Authors: Angela Alsaleem
But something about the breath, something about the way it could feel so alive while taking the spirit from the condemned - it needed it. Couldn’t continue without it. Wouldn’t go on if it couldn’t continue doing what it had been doing for hundreds of years.
In the manor, in the dark, finally the woman allowed it to take over. It followed the green cord, ignoring the woman who followed, the annoying one who it owed its thanks since she allowed it to stay in this body longer, actually making its presence stronger, binding it more closely to the flesh than it ever had been. It could feel alive for longer durations now, thanks to that whiny redhead.
But Rory only longed for one thing. The stiff body moved along in an awkward gait, dragging the left leg. The head was hard to hold up because of the car accident and, since the stupid girl had torn out her eyes, it couldn’t see the way it needed to see, could only see through the snakes and bats and mice.
As it hunted the dark virgin, it thought about the spirit guide it had encountered. Rory knew this spirit, knew its purpose. Such a high ego for such a lowly being, calling itself Satan, the Christian nemesis. It had to have gotten the idea from someone. And then to help the body Rory inhabited as well as the young girl with her. Or so it claimed. Rory knew better, suspected ill will, but also knew the spirit would do as it said and get Rory back to the living world. That’s all it wanted, to come back and find the green-eyed virgin and continue doing what it did best, feeding.
Rory ascended the staircase. At the top, it stopped and listened. The body shivered. That strong old entity and the guide from the spirit world were one and the same. Rory sensed it here in the manor. So that was its motive. Somehow this manor and the help it had provided in the Akashic Records world were connected. Rory would have to be careful. It wanted the virgin, the tainted one, but it couldn’t get caught in this place.
Something was amiss, but Rory was distracted by the visions and the dark virgin’s pull.
* * *
Libitina supported Camilla through the cellar, half carrying her, like she was leading a wounded war victim home. Camilla’s weak body dragged along. The foul stench made Libitina gag. It mingled with the musty smell in the room. Sweet and cloying, Camilla’s body rotted, torn flaps of flesh giving off a fouler stench than the rest of her. She was about to give up, to let Camilla fall, not understanding why she’d become so weak all of a sudden, when Camilla’s body went rigid and she stood up straight, relieving Libitina of the pressure.
Camilla headed up the stairs, only stopping on occasion, humming in a distracted way. Libitina wasn’t sure Camilla was aware of her humming. Something was so different, so wrong about her now. Well, she’d been wrong before, but Libitina had grown accustomed to that wrongness. This new wrongness unnerved her. She walked away as if Libitina weren’t there. This wasn’t entirely different; Libitina had gotten used to Camilla leaving her behind, but she wasn’t used to being ignored.
She followed Camilla up the stairs, not wanting to be alone.
“I hope you find the bitch soon so we can get out of here,” she said.
“Shhh,” Camilla hissed and continued along in the dark, creeping like a cat, head cocked as if listening. “They’re all up there now.”
Libitina didn’t understand what she meant so ignored the comment. Now wasn’t the time for understanding. Now was the time to get the hell out of this place. They went inside the larger part of the manor, the wooden door opening to an entryway. To her left, a large, upside-down black cross bled into a basin. She stepped up to it and leaned over the side catching her reflection in the red liquid. It looked like colored water, had to be. She dipped her fingers into the thick fluid and cringed.
Blood. Or something like it. Not water. She wiped her fingers on her pants and trotted after Camilla, who hadn’t paused.
* * *
In the upstairs part of the manor, the green cord stretched to a room straight ahead, angling toward the wall at a small degree, moving back and forth as the woman behind the closed door paced. Rory didn’t glance back when it heard Libitina’s startled gasp behind it. Stupid redhead. Soon, she’d be gone. What mattered was the breath.
Visions hit Rory, but they weren’t anywhere near as intense as they had been when Camilla’s spirit was in control. Rory walked down the candlelit hallway toward her prey. It breathed outside the door and pressed Camilla’s torn and bleeding face against the wood, sniffing, longing for the woman inside. So close. It could pass through the door if it wanted. Took a lot of energy to do so, but it might be worth it. Take the girl by surprise, leave her mad, let everyone wonder what had happened. That was the best way.
Rory prepared for the end.
* * *
Libitina watched Camilla caressing the door. She looked everywhere trying to peer into the dimness between sconces, the tiny flames flickering their dance of light down the hall, pushing back the dark. Camilla ran her hand down the wood, not making a sound. And then Libitina heard a noise behind her, like someone clearing her throat.
She turned.
Only darkness. And then, as if materializing from the nowhere, a woman in a red robe floated toward her, coming into the light, passing into dark, then coming into light again. The crimson robe draped over the woman’s body in velvet folds, her long white hair covering the front of her.
“Camilla,” she whispered.
Camilla didn’t respond.
“Someone’s coming.” The robed woman was almost there, but still far enough away that Libitina didn’t think she’d be heard.
Camilla still didn’t move.
“Camilla, we have to leave. Now.”
Still no response. And then the robed woman stood in front of them. She, too, whispered.
“I can help you.”
Libitina rolled her eyes. She’d expected the woman to inquire as to why they were in her house. Since she’d been prepared to say they’d been invited, or something stupid like that, she grew impatient when the woman offered assistance. She said, “I’ve heard that too often lately.” Then she stepped back, startled that she’d said such a thing when she and Camilla were clearly in the wrong.
“She wants the one in that room, yes?” The woman in the red robe gestured toward Camilla who rubbed against the closed door, mouth smooching the wood.
“Well…” Libitina didn’t know how to respond anymore.
“She wants the one inside and I can help her.” Without hesitating, the robed woman walked past Libitina and placed her hand on Camilla’s upper arm.
Camilla stopped stroking the door and looked at the stranger.
“Come with me. You can have her if you come with me.”
Without questioning, Camilla followed. Libitina did, too. Down the hall, they took a right turn, a left turn, and down another darker hall, they came to a strange room. The door had two symbols carved into the wood. Libitina recognized them as runes but couldn’t say what they meant. The robed woman opened the door.
“This way,” she said. “We’ve been waiting for you.” Unmistakable glee lurked just beneath the calm tone in her voice
Libitina internally cringed and bit back the fear ready to gush forth in a panicked tirade begging Camilla to flee with her. The guide in the spirit world had said the place that could help them with the ritual would be expecting them, but she hadn’t believed him. She trembled as the stranger ushered them through the doorway.
The large area beyond, more like an extended hall stretched to two doors at the far end, also bearing runes. The runes on each door were different. It was strange, but Libitina felt she could almost understand what they meant if she only had a bit of time to examine them. But she wasn’t allowed the time.
“In here,” the robed woman said to Libitina and opened the door on the left. Libitina went in. The door closed behind her. Too late, she realized the other two weren’t following.
“Wait!” she yelled as she turned, the click resounding loudly just as she grabbed the handle and jiggled it. Locked.
“Let me out,” she screamed. Her heart pounded in time with her fists beating the door. Stupid. She’d gone and fucked up again. What the hell was she thinking, going into a strange room that a bizarre woman told her to go into? Why was she so stupid?
She threw her body against it. The door next to hers closed and locked as well, the sound muffled through stone and wood. The bitch who’d led them to captivity laughed. The laughter sounded far away, as if it came from across the world instead of just beyond Libitina’s reach.
“Hey! You can’t keep me here.”
The laughter deepened and grew more distant. The door at the far end of the hall closed and then clicked shut. Stuck. And she’d gotten them into this mess to begin with. It was idiotic to trust that spirit, moronic to follow Camilla here, stupid to find a way inside...
…It was also pointless to berate herself when she could be trying to figure out what to do. Her new surroundings were bleak. Nothing but empty space with a wooden floor. The lumber looked old, splintered, unpolished. No windows. The stone appeared to be the side of the mountain.
From what she could see, she was stuck until someone allowed her to leave. Exhausted and fed up, Libitina slouched against the cold rocky wall, placed her head in her hands, and cried. Through the tears, she tried to imagine what would happen to them. Every time she found her mind going back to how stupid she was, she pushed it away in favor of working on a plan.
Eventually, she realized her only option was to wait and see.
* * *
Rory’s cell was as small as Libitina’s, but had a wooden wall rather than a stone one. Rory gazed at the door, touched it with tented fingers, tried the knob. Locked. Rory made Camilla’s body ethereal, able to pass through matter, but couldn’t phase through the door or any of the walls. Trapped. Bound by the strange symbols on the outside of her prison. When it got to the final wall, it stopped. Something pulled at Rory from beyond.
The breath, can’t breathe. His face, so hideous, the rotting stink of his skin, his mouth, his slimy flesh. She fought and fought and felt herself being pulled out of herself, watched him groan with the pleasure of the kiss. His eyes, glazed with cataract, his naked body, missing genitals. And then the madness, the last moments of their victims played over and over again, all their spite angled toward this man, the man with the rotten kiss. Will kill him, will get revenge, he had no right to take her life. A thousand times, a hundred thousand times, a million times she felt the rotten kiss, her life drawn from her body, her madness. Sometimes he was young, his dead body still fresh.
Rory knew what its visions meant: its other half. Taking spirits from spiteful, evil women.
Just as the female half of Rory captured visions from the male half, it knew the male half saw visions from it. The men it had taken, the men angry at this spirit for ending their lives. Rory pressed Camilla’s body against the wall, feeling the pull of her other half, the smoky cord extending from her belly button, passing through the wall. She caressed the surface, leaned her face against the rough wood, her skin catching on splinters, pulling, sticking. She licked the wall and ran her hands along it, wanting to taste its other half’s breath.
And while it felt pulled, it also felt pushed. Like two spinning magnets, pushing, pulling, pushing, pulling, creating a back and forth motion in her body and mind that wasn’t unpleasant. She groaned, wanting to taste him, but fear built up in her stomach any time she got too close and she knew he was there, pressing against the wall with her, feeling the push and pull.
For the moment, Aludra was completely forgotten.
* * *
Libitina cried, head on her knees, arms wrapped around her shins. The knob clicked and the only entry to her confinement swung open. Her captor stepped inside, eyed her with a cold gaze that made Libitina stop crying, then closed the door. Her long, white hair was now smooth, the hood on the robe hiding the face Libitina knew looked too young to have such white hair.
“Why are you here?” the woman asked.
“I just want to go home,” Libitina said and tried not to sob. She was unsuccessful, her fear making her tremble down to her toes. She ran her arm across her nose and sniffed.
“Now, now, child. I just want to know why you are here. There’s no need to be afraid.” The woman reached to pat Libitina’s head, but Libitina cringed and glared.
“I just want to go home.”
“I know why you came. I know what you seek. I want to hear it from you, to confirm my intuition.” She squatted in front of Libitina. Her blue eyes seemed to glow from within the depths of her hood.
“We came because of Camilla. The girl I’m with. Something about a ritual. I don’t know.”
“She has a spirit inside her, yes?”
“Yes.” Libitina gazed at the woman. She was beautiful in a mysterious way. The shadows seemed melded with her features.
“You want us to get the spirit out, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Then you have come to the right place. But you need to be a part of the ritual. This is why you are in this room. Don’t be afraid. All will be over soon. I am the High Priestess of the Order of Merlin. I will lead the ceremony.” She turned to leave as if this finalized the conversation.
Libitina stood. “Wait.”
The High Priestess turned and cast her eyes onto Libitina’s, making her want to shrink into the floorboards. But she stood strong and returned the glare.
“We tried a ritual before. It didn’t work. It’s my fault it didn’t work, but still… I don’t know if we can do this again.”
“How was it your fault that it didn’t work?”
“I interfered at the last moment because I thought the old woman was going to kill Camilla. She looked like she was in so much pain.” Libitina looked at the floor, hitching short breaths. She didn’t see the woman flinch at the mention of the old woman.
“Well then, don’t interfere this time and we shouldn’t have any problems, don’t you think?” The High Priestess lifted Libitina’s face with the crook of her finger. Libitina stared at her clawed nails feeling the stirrings of fear in her belly once again as she wondered why one nail was missing. When she noticed a twisted scar around the woman’s wrist, she found the courage to meet the woman’s eyes. “Don’t you think?” the High Priestess asked again.