* * *
Rory watched as its female half was pulled away. Eager to follow, it took a couple steps forward, but then retreated. Rory knew that devouring its female half would destroy it. If it was destroyed, it would no longer get to taste other life forces.
But hers would be worth it, it thought. It was about to follow but then heard the man in the blue robe yelling for someone to stop them. If she was captured again, all would be lost to both of them. It couldn’t let that happen, couldn’t allow itself to go on in this place.
It had been locked up in the manor too long, had become weak, but its female half’s breath had energized it, giving it the strength to escape these people. There was an opening behind the High Priestess. She was so transfixed in her chanting, in watching the blue orb, that she didn’t see it as it slipped deeper into the caves through the opening at her back.
In darkness, it traveled on, trying to find a way out so that it could transfer itself to a healthier, fresher body and continue doing what it came to the living world to do.
* * *
Through tears and fear, Libitina had enough sense to grab a candlestick from one of the sconces drilled into the cave walls. Transparent figures flew past them, disappearing into the shadows. This can’t happen, Libitina thought as she pulled Camilla along through the flickering darkness.
Her foot caught a rock and she fell, scraping her elbow and her knee. Blood ran down her arm and shin. She hardly noticed the pain, so focused was she on getting Camilla and herself out of the caverns. The door waited ahead. She could feel it.
The fork in the passage caught her off guard, however. She didn’t remember seeing it on the way in. Which one to take? She bounced on her toes looking back and forth between the two passages.
“What do you think?” she asked Camilla.
Camilla looked back over her shoulder, a terrible grin spreading over her face. Even though she almost couldn’t stomach looking at Camilla anymore, a sense of duty forced her. She couldn’t let anything bad happen to Camilla. She just couldn’t.
“Which way should we go?” Her voice carried tones of impatience, the sharp edge drawing Camilla’s attention.
“Huh?”
“The path. Which way should we take?”
“Where are we going? We have to finish the ritual. They were going to help…” her voice trailed off as if she were talking in her sleep. She looked back over her shoulder again, the expression of longing returning to her face.
“We’re going out. We are leaving this place. We can’t stay here. This has to stop. They aren’t helping you. Can’t you see the ghosts all over this place?”
Just as Libitina mentioned them, one of the souls barreled into her as it passed, slashing at her back on its way by. She screamed and fell, the pain in her injured knee flaring up, making her collapse to her side.
“They’ll be everywhere if we don’t stop this.” She panted, clutching her injury. “We have to go now. Which way?”
“I don’t…”
Libitina pulled herself up and chose the path on the right. Nothing guided but a slight breeze, barely felt through the commotion warding her in the other direction. She thought a waft of air was not a good thing since the way she wanted to go ended in a heavy metal door and wouldn’t have any breeze coming from it.
Unless someone left the door open. But not the freaks that ran this place, she was sure. The candles along the tunnel had been lit when she came down before. They weren’t now; none of them after the fork had been. She wasn’t sure if this was a bad sign or not.
But she wouldn’t stop. Forward was better than back. A sense of urgency filled her. It would be too late to escape if she waited any longer. She didn’t know how she knew this, but she did.
Camilla shuffled along behind her, seeming indifferent to Libitina’s need for haste. With a grunt of impatience, she squeezed Camilla’s arm tighter than she meant to and yanked her along. Camilla stumbled and almost fell, gasping as she righted herself. Libitina heard her neck crack as it lolled sideways and felt sorry for jerking her. It wasn’t like she was in the best shape for running.
The darkness crowded them, but Libitina pushed on.
* * *
It was night. Darkness was all around Aludra, closing in; dizziness consumed her. Somehow, everything had gone wrong. Somehow, she wasn’t where she belonged. And it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore.
Chanting. Somewhere in the darkness, there was chanting, and screaming, and laughter, and harsh whispers like hissed venom. Aludra’s fingers twitched. Her eyelids fluttered. Her shallow breathing went unnoticed by all. Still alive, somewhere, in the darkness.
And the incantation. The rhythmic, nonsensical words passed through her drifting mind, pulled her from darkness, back into consciousness. That woman. That hateful, evil woman. The word bitch floated in her mind, spat at her by all those who hated her, the ones she’d showed the pleasures of pain. The High Priestess was a bitch. She knew this, knew what the word meant without needing it explained to her.
The High Priestess’s voice intruded on her, forced her awake once again. Her eyelids trembled again, then opened. She took a moment to focus, but when she did, all her attention was on the bloody, curved blade. Her vengeance in shining silver, coated with her own crimson life. She would end it. Had to end it. She tried to take a deeper breath and couldn’t. Tried to bring her arms under her chest to push herself up. Nothing happened.
Her fingers jerked again. Her shoulder shifted. And then, as if by some miracle, she gained just enough momentum to rock her body back and bring her arm up, hand under her left breast. She did the same thing on the right side of her body, bringing her right hand under her chest. Then the knees. Slowly, she brought her knees under her body and managed to gain balance as the High Priestess continued her ritual chant.
The blade. Her vengeance. The bitch. She glanced to her left and saw the orb hovering over the stone slab where it was supposed to be. But the two halves of Rory, where were they? How far had the ritual progressed? She didn’t care. All that mattered was destroying her destroyer. She would do it, would muster the strength.
The knife was right there, next to the High Priestess’s foot. All she had to do was reach for it. Just reach for it. She would worry about standing up once she had the blade. One step at a time. She needed to reach for the blade.
She rocked forward and stretched out her left hand. And wavered from physical weakness. She put her hand down, steadied herself once again, took a shallow breath, felt dizzy, but tried again. She reached for the blade.
And grabbed it.
* * *
Trapped. Trapped. The spirit pushed at the walls of flesh encasing it. Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Had to get out. Had to be free. Had to stop what had gone wrong. But where did it all go wrong?
And then it realized. The High Priest. Without that spirit, without the High Priest to inhabit the body, unless it killed the body, it was stuck, in this limited existence.
It couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Then it saw the dark virgin stirring from the depths of death. How had she managed to return? She’d died. It had watched her slump to the floor and stop breathing. But she was on her hands and knees now, reaching, swaying.
For what?
Next to the High Priestess’s foot, shining, catching the glint of candlelight amid blood. The blade. She reached, she swayed, she grabbed.
The High Priestess wasn’t seeing. She didn’t know. All was wrong. Everything was over. All they’d planned for all these years was about to collapse around him and there was nothing it could do about it.
Blocked by the very subjects who had helped it prepare for this moment; it watched Aludra try to stand, unable to reach her in time to stop her.
* * *
Unaware of the disaster about to take place, the High Priestess gazed at the orb, bringing the chalice to her lips, tears streaming down her face. The spirits soared around her, beautiful, glimmering, and mixi
ng with the living world in the most wondrous way, more magical than she’d ever imagined.
The spirits called her name, shouted out the names of their enemies, cried, laughed, caressed her.
“Mother,” she heard over and over again. Yes. She would be their mother. She would love them all, care for them all. She was ready. One more drink of Aludra’s blood, and she’d lie back on the stone slab to deliver the spirits to the world.
She chanted louder, more passionate with every breath, the language from her heart passing her lips faster and faster. Nothing was more beautiful than the sight before her, the orb floating above her slab, the orb that would go inside her, the spirits that would be her children.
“My babies,” she said and went to drink again of Aludra’s blood.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Libitina gasped and panted at Camilla’s side, growing weaker. She stopped and swayed. Maybe she would faint. Her eyes rolled back but then she continued on, feet scuffing the dirt floor.
All my fault, Camilla thought, realizing for the first time all the trouble this woman had gone through at her expense. The following, the fear, the trying to escape, the helping, and now she’d almost died. Libitina’s burnt arms trembled, the blood dripping from her elbow to made muddy spots on the floor. But Libitina’s strong hand still clenched Camilla’s upper arm, the fingers digging into her pale flesh.
When would it be over for them? Soon, she hoped. If for no other reason than to let Libitina rest.
A door seemed to materialize out of the darkness and Libitina stopped, stared, then laughed and clapped her hands, letting Camilla go. An urge to flee back to her bridegroom surged through her, almost unbearable. She stared at the smoky cord and realized that something was different. The green cord. It was gone, gone from the moment the green-eyed witch had been stabbed. She didn’t get to taste her after all. A moment of regret seized Camilla and then she remembered the taste of Rory’s male half, remembered how alive she’d felt while sucking its breath, and no longer cared about Aludra.
“No,” Libitina said behind her.
She turned. Libitina pulled at the door. She pounded her fists against it. The door made a booming sound, deep and solid.
“It won’t open,” she yelled. “We’re stuck.”
Camilla pushed on it. She wrapped her crimson fingers around the edge of the door and yanked. It wouldn’t move. “She opened it before. How did she open it?” Libitina waved her candle around, searching every corner, every edge, feeling and pushing every jutting stone. “There’s got to be a secret way to open it. Something we just don’t see yet. Something.” She kept looking.
A scuffing sound drifted from behind them. Camilla turned around again, forgetting Libitina. Two men wandered into the reach of the candle’s flickering light. Their eyes widened as they took in Camilla’s terrible form, her torn face, bleeding body, crooked spine.
“It’s her,” they said in unison. They huffed and stood taller. Camilla got the impression they were building their courage. “Okay,” one of them said, and they charged.
Libitina screamed as one of the guards grabbed her hair and yanked her away from the door. Pride filled Camilla when her companion swung the lit candle into the robed man’s face, burning him, while plunging the hallway into darkness. He screamed and backed away holding his cheek. The one who grabbed Camilla began to shiver when she turned and faced him, fixing her eyeless face on his. She could see all this in the dark. Libitina walked as one blind, arms splayed before her, fingers stuttering against the stone wall.
“No,” he murmured. “Nononononono.” He shook his head back and forth, not letting go, though his knees went weak. He began to sink to the floor. She caught him. The other man continued screaming and clutching at his burned face.
She lifted the man to his feet and placed her mouth over his. She breathed in, feeling the rush of his life fill her. It didn’t take long to drain him. He hadn’t done anything wrong, had no spirits out for vengeance, and though she felt alive taking his life force, there was something nasty about it too, something foul. She didn’t like the tainted feeling his clean life force had. But she could think of no other way to get rid of these two.
Once the man was drained, he collapsed to the ground, silent, staring, rocking back and forth, alone in his mind for the rest of his life.
She did the same to the second man, stopping his screaming with her kiss. Again, the pollution. Unclean. Fresh, but unclean. Alive, but dead. She wouldn’t do this again, only did it this time to stop them from taking Libitina and herself back to the ritual.
The ritual. She still wanted to feel her other half, still longed for him, felt him getting further and further away from her.
* * *
Something screamed in the distance, making Libitina feel cold all over. She had a moment to realize that something was the right word here because it certainly wasn’t someone. She shivered, felt close to tears again. The scream sounded painful, sounded angrier than anything she’d ever heard.
“What the hell is that?” she yelled. She tried to hide in the dark, clutching her ears, the extinguished candle still clenched in her hand.
Blinding light hurtled from the darkness but didn’t illuminate the tunnel they were in. The screaming intensified, traveling closer with the light. When Libitina thought she would no longer be able to stand it, it passed beyond them, slammed into the door behind her, knocking it open, warping the metal, and vanishing into the world to wreak unknown havoc.
She touched the door and it slid open on well-oiled, unmelted hinges, whispering to a stop against the rock wall. The cellar in front of her was dark, but less so than the tunnel. She stepped one foot into the room, leaned in, peered around the corner. The staircase she remembered rose to her left, solid, wood. No more stone. She never thought she’d be relieved to see another type of matter. She passed through the doorway and staggered, far more exhausted than she’d realized.
All the days of travel, all the pain she’d gone through in these last moments, everything she’d endured, caught up with her all at once. Too weary to continue. Her thoughts bent toward sleep, focused on it as her new goal. She hoped she could muster enough energy to get out of the manor, gain the protection of the forest surrounding it, and sleep. Even the hard ground would be welcome. Get Camilla out of there and sleep.
She would accomplish that much. She would stop the ritual, stop the spirits from joining the living world. This couldn’t be allowed. For once, she knew in the deepest part of her that, for the first time in her life, she was not fucking up. She was doing the right thing. After all her fuck-ups, after all her years of bad luck, she would finally be redeemed.
“Come on,” she said to Camilla, not bothering to look back before heading up the stairs. The sound of Camilla’s limping footsteps behind her told her that her companion was not far and would remain with her until the end.
* * *
In the dark, Rory came to a dead end. It felt the rock in front of it, above it, to its sides. Nowhere to go. There had to be another way. It turned. There were more lives to feed upon, more spirits to avenge. Too sweet to leave behind. Needed a new body. This one was unclean. Couldn’t shake the dirty, rotting feeling. Felt the maggots in its belly, tore at the flesh, dropped a clump of stinking matter to the cave floor, turned, kept walking.
* * *
Camilla twitched, then turned around, staring intently back the way they had come. “Aludra’s alive,” she whispered. Libitina no longer noticed the reek coming off Camilla, though those empty eyes still unnerved her. She shuddered and turned toward the front door to leave.
But Camilla wasn’t at her side. She was moving toward the stairway they’d just climbed. How could that dead and broken body navigate at all?
“Camilla, we have to leave!” she screamed.
Camilla didn’t turn but continued down the stairs. “Aludra,” she hissed, licking her lips.
“Hey!” Libitina yelled. “We have to go now!”
The urgency within her had reached its peak giving her the strength to recall Camilla to their task.
Camilla stopped. Her head rolled back so that she was looking at Libitina upside down. “But she’s still alive.” She gestured down the stairs as if this should be obvious. It was apparent that Camilla thought Libitina simply didn’t understand her role.
The problem was that she did understand. She also knew that if Camilla understood the gravity of their situation, she would forgive Libitina for forcing her onto a different path. They had to get out of the manor now or they would never leave. She knew this in the deepest part of her and had to make Camilla see.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Libitina stood away from the front door, strength she hadn’t known she possessed coming from her depths. And then that voice traveled through her again, used her vocal chords to command. Libitina’s essence had a voice of its own and used it now. “Spirit! I command you. Come to my side.”
Camilla stopped protesting as if she’d been whipped. She climbed the stairs, head hung. The vertebrate in her neck were beginning to poke through her skin.
“We must leave this place, now. There’s no more time.”
With that, Libitina turned and flung open the double doors opposite the bleeding cross.
Bars. Solid bars blocked her in. She grabbed hold of them and shook them back and forth. Nothing. She tried lifting them. Nothing.
“How do we open these?” she muttered.
“There,” Camilla said and pointed to a lever next to the door.
Libitina grunted and ran to the lever. She pulled. It didn’t move. She leaned all her weight on the piece of metal sticking up from the ground, its brass handle glittering in the candlelight. “It won’t move.”
Women Scorned Page 23
