Women Scorned (21 page)

And then there was light.

Chapter Fifteen

Aludra waited outside the small hut in the receding light. Bushes provided the perfect hiding place, allowing her to peek through the tiny branches and keep her eyes on the windows and doors. The sky blushed as it prepared to don its evening gown, the sun slowly slipping behind its horizon. Rory waited inside for her. She felt the spirit stronger than ever before and longed to charge in, grab the woman the spirit controlled, play with her and the old hag. She would have herself a little party with the three of them, indulging in all her desires before heading back to the manor with Rory in tow.

Only seconds remained before she could take Rory. The moment the light disappeared behind the trees, she would rush into the hut and claim what belonged to the Order. Anticipation mounting, she headed toward the front door licking her lips and rubbing her palms together. Her stomach clenched and twisted. Her hands trembled. She almost bounced as she walked. Soon, it would be over. Soon, she would have eternal life. Soon, her purpose would be served. She looked up at the treetops and held her breath as the sun set.

Finally.

Shrieks filled the air. The most venomous sounds came from the hut. Eyes wide, Aludra gawked at the house.

“No,” she screamed at the same time the crone did. She knew the crone made those sounds and she knew why she howled in rage. Rory’s spirit had vanished. Aludra felt emptiness building inside her. Emptiness and fear. She’d only felt this once before, when looking into the soulless eyes of Rory’s first victim, but this fear was more intense, more primal. The Order would surely kill her if she returned to them without the spirit.

If she couldn’t feel the One, couldn’t track it, then how could she bring it home to the manor? How could she fulfill her purpose without Rory? She was a failure now.

Without thinking, she stomped to the house, teeth grinding as she imagined throttling the hag. If the other woman had thought those screams were real, just wait until Aludra finished with the bitch. She had to have done something or else Rory would still be here. What had she done?

“Fuck!” she yelled. She’d heard exclamations of pain so many times before, screams of rage from her victims. Aludra found she liked the way it felt to scream as well, to express her anger and pleasure in this way. She threw open the door, knocking it from its hinges.

The hag sat on a patch of moss in the back of the hut with a little black animal in her arms. The redhead’s beast.

The two women stared at each other for a second that seemed to last an eternity. They gazed with identical green eyes. The old crone’s face cracked in a broad grin.

“My child,” she whispered. At her words the image of the stained glass from the cathedral, the mother and child, flashed before Aludra’s eyes. That sense of longing wrapped around her, then dissipated as soon as she’d felt it, like fog.

Aludra stormed into the hut, ready to destroy this woman, but stopped halfway across the room. She recognized those eyes as her own and couldn’t deny what the woman had said.

The old woman laughed.

Aludra’s legs buckled and she sagged to the floor, watching the woman rocking back and forth, cradling the dog, cackling the way the High Priestess was known to do on occasion. That animal cradled in her arms… she so longed to be that dog.

But certainly this woman was far too old to be her mother. It couldn’t be true.

“How do you know me?” she asked.

“My daughter, you have finally come for me. I knew you would one day. I knew I’d see you again.”

Aludra sat in silence for a moment, then asked the question burning inside her. “So why did you leave the manor?” She felt the connection from across the room, felt the love that had been denied her.

The woman barked a bitter laugh. “Is that what they told you?”

Aludra nodded, never dropping her gaze. The emotions filling her threatened to spill forward. Dizziness promised to send her sprawling. She’d never felt anything as intensely as what she felt now. Her eyes burned. Tears? Was she going to cry like her stupid victims?

“Well, then I have something to tell you,” her mother said. “You are coming after the spirit, Rory, correct?”

Again, Aludra nodded.

“You can’t feel Rory any longer, correct?”

Aludra nodded.

“And now you must go back to the manor empty handed.”

“You echo my thoughts,” Aludra whispered.

“Because I know what you seek and why you seek it. You seek Rory for the ritual to come, for eternal life. You know you were chosen, created with the sole purpose of bringing the spirit back to the manor. Have they told you how you were conceived?”

“No.”

The mother she’d been denied patted the mat of moss next to her. Aludra went to her, found herself resisting the urge to sit too close. Part of her yearned to feel the woman’s arm draped over her shoulder, to bury her face in her mom’s hair, breathe her in. But instead, she sat and waited to hear the story.

“Your father was the first son from the High Priestess. I am her first daughter. Twins. We were raised knowing we had one purpose: to conceive you.” The old woman blurted the information as if she had been waiting her whole life to guide her child. Aludra supposed this wasn’t too far from the truth. She listened intently. “The Dark One told the High Priest when to perform the conception. So we did what we were told. This took place with your father’s first seed and my first egg. It could happen no other way. They took great pains to ensure my safety, for your safety, while I carried you. On the day of your birth, September 9
th
, 1971, you were cut from my belly. You see, you had to be born on that day, when the numbers came to nine-nine-nine. You weren’t coming, so they made you come.”

The crone lifted her shirt and revealed the jagged scar across her abdomen. “They took you from me. All I wanted to do was hold you and they took you to raise you as the ‘chosen one’.” The crone explained all this the way someone might explain how a gadget worked. There was no emotion.

Aludra had never been told any of this but it didn’t surprise her. These things were not unheard of in their home. The High Priest was the father of all who dwelled there. The only shock was that he wasn’t her father but her grandfather.

The crone continued. “I knew they planned to sacrifice you for the ritual, use you to draw the spirit there, then use your blood to give them eternal life.”

“No. That’s not true. I’m to have eternal life, too.”

“Child, you are to have eternal life as a spirit, not in the flesh. While carrying you, I knew what your fate was to be and I accepted it, until I saw you. You were so perfect, so small… helpless. I knew you would grow into a beautiful young woman and I knew what they would do to you. I couldn’t have that. I only wanted to take care of you, to hold you, nurse you, keep you as my own.”

Her voice quavered. Aludra wasn’t sure how much she believed. Maybe the woman had gone crazy, being alone for so long. Just how much of what she said was true? She kept listening.

“They turned me into this,” the crone said, and pulled the skin at her face. “Since I was thirteen, I’ve looked like this. I can’t stand to look at myself. I was beautiful once, like you. I thought I’d be beautiful forever, but I wanted you instead.”

“They’re going to kill me?”

“Yes, child. To serve their own purpose.” She sighed. “After they made me look like this, they sent me away. I stayed here, away from the rest of the world. The people were beneath my presence, even though I’d been cast away, and I couldn’t stand the thought of others seeing me like this. I’ve made a life for myself knowing that one day our paths would cross again. I almost feared I might have been wrong, that I’d never see you again, but here you are.”

Aludra stared, transfixed, the reality sinking in.

Her mother smiled. “But, you know what? I know how you can stop them,” she whispered, leaning over as if afraid someone might overhear them in the middle of the forest.

“How?”

“You are the chosen one. This means more than just being chosen to draw a spirit. Why do you think you are the only one capable of bringing the spirit in?”

Aludra shook her head.

“You are stronger than the rest of them. So much stronger. They need you. You don’t need them. You could lead them. The High Priestess is weak. Her powers fade more and more each day. You could get rid of her and lead them into a new era, use her blood in the ritual instead of your own.”

Aludra thought about this, picturing the High Priestess’s death in her mind, imagining how she could kill her.

“Go, my child. Go back to them and lead. Use your strength to really be the chosen one.”

The old woman stood and ushered Aludra out of her house.

“And then return for me. Bring me back to the manor. I will help you rule them all.”

Aludra didn’t look back as she ran through the woods. The High Priestess would die. It was just a matter of how. She would not be their sacrifice. So what that she didn’t have the spirit? To die in a ritual was not her purpose. Her purpose was to lead. She felt this in the deepest part of her being. She would be all powerful. She would not die so the rest of them could live forever. She would not bring the spirit back so they could kill her for her troubles. She was younger and therefore stronger. She was created to be smarter and more powerful of mind. She could overpower the High Priestess. She would.

Angry, no longer thinking of ways to torture innocent people, she ran to the portal that would take her home, to the manor, guided by her stronger senses, plotting how to achieve her new goal.

*  *  *

Cackling, the crone disappeared into the hut.

“I will stop this ritual one way or another. They will regret the day they cast me from the manor.” She scooped the dog up again and patted his head. She whispered what she was thinking to the little animal, loath to have her voice go unused for so long again. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed talking until this day. Rory was now in the spirit world, still bound to the flesh. They shouldn’t be able to leave, but if they managed it somehow, then Aludra would stop the ritual. Aludra would become the chosen one she was meant to be, rather than what the Order thought she would be. She was strong. Even if they could find Rory, the ritual would still fail.

*  *  *

Darkness and more darkness. Cold. Wet. Camilla shuddered next to Libitina who groaned, sounding on the verge of nausea. Camilla saw nothing but heard everything. Laughter, whispering voices echoing through her head. Something inhuman roared nearby, getting closer, closer, then passing overhead and diminishing in the distance. She turned her head to look, following the sound with her eyeless face. Blackness.

“What the fuck happened?” Libitina gasped. “What is this place?” Her fingers dug into Camilla’s arm.

Camilla’s pain felt distant, less important than what she heard. The air swirled around them, pouring into her mouth, making her feel clammy, sticky, a bit slimy.

And then she could see again.

Red light bloomed. In the distance, two glowing figures crouched, looking poised for an attack. They shimmered, their lights faint in the crimson glow surrounding them. She wondered what the source of her new vision was when the glowing figures sprung at them, flying toward them with incredible speed. At the moment of attack, she caught sight of the larger one’s face, a shredded, mutilated mass. Empty sockets stared at her in shock, revulsion, and then pain seared up her back as claws sliced through her flesh, burning her from the inside out.

Camilla screamed. The glowing figure moved away, but not before she realized she’d been looking into her own face. She hadn’t seen the attacker, only herself being attacked.

Her image surrounded her in a ring. She saw Libitina and herself through multiple eyes. Her own image flew at her from every angle. Her bleeding face closing in, receding, coming down on top of her, from behind, from in front. She felt slashing and biting, but didn’t think the wounds were physical. The pain vanished almost as soon as it came.

Libitina screamed and thrashed next to her, battling the intangible and losing. Camilla cringed from herself, screamed with her hands over her ragged face, unable to avoid her image attacking her again and again, her black hair now matted, her naked body trembling and covered in blood, the green tinge growing at the corner of her mouth.

Libitina grabbed her arm, pulled her to her feet, dragged her away. She ran with Libitina guiding her. The glowing figures ran too, one holding the other’s arm, the one being guided bloody, stumbling along as if her body didn’t work right. Her image ran away from her, gaining distance, fading into the red. Then she was gone, left with nothing but blackness and Libitina’s touch, the voices whispering, the damp cold closing in on them.

“I think we’ll be safe here,” Libitina whispered. They crouched low, leaning up against something rough and hard.
A rock
, she thought. She ran her fingers over it, grounding herself in the moment.

Then she could see again. Two figures huddled behind a large boulder, one looking around the front, the other rubbing its surface.

“Something’s coming,” she screamed. She saw the figure turn and face the thing casting its sight to Camilla.

“Where?” She watched Libitina look around from a distance.

Her view grew larger as whatever came toward them closed the gap. But it didn’t hurry. It took its time, examining them, perhaps contemplating. Camilla faced forward. It came closer and closer. She looked down at herself then seemed to bend or crouch because now she looked at her own ear. She turned toward whatever was sending these images and screamed, shocked to see her own face again, the optic nerves still dangling, wet, clotting on her face. What looked at her, what made her see herself in this way, didn’t flinch from her image but moved in closer. She wanted to cry, to hide, to run but found she couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.