“The only thing worse than a rapist”—she licked his earlobe—“is a child rapist.”
Karl repeatedly blinked, absorbing the accusation, and glared at her. “I’ve done no such thing.”
“Is that so?” She scratched his cheek with the blade. “Lying won’t help your situation.”
“I’m not!”
She backed away, allowing him to confront her. He looked at her and to the blade and back.
“Yes, I rape women. But I don’t touch children.”
“I know!” she cackled, unable to suppress her laughter. “I was just having some fun with you.”
With that she screeched and pounced on Wilhelm, driving the blade through his chain mail and into his diaphragm. She landed on him and shrieked while crudely dragging the knife toward his waist. Wilhelm’s wordless screams turned to gurgles as she repeatedly grabbed and plopped intestines into a slippery pile next to him.
Content with her work, she stood and began scouring the room. “Curses! I lost my sack in the moat. Maybe I can improvise.” She turned to Karl. “Do you have any straw up here?”
Karl, both hands covering his mouth, his eyes bugging at Wilhelm’s dying body, turned to Perchta and shook his head.
“I thought not.” She tucked her dagger into her belt and spotted a carafe of water about a quarter full on the floor. “My hands are a fright. If you’ll excuse me.”
Realizing she still held a dagger, Beate marched Karl back against the wall, the blade to his throat.
“How many women—girls—have you raped?”
Karl’s eyes focused on the knife stinging his neck. “Many. Too many to count. But only girls of marrying age!”
“Like that makes it acceptable?” Beate spat in his face. “Why? Why do you do it? You see what it causes!”
“Because I can.” His sinister tone chilled Beate, who backed off. “I’m the baron’s son.” He straightened himself. “To reject me is to invite death. And there are so many to choose from in the castle. The knights usually have pretty wives, and that makes for luscious daughters.” He licked his lips. “Some of the knights even know it but say nothing because my father will butcher them if they do anything to me.”
She gasped. “Your father knows about you?”
“Ideology and family always trump conscience. Call it an insurance policy. Sure, my father’s disappointed when I tell him which noble’s daughter I’ve most recently conquered. But he’s got enough money to pay off whoever complains the loudest. Had you not shown up, that lumbering idiot Otto’s daughter would’ve been on my menu. She’s about the right age. Believe me—I wish you’d stayed in that shitty village of yours. Speaking of which, Wilhelm stuck with your ratty peasant children because who’d take their word over his?”
“I can’t be bought,” Beate said.
“I bet your parents can.”
Perchta wiped her hands dry on her dress and joined Beate. “As for you, Karl.” She drew both daggers.
“Good.” It was Heinrich. “Too many innocent people have died today—Gisela, her baby. This worm actually deserves what’s coming to him.”
“He’s right.” Beate blocked the hag’s path with her arm to stay her. “What you did to Gisela was inhuman. Why did you kill my friend? She was innocent!”
“Trust me, she was not.”
“That she suffered the way he did”—Beate eyed Wilhelm—“I cannot imagine she deserved it. But you—” She looked at Karl and then hesitated, stroked away a tear and spoke to Heinrich. “How did you know Gisela was pregnant?”
Heinrich shrugged. “I heard it around the village.”
“No.” Beate slowly circled Heinrich. “No, you didn’t. Gisela said I was the only one who knew. Me and the father.”
“Uh-oh,” Perchta said mischievously.
Krampus lifted Heinrich by his shirt and held him an arm’s length away. “You’ve been naughty.”
Beate approached Krampus. “Sticking something where it doesn’t belong—you weren’t talking to me. Heinrich was right next to me. My God. Gisela was fitting you for our wedding too. And you were away with your father in early December when—” she waited for Krampus to look at her, and when it did—“when you were hurting people.”
The monster flashed its eyebrows.
Heinrich, dangling like a marionette, clutched Krampus’s arm so he wouldn’t fall. “Beate, listen. Gisela came on to me and—”
“Oh, don’t even try that!” she said.
“He’s right.” Krampus shook Heinrich. “But your boyfriend here did nothing to stop her.”
Everything swarmed around Beate, enough for her to massage her temples. To Perchta, she said, “So, you’re not here for Heinrich?”
“Heinrich is Krampus’s concern.” Perchta pointed a dagger at Wilhelm. “I came for that pompous perversion on the floor.”
Beate looked at Wilhelm’s pale corpse and back to Perchta. “You equate a premarital affair with child molestation?”
“Gisela—your dearest friend—knew full well you were to be wed and violated your trust in the worst possible way by becoming his whore.” She disgustedly gestured at Heinrich. “Had he put the moves on Gisela, he’d be the one with a belly full of straw.”
Krampus brought Heinrich close enough to kiss him. “Lucky you.”
Perchta sidled up to Karl, whose bravado vanished.
“I might not have come for Heinrich, but I did indeed come for your brother.”
“And not me,” Karl said.
“I specifically said ‘I came for that pompous perversion on the floor’. I didn’t say I came only for him.” Perchta’s blade slid over the ragged belly wound Beate inflicted on Karl.
He shook uncontrollably. “Please don’t!”
“I was going to carve off your penis first, then your balls, and then gut you. You’d be praying for a needle through the cock by that point.”
Karl blubbered. “I promise I won’t do it anymore! You can come for me if I do! I know you’ll be able to find me! Please! Spare me!”
“Very well, I will.” She stowed her blades and walked to leave the churn tower.
“What?” Karl and Beate said it together.
“I’ll admit it’s tempting to finish you off now. But recent events have convinced me to spare you for a little while.”
Karl looked at Krampus. “Him?”
“No. I came here for Heinrich and Heinrich alone. But I agree with the frau. I have a hunch you won’t rape anyone ever again.”
“It’s time for you leave, Karl.” Perchta gestured to him and waved her hand forward. “After you!”
Karl took two steps toward the doorway. “You’re not going to kill me from behind?”
“I give you my word, for what that’s worth,” she cackled.
“And you only came here for Heinrich?”
“I already said that, Karl,” Krampus said. “How the master missed you is beyond me, but sometimes names slip through the cracks. I would’ve had fun with you.”
Karl then turned to Beate, who still held a knife. She answered before he spoke: “I’ve harmed you enough already, Karl.” She dropped the blade. “Your survival is in your hands.”
The younger lord smirked. “I can pretty much survive anything—if this day is any indication.”
Karl turned to exit and was met by Otto standing in the doorway. At first Karl thought himself rescued and then recalled what he’d said earlier.
He raised his hands for calm. “Otto, how long were you out there?”
“Long enough to say the day’s not over yet, my lord.”
The broadsword-wielding knight, despite being cut, battered and bruised, nimbly moved and punched Karl in the gut, leaving him on the floor, breathless.
“Go, all of you.”
Perchta had already left. Beat
e tapped Krampus’s leg to get his attention. “Don’t kill him, please.”
“Thank you, Beate! I knew you’d forgive me!” Heinrich looked at Krampus’s scowl, and then to his bride-to-be, who sported a similar visage.
“I asked him not to kill you, Heinrich,” she said. “I didn’t say he couldn’t punish you.”
Krampus chuckled and carried a whimpering Heinrich down the darkened stairwell.
Beate turned to Otto. “Now what do I do?”
The knight kicked Karl’s face, laying him flat, and then pinned him with a heavy boot. “Stay here tonight. Go back to the village in the morning. Others will too. Travel in a group. I will come to check on you, although it may not be for several days. The baron will return, and he won’t like what he finds here. But you’re in no danger from anyone in the castle. I promise you that.”
“Thank you.”
Otto recalled the first time he’d seen Beate that morning, indifferent to the girl’s plight, but no longer. “I know Gisela hurt you, but nothing justifies what happened to her. And Heinrich’s piggish betrayal doesn’t warrant murder either.”
She thought about it. “I don’t think the Krampus will kill him. I hope he doesn’t.”
Otto applied pressure to keep Karl still. “You’re young, Beate. You’ll find a deserving man.” He glared at the young lord, who appeared on the verge of hyperventilating. “So will my daughter.” Then to Beate, “Take time to grieve, wait for things to return to normal. A good life is still possible, despite all of this.”
She laughed to herself, an inexplicable cackle. “Normal? I relied on a lunatic harpy—my best friend’s murderer—to save my life tonight. I gave a giant monster permission to beat up the man I had planned on marrying next week. I view everything that Heinrich, Gisela, Wilhelm and Karl did as immoral. But to those monsters—the Krampus and Perchta—all of that twisted behavior is normal. It’s why they exist. I woke up this morning happy, blissfully unaware that everything around me was fraudulent. My normal life was a perception void of skepticism. Surviving Twelfth Night taught me I can’t let that happen again, if I’m ever to trust anyone.” She smiled at the knight. “Thank you for your kindness. I don’t mean to be dismissive.”
“I didn’t take it that way. You should be on your way, though. Take care of yourself. That, I know you can do.”
“I appreciate that.”
She took her first step down the stairwell.
“Beate, wait.” Otto said. “You can do one more thing.”
She turned. “Yes?”
“You can say goodbye to Karl.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
A few days later.
The three of them spread a large piece of parchment across a flat stone that served as a table within a torchlit cave rarely seen by human eyes.
When one finished scouring the immaculately penned document, the reader gave a small, greasy candle to the next participant in line. And the process repeated itself twice more, leaving the contract checkered with wax droplets.
“Is everything in order?” the old man said.
“Yes, master.”
“Frau Perchta, are the terms to your liking?”
“Bavaria’s mine except on December fifth, and on occasion December sixth, and if your hairy underling can’t finish the job on either of those days, he waits until next year and doesn’t rear his ugly head until the next December fifth. No exceptions. Is that what I’m reading?”
“Correct, and what will you do?” the old man said.
“If whichever miscreant your goon was after manages to elude him on December fifth or sixth, he’ll let me know who—and if that same miscreant is on my list, I leave the wretch for Krampus to catch the next December.”
“Splendid.”
“And what if I cannot get one of my marks in January, and I provide you the name and that kid is on Krampus’s list the following December?” she said. “Does Krampus leave that brat for me?”
The old man pointed at the contract. “Go to section B, subsection D—third paragraph.”
“Oh, for goodness sakes!” Perchta pored over the document, mumbling words as she read them, and then out loud: “It is left to the sole discretion of Saint Nicholas whether Krampus may pursue one of Perchta’s failed attempts from the previous season, seeing that Perchta has twelve days to mete out punishment or reward, and Krampus only has, at most, two days.” She smirked, tapping her foot, ruminating over the terms. “Wait, why is it up to you?”
“The child who eluded you could redeem himself or herself the following year, and in such a case, the child might be on my list for reward. And I imagine if that is the case, you would consider slipping the child a coin. Am I right?”
“Well, that rarely ever happens,” she said. “Once bad, usually always bad.”
“There are exceptions,” the monster said.
“Nobody asked you!” She threw up her hands. “Okay, fine. Where do I sign?”
Krampus pushed her out of the way, pricked the pad of its forefinger with its thumbnail and scratched its name in blood across one of three blank lines.
“I have a pen.” The old man held up a quill feather.
“I’ve got work to do.” The monster pointed to a gagged, roped young man quivering in the cave’s corner.
Perchta grinned. “I’ll take the pen, thank you.” She watched Heinrich shake as she wrote her name.
The old man scribbled last and then rolled up the parchment and tucked it under his red robe. “Now then, do you need an escort out, Frau Perchta?”
“I can find my own way.” She fiendishly smiled at Heinrich and turned to Krampus. “Can I watch?”
The monster, not looking at her, slipped its ruten from the barrel on its back. “This is between me and him. And I will not begin until you leave.”
The old man gripped a long crosier and held out his hand. “Come, Frau Perchta, I shall accompany you.”
She grunted. “Fine. Maybe on the way out you can explain to me how you came across that big lummox. Was it like finding an abandoned puppy?”
The old man chuckled. “Not exactly, and I prefer to keep some things secret. Otherwise every saint would want one.”
She shook her head and walked beside the old man through a dark tunnel.
“Perchta.” The monster’s voice reverberated around the walls.
She ducked back into the cave. “Yes?”
“I like you.”
“Well, isn’t that sweet?” She waited for it to reply, but Krampus stayed focused on Heinrich, who’d closed his eyes and seemed to be praying. “Thank you. I suppose. And I agree with Beate. Do not kill him.”
Krampus looked at her. “Do you think it is okay if I eat some of him?”
Heinrich’s eyes bugged out and darted back and forth from the monster to Perchta, who tilted her head, expressing Really?.
Unseen by Heinrich, Krampus gave her a quick wink.
“Oh, well if that’s the case, his legs look scrumptious.” She cackled and left to catch up with the saint.
About the Author
Matt Manochio lives in New Jersey. You can learn more about him at wwwMattManochio.com.
Look for these titles by Matt Manochio
Now Available:
The Dark Servant
Sentinels
Santa’s not the only one coming to town...
The Dark Servant
© 2014 Matt Manochio
It has tormented European children for centuries. Now America faces its wrath. Unsuspecting kids vanish as a blizzard crushes New Jersey. All that remains are signs of destruction—and bloody hoof prints stomped in the snow.
Seventeen-year-old Billy Schweitzer awakes on December 5 feeling depressed. Already feuding with his police chief father and golden boy older brother, Billy’s devastated when his
dream girl rejects him. When an unrelenting creature infiltrates his town, endangering his family and friends, Billy must overcome his own demons to understand why supposedly innocent high school students have been snatched, and how to rescue them from a famous saint’s ruthless companion—that cannot be stopped.
Enjoy the following excerpt for The Dark Servant:
December 5
Travis Reardon drove his Mazda CX-5 out of his parents’ three-car garage and met the foggy darkness typical of his early morning drive to high school—yet the odor, slight but detectable even with the windows up, gave him pause.
The eighteen-year-old senior lowered his window to identify the smell. His new crossover’s headlights were all that guided him down the windy driveway to Winchester Road. Streetlamps didn’t exist in this densely wooded stretch of Hancock Township. It was one of the few places in rural New Jersey where light pollution didn’t ruin starry skies.
“Gross” was all he said as he raised the window and continued his fifteen-minute commute to school. He reached into his book bag on the front seat for his iPhone and dialed his girlfriend. He put the phone on speaker and placed it on his lap.
“Hey, baby,” a female voice answered.
“You miss me?”
“Parts of you,” she purred. “You on your way?”
“As we speak. How ’bout you?”
“In my car, in the school parking lot. Waiting. I’ll wander on over in, oh, just a little bit. I’ll be cold, baby. My legs especially.”
“You minx. Any tests today that I can take your mind off of?”
“English, some Shakespearean Othello nonsense. God forbid we learn something that can actually help us succeed in the real world. Since when does knowing a few lines from some old play make you well-rounded? It’s not like quoting Iago will help me land a job.”
“Unless you become an actress.”
“Hardy har. Any tests on your horizon?”
“I play football, honey. Tests don’t mean dick. My throwing arm does. That’s all Virginia Tech cares about right now.”
Twelfth Krampus Night Page 11
