Stigmata

by L M Adams

  Nassor looks at me, eyebrow raised, “Is this married life?”

  I nod, “Pretty much…”

  We all get back to the murder at hand. I choose not to ask Lucien or Jack how the sin eating went – I can only assume it went well, both of them are here. The details we can work out later. The next wave of the creatures is climbing up the wall and I see the new tactic the flying creatures take begins to work.

  Often the red night is cut through by a shrill scream as one of the men is grabbed by his shoulders and lifted in the air. If the soldier is lucky, he’s simply dropped to fall down dead to the ground… the unlucky ones are ripped to shreds midair and come raining back down to earth as little more than blood, body parts and bits of meat no one could identify if they tried.

  The battle is long and bloody. We’re fighting well, every man and woman among us is fighting well, but ten to one odds are still ten to one odds. Soon too many of our loyal soldiers lie dead and still there is no end to the creatures of the night.

  163

  Jack – The Lamb

  “There’s too many of them… there’s just too many,” Jaevia wipes her face with back of her hand.

  She doesn’t have a way to face this, neither does Lucien… this is my power. We are being hunted by a version of me, this is up to me to end.

  This is my fault. If I had just never gotten involved none of this would have happened! Let the Azazaels and the Atums and all of the others deal with their own issues in their own way. Instead, I’d seduced my husband into getting Sepa’s scroll called in the Divine Council. I’d let my anger spill out the night that they denied her, and the young impressionable Keyon died because all he wanted to do was help a fellow son of Isis.

  I set all of this in motion. This is my fault and I can’t let them die for my sins, for the sins of my people…. That’s my job.

  I may not be strong like Lucien, but I do have strengths… a strength to endure, to sacrifice all, to welcome death to my breast for the glory of others.

  My eyes see them, Lucien and Jae, really and truly… and the depth of my love is revealed to me. I love them – I love them with the madness of a god willing to fall to a mortal earth to be with them. They are my heart song; they are my forever. He and she and we above all others.

  Another wave of the creatures is racing towards the mighty walls of Atum…

  “Finish evacuating the city,” I whisper looking into Jaevia’s eyes, “get who you can out… I will buy you as much time as I can.”

  “Jack…” She whispers, fear filling her eyes.

  I hold out my arms and fall forward off the top of the wall before I let myself be talked out of this.

  My body fills with the power of Vayrá… the very curse we laid upon the earth makes us what we are. Vicious, angry… vindictive creatures that feed upon the fear of others.

  “Jack!” I can hear Jae scream as I land, sword arm stretched out, other arm behind my back, head bowed.

  Dark Goddess give me your strength. I raise my head and run forward with an explosion of power as I demand Keb answer me. If I am his dark son, then let him claim me, let him answer for my wretched existence.

  I scream and flip my sword, falling to my knees and driving it into the lush dark earth that they would build their stolen empire upon. I had to forgive them for it all to save him, I had to make it my sin to save him and goddess does it ache.

  No true thought but to keep them safe fills me, simple force of will and power. This is my battle, not theirs, Azazael is me, and I he – and for once I will face my own dark nature, it will not claim the things I love most in the world… I have to be able to save something – Goddess I’ve failed so many times before.

  This world has exacted a terrible price form me, again and again and again… but today is the day that I finally say enough. I think upon the power within me and I know the words I need from Jaevia’s memory… the words to build a shield.

  I channel Vayrá, accepting all of the filth because that filth brings with it power. I encircle the entire city of Atum in a shield of energy, cutting it off from the rest of the world but for the east facing water gate.

  Get them out Lucien, get them out Jae – Goddess be, get them out.

  I pray as I think of Shanni’s innocent face, Keyon’s, and yes, even Dārayauš’. I think of all the mothers and fathers and sons and daughters. All of the husbands and wives and lovers and I give them what I never had… a chance. The blood red light of the night air shimmers with a blueish silver hue as the shield of power goes up.

  The bat-like creatures, my people, come to a screeching halt. My chest heaves with power as my eyes water with the taste of their sin. I won’t be able to hold the shield long.

  “How have you fallen from heaven, Capaneus? Ye, the son of the evening sky. Ye, the son of moon and earth, a son of Set and Nephthys - oh how have you forgotten what you are?”

  Through a haze of bloody tears, my father-god appears dressed in a black suit with a blood red shirt beneath. He looks so much like me. A reflection through obsidian glass.

  “Ye, who have been cast down to the earth, ye who once laid low the nations!”

  He walks forward, right through my shield for he is me and I am we.

  “You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the sun of Ra; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost high upon the realm of Nuit. Ye who said, I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’”

  I scream from the pain of the curse as I call more into me to strengthen the shield, the horrid filthy curse that we laid upon these lands so filled with power.

  “Now you are brought down to the realm of the dead, to the depths of the pit. Those who witness shall ponder your fate: ‘Is this the man who shook the earth and made kingdoms tremble? The man who made the world a wilderness, who overthrew its cities and would rather meet death than be known as a slave? Is this he on his knees?”

  “Goddess!” I scream as the tears flow from my eyes; the two halves my soul battling for the future of the world?! Always this war between the king and the catamite!

  “Is this you my Capaneus? My foolish, prideful Capaneus, they will never love you as they love one another for you are the dark one, you are the snake that slithers upon its belly, the forked tongue adder and the deceiver.”

  “They will never love you like I can.”

  He stands no more than a few feet from me, his eyes mocking as he looks at me on my knees… defeated.

  “You do not have to be… this, anymore – for you have prayed and I have answered.” He holds out a hand, his fingertips long and black and curved into pointed sharp talons that could shred my soul.

  I whimper as he rubs my cheek softly with the pad of his black thumb, “Press your lips upon mine and these shall be the last tears you ever shed.”

  My heart quivers with the desire to know that life, to know a life without pain and an absolution of sin.

  He knows how to taunt me with the thing I wish most in life. “Why serve in heaven when you can rule in hell?”

  Evil, above all things, is seductive. When damnation comes knocking it’s always with the guise of love and power, of youth and beauty, of wealth and the freedom from our bonds that make us human. It comes with the forked tongue of the adder and we take it to our bosom and drink deeply of the lie… the we would not trade our souls for every promise the devil has made to us.

  “Stand, Capaneus… and never kneel for another again,” he murmurs as moves those talons beneath my chin, urging me to my feet.

  I stand, looking at his lips… just a small kiss – and I do not have to hurt anymore…

  “Just a kiss to show me you love me.”

  “Ye! And She! And We!” I hear a roar and turn from his lips to see Lucien, Jaevia, and every soldier they have left flow from the gates of Atum like a raging river.

  Their weapons raised high, death in their eyes, as they co
me to face their enemy… as they come to save… me?

  “No,” I whisper as I turn back to face my father-god and grab him by the waist, pushing him back through the shield of power.

  They wouldn’t survive his power; his aching power has no end... he is the living embodiment of sin and goddess knows there is so much of it upon this earth.

  We fall to the ground a tangle of legs and arms and souls and his creatures fall upon us. I close my eyes as I feel their claws upon me… stripping me bare as I sink into the deep… dark… earth.

  164

  Jack – Capaneus

  I open my eyes I’m lying within a pit of the deep. The walls of the cavern burn with blueish fire and the smell of sulfur stings my nose. I’m lying on my back, spread wide eagle. I try to move my arms but cannot, my legs are restrained as well.

  The shield, I feel it… still I’m holding it for them – protecting them… them who matter more than anything I’ve ever had in my life or my death. They, the only ones who saw what I was and loved the man anyway.

  “Let go,” the evil whispers in the dark.

  I feel the bonds on my wrist tighten, the surface I’m lying on moves against my back. I lift my head and see I’m in the center of a pit of massive black snakes, so thick and so intertwined that I cannot tell where one of the beasts begins and the other ends.

  Fear rides through me, making me lose my concentration – I feel the shield protecting Atum flicker. I scream, concentrating on them. Lucien and Jaevia as they beat upon the wall of power… screaming my name.

  “Run!” I scream as he comes into view.

  Dārayauš

  His clothes simply cease to exist, he stands before me… naked and ready. His muscled chest, stomach… his entire form is living perfection – all but a small blight, a wound on his side where Jaevia drove the dagger of Kris into him, trying to pierce his black heart, the flesh around the wound blackening, necrotizing… dying.

  The wound seems to exist no matter his position within the echoes of time.

  He reaches down to his cock and rubs himself, the look in his eyes I’ve seen before, the look of a predator before it destroys me in an intimate way, evil eyes filled with damning lust.

  “No,” I whimper as two of the snakes wrap around my thighs tightly, lifting my legs… spreading me open for him.

  The flesh of his cock darkens and ripples with glittering scales as it elongates, moving with a power of its own. His monstrous rod thickens as the head searches for… me.

  “No, please no,” I beg up to my father-god.

  “Oh, yes.” He kneels and I close my eyes turning my face away as I feel his long nails running up my thigh gently making me harden with sick passions.

  “Please,” I beg him low, “please no.”

  “You have the power to stop me, Capaneus,” He whispers, wrapping a hand around my hard cock.

  I jerk and the snakes get tighter, I feel the shield protecting Atum weaken.

  “Ah, but you cannot do both… you cannot fight me and save them.”

  One of the snakes rubs the side of my face, “Do not hide from your doom,” He orders me low and I open my eyes to gaze upon my tormentor. He leans over my trapped body, his lips almost touching mine.

  “Let go and no harm shall come to them,” he strokes my cock, firmly but slowly, making me wish for things I should not wish! “You are the one I want; it’s always been you.”

  “No,” I cry…. “please no.”

  “Don’t fight me,” he murmurs turning my head to the side to kiss upon Lucien’s mark. “You deserve this.”

  He lets go of my cock and I feel him pressing against me… “say it, Capaneus, say you deserve this…”

  “No!” I scream.

  “Beg your father-god like you begged you Daddy… beg me to fuck you.”

  The snakes tighten again, pulling me further apart as the tip of him presses against me… moving like my father’s finger did upon my rose.

  I whimper as my demons come to play in my heart. As I remember all of the times I begged him to take me… again and again I would cry upon the gleaming wood of his desk and beg him for the filth that I thought was love.

  “Together we shall rule upon the heavens, and the earth, and the deep… all you have to do is beg. Beg for your destruction and from the ash you shall rise a King of Set.”

  My chest and throat seize with fear. No! No! No! No! I scream in my mind that I don’t want this.

  He smiles as he pulls back to kneel between my thighs again, “You are being raped, I do not need consent.”

  I scream with horror as his snake pushes into my anus, claiming me. I look down and watch the flesh of his groin ripple with snake scales as the body of his cock pushes and pulls, worming its way into me.

  The head of his cock finds my prostate and rubs it perfectly making my anus spasm around him with pleasure.

  “There we are,” He smiles, and another snake rubs the side of my face as it slithers its way down my chest. Thick and large and black, the scales twinkling with the color of blue opal.

  My father god holds my hard cock as the snake opens its mouth and begins swallowing me down, making my anus spasm again with pleasure… such sick and filthy pleasure the bile rises up in my gut. The snake around my cock goes down until it can go no further.

  “Orgasm,” He orders me, and I can do nothing but submit. The head of his cock rubs against my prostate with its scaled flesh as the body of his snake tightens around my shaft forcing me to come inside of its mouth.

  I watch the man swallow as if he can taste my come on his tongue. “You are delicious, Capaneus.” He rakes those nails on the tender flesh on the back of my thighs again sending another wave of pleasure through me.

  I turn my face away and weep like that sixteen-year-old kid who had no idea what love was… or what it wasn’t. Before Lucien I would have thought this glorious, the epitome of filth and debauchery and would have welcomed every sin filled moment.

  “Politeness would be returning the favor,” He murmurs as I see another of his horror creations slither its way to my mouth, “open.”

  I don’t have the heart or will to fight him, I don’t fight… I submit. I will always be a slave and we both know that. His snake slides into my mouth and down into my throat.

  My chest begins to heave as it tries to force itself into my body.

  “Swallow, Capaneus, swallow me and accept it. We both know you deserve it. He’s not going to want you now… you came with only a word, so quickly you betrayed him?”

  My heart breaks as I begin swallowing, helping the snake claim me, accepting that I deserve it.

  He moans, “That’s it, make Daddy come, swallow Daddy’s sin.”

  My body jerks again and again as my lungs demand air but only finds scales. The tears pour from eyes, I can’t even scream with my fear and my pain.

  My utter destruction is a quiet thing like death upon the night. I let myself fall into that darkness, praying there is an end… praying for oblivion.

  He moans with pleasure as he comes, filling my gut with his power, his essence. His snake constricts around my cock forcing me to come with him; he didn’t even have to order me to. With every orgasm, every moment of pleasure, I feel everything that made me, me – slowly die… I feel Jack die.

  “Let go,” and I feel my consciousness slip into the abyss as he forces me to come again and again for him as he dumps his essence into me… transforming me, claiming me… making me his creature.

  I deserve this.

  165

  Jack – Son of Set

  I awake, still laying on a bed of snakes, rolled on my side. I’m not restrained but I’m too broken to move… I prayed for it all to be a horrid nightmare as his snakes violated every orifice of my body until there was nothing but my tears and my obedience … but it wasn’t a nightmare; and prayers are nothing but hope given to gods that do not care.

  My father-god is standing at a table, pouring glasses of wine. The
cavern lit in a blueish hellfire. His snakes still crawling upon the floor.

  “I thought it best to give you a break. Mortal flesh can be delicate.” He turns so I can see his still bleeding wound, the skin around it dead.

  He’s still naked, his cock however is normal and human again.

  I groan low with fear as he walks towards me.

  “Calm or I’ll punish you.”

  I try to swallow down my emotions.

  “I deserve this,” I whimper.

  “Better,” He stops beside me holding down a glass of the dark red liquid. “Sit up and drink this.”

  I do as I’m told, my hand trembles as I reach for the glass, not quite making eye contact with him as I take a sip. The liquid is thick, thicker than blood but tastes even sweeter.

  He takes a drink from his own glass and I watch the stab wound in his side heal up for a moment before it starts bleeding again.

  He looks down at the wound and seems disgusted with his own feebleness. “Nothing stops the blood; I can only slow it.”

  I don’t know how to respond, so I don’t.

  “This will get better, my son – the transfer of our power into a new scion is painful, but in the end – it is always worth it.”

  “I don’t want it,” I murmur low.

  “You were raised better than that, you have no choice.” He grabs me by my chin, forcing me to look up at him. “Say it.”

  I inhale sharply, “I have no choice.”

  “Good boy,” He lets my face go and takes the glass of wine from me, “On all fours, you seem strong enough for another transfer.”

  I do as I’m told, because I have no choice, I will always be a slave first and a man last. Why did I let Lucien convince me things could be different? Why did I let him give me hope?