at the fingers on her right hand. All of the men took turns stabbing her breasts and stomach.
By the time the men decided to remove and burn Ariene’s head, Anna McAlister was dead.
* * *
Anna lifted her head from the table. The flames from the candle danced in her emerald eyes. “Bonjour Renee,” she smiled.
Detective Malmann bowed. “Bonjour Ariene.”
Epilogue
Before leaving room 531, Detective Malmann shot Phillipe three times, once in the head and twice in the chest. He also ran a knife down Stacey’s slit stomach and across Inspector Cerone’s open throat, making sure it was covered with blood from each before placing it in Phillipe’s hand. It wasn’t difficult for the police to believe his and Anna’s story of how Phillipe had gone mad at the séance. They described how he had brought in a knife and killed Inspector Cerone and Stacy before Detective Malmann had a chance to draw his gun and fire.
* * *
While the Medical Examiner found it almost impossible to comprehend how Tom’s wounds could have been self-inflicted, he also knew that the prisoner had been alone in his cell when he died. Suicide was the only logical explanation, and was therefore listed as the official cause of death. His report was added to the file on Madam Lapautre’s murder and the case was officially declared closed.
* * *
On the recommendation of Detective Malmann and the concurrence of the Paris Police Department, the door to room 531 was bricked shut. Wood was placed over the bricks and plastered and painted to match the rest of the hallway and conceal the fact that the room ever existed at all.
Despite their substantial value, the antique furniture, rugs and tapestries in the room were left untouched, sealed away forever with the rest of the secrets room 531 possessed.
* * *
Anna and Detective Malmann remained in Paris for two additional weeks. By then, the talk of the town had shifted to a new series of grizzly murders. Each victim had been sexually mutilated before being, as the news magazines put it, butchered like cattle. No connection was made between them until many years later when a criminology student, studying the case, discovered the apparently unimportant fact that each victim was a descendant of someone who had at one time been in the employ of the Hotel Baronette.
* * *
The morning of their departure from Paris was cool and clear. Anna and Detective Malmann laughed as they got into a cab in front of the Baronette at 6 a.m. for an 8 o’clock flight to the States. Neither of them cared to look up at the fifth floor, where candlelight could be seen in the fourth window from the left. If they had looked, they would have also seen that the curtains were slightly parted . . . as if someone was watching.
– THE END –
As an author, journalist and international consultant, Jerome Harrison’s work has taken him from the inner sanctums of the United Nations headquarters, to the bloodied jungles of eastern Congo. He’s walked the war-ravaged earth of Afghanistan and the haunted hallways of the hotel in Paris upon which this book is based. Harrison and his wife Natalia currently live in the New York City area.
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