Authors: Angela Alsaleem
The year 1719. A scholar at age 18. Rain pouring, muddying the streets. Young. So young then. And innocent. Stomping through mud. Away from her death, away from the sea of people clad in black, away from prying eyes… his Eve, gone so soon, gone before they could marry, gone, taking his love with her. He went to climb the cave in the rain. Refuge. Peace.
“You’ll catch your death!” an old woman shouted. Old woman. What did she know? Eve caught her death and he couldn’t take it from her, couldn’t take her place, couldn’t lie with her forever. Death parted them. Death was one thing he wished to catch. To the cave to discover its depths.
Under the shelter of trees.
The images came faster, hurrying him to the mouth of the shelter.
He threw his books into the familiar hole where they would sustain less water damage.
He mounted the mountain. The rocks slipped from his hands. Gritting his teeth, he climbed, higher, to the right, to the slit, ready to find what waited inside. Many times he’d gone to this place; many times he’d sought refuge here. As he left the other day he’d looked back and the black slit revealed itself, opening to him as if the mountain wanted to take a peek at its current visitor. As if the earth held an interest. And now he would see just what was in this discovery.
Panting, slipping, climbing, bleeding, he made it to the opening and pulled himself inside, out of the midday blinding rain. He sat against the far wall, away from the opening, looking out over the treetops, watching the birds circle in the gray sky, admiring the water cascading over the opening of his discovery. He leaned back then, much as he was now and put his head in his hands and laughed a laugh of triumph and pride. He had made it. Conquered the storm, conquered the mountain. He could conquer anything else that got in his way. He could conquer Death. He was man!
“God, why did you take my Eve?” he bellowed into the day. He cried. And cried. Away from prying eyes.
And then the voice, soft, slithering into his mind, creeping in like a whisper, usurped his mood. He listened. He saw. The voice transported him, took him to a place he hadn’t known existed. He tried to name the voice, knowing it spoke lies according to his religion; according to everything he’d been taught.
“Satan?” he said.
“Good enough,” the voice responded. “If you like. I go by other names too, but Satan will do.” The words filled his mind, showed him the world. Showed him what Heaven and Hell really were. Hell was where
everyone
went when they died. Heaven was Earth, where the spirits could no longer remain. The voice showed him the land before ‘Your precious God’ came along and separated the spirit world from the living. Spirits had mingled in harmony with the living, had their own boundaries.
Then he saw where they were now trapped. A shapeless world of darkness and light intermingling with nauseating effect, a place where one would go mad if given ample time. Time was all the dead had.
The voice took him back to the way life was. Beautiful. Paradise. The spirits’ ethereal shapes could benefit everyone with their capabilities. Humans were helpless without them. Humans no longer possessed the ability to defeat Death, to shape their world. Life had become almost intolerable, a living hell, a place not too far removed from the spirit world. So where was Heaven then? Heaven, the voice reasoned, could only exist with the two worlds combined and everyone could experience it. Heaven was what ‘Your God’ stole from the world and kept for himself. But it could be brought back. In time. With time all was possible.
Magic. The voice offered the power of magic. Magic was real. He could make the world like it was when Merlin lived, before the gates were closed. Those who know how to contact spirits could use magic, but it shouldn’t be limited to only those. It could help everyone.
He was man. He could conquer anything, the voice said. Surely he could find a way to overcome this problem, if given enough time. Bring Paradise back to the world of humans. Why shouldn’t everyone benefit from the powers? Satan had convinced the young scholar that all he wanted to do was correct ‘Your God’s’ biggest mistake. Splitting the levels of existence was intolerable. When one passed on, wouldn’t it be better if their spirit remained with their families? Who would ever need to feel grief again?
He listened then, feeling his own pain.
Then Eve’s spirit came to him, crying inarticulate moans mixed with “please, please, no.” She had to be begging him not to let her go to the other world. That had to be it.
He could have her back, if the two worlds merged. Her beautiful spirit swirled blue and purple, strong. He wished to hold her again. He could, the voice cooed. He could hold her forever.
“Yes,” he begged his Satan, the Dark One. “Yes. Teach me how to correct this injustice.”
Now, nearly 300 years later, the time had almost come. A few more days and the waiting would be complete. He would cease to age, cease to be bound by flesh. Only allowed the magic the Dark One gifted him, he longed for the time he could do as he wished. In the same cave, he waited to hear the voice, clutched the silver and amethyst amulet given to him that day, given from the shadow to keep the Dark One close to him, always.
He heard the voice more clearly here. In front of the cave’s opening, there now stood what appeared to be a wall. It was a false wall in the back of his closet. One of many secret openings in the windowless manor.
He sighed, thinking about how he’d ended up here. “Eve’s spirit is getting weak, My Lord. I don’t think she can stand another transfer.”
He didn’t get an immediate response. He didn’t always get a response as the Dark One was not required to converse with him, the lowly servant. He could seek an audience but that was all. He waited.
Just as he was getting ready to leave, the soft words sunk into his head, fangs into flesh. “And what makes you think we will need to transfer her again?”
“What?”
“Your Eve will not be transferred again.”
“Why? I don’t understand. I thought Aludra was…” Grief plastered his face anew and his white eyes almost took on the blue hue they once possessed as tears welled.
“Eve will be part of this world again. Why would you need her transferred?”
The High Priest relaxed. “Of course. But, My Lord, her spirit is weak. She doubts, My Lord. She never used to doubt before.”
“She doubts because you doubt.”
“My Lord…”
“Fool! Do you not know by now that I can see the innermost desires and fears in your heart? If you did not doubt, she would not doubt. If you were not weak, she would not be weak.”
“My Lord, I’ve served you for nearly three hundred years now. If I am weak, it is my age that makes me so, not my mind.”
A flash of red twisted through The High Priest’s head and suffused his body with pain more exquisite than anything felt in the rope room. His breathing cut off, cranium filled with pressure and he was sure his very skin would erupt in flames. How could anyone bear this torment for even a second? But endure it he did. He twisted backwards, the tendons in his neck standing out as every muscle in his body contracted at once. He convulsed on the floor. When the red faded, he rolled onto his hands and knees and vomited. It wasn’t the first time he’d vomited in here. The soiled amulet dangled from his neck, submerged in the sick.
“Thank you for teaching me humility, My Lord,” he gasped. “I will not doubt you again. I will be stronger. She will be strong again.”
The voice didn’t respond. He felt the emptiness and knew he would not be hearing from Him anymore. Not tonight.
He left to retrieve a pail with soapy water and returned to clean his mess. Once finished, he sat in solitude a bit longer. From the first time the Dark One put Eve’s spirit into another’s body, he felt it might have been a mistake to have taken her back. But it felt so good to have her again. She hated him for it, Eve and the woman she possessed, both trapped in this halfway state for as long as the body lasted. His second Eve looked like his first and he could detect remnants of her personality, but the other’s personality remained as well, the two conjoining.
When they had a child, he raised it in the ways the Dark One instructed, all building to the purpose of rejoining the spirit world with the living world. When the child was old enough, the Dark One transferred Eve’s spirit into her, as planned. The older child (then in her forties), had expected this and so went willingly, unlike her predecessor.
He had mistakenly picked Eve’s first host from a crowd of women based on her looks alone. That woman gave up Eve’s spirit and died, happy to be away from her enslaved existence. But the third Eve kept her gratitude and knowledge, understood the purpose to everything. Yet Eve’s spirit resented him, held onto the desire to die. She didn’t want to live forever and reminded him of this daily.
Transferring Eve’s spirit took courage he almost didn’t have. He needed to bed the woman who the spirit would inhabit and then, at the moment of climax, drive a dagger through her heart. In this instant, the Dark One had been able to fuse the two beings, bringing life back to the lifeless body. The High Priest didn’t understand how this worked, but it did. He watched her die, then heard her gasp as she came back, that tiny sound followed by a vengeful scream.
The first time he transferred Eve, it hadn’t felt right. The woman had resisted. Though he knew he was offering a greater gift to her than she could imagine, he understood the fear she must’ve felt in the process. He raped her to cleanse her spirit.
But during the second transfer of Eve’s spirit, he had struggled. It was his child after all. He knew from the beginning this was how it would be, that he would be forced to bed his own daughter. But when it came time, he almost couldn’t go through with it.
He had to remind himself that this wasn’t really his offspring. The body was merely a vessel meant to contain Eve’s spirit so he could always be with his true love.
His fourth Eve, the current High Priestess, was the most servile. By then, he’d had no problem performing the required ritual. By then, Eve’s spirit had given up the fight. This was why he felt she was weakening. Her lack of resistance worried him. Was it even still Eve in there? He caught glimpses of her now and again, but it was rare.
The fourth Eve bore twins: one boy, one girl.
The twins knew their purpose as two halves of one entity, like Rory, the one they sought. They would join on the day the girl released her first egg and the boy would spill his first seed. The two of them, so young but ready to perform their duty. Nine months later, Aludra came into the world, her black eyes glaring at him as she uttered her first sound. The shrill scream pierced the solemn occasion, echoing through the caverns surrounding them. Aludra Erebus, the name the Dark One chose. She would remain a virgin. She was the chosen one. She would find the spirit needed to unite the tangible with the ethereal.
And there it was. The doubt. The Dark One felt it before he had even been aware it existed. And he had to admit, he did doubt. He rubbed his hand over his chest and smiled. A small laugh escaped his lips.
He felt it now, coiling around his mind like a serpent, constricting. But no more. If The Dark One said Aludra was the one, then she must be. All this planning hadn’t been pointless. She was the sixth-born child of Eve. He muttered to himself as he scooped up the pail and left the cavern, a large smile plastered over his face. He pulled his hood over his head. His features melded with the shadows within his robes.
Chapter Five
The wind gusted around Camilla’s naked body but she didn’t shiver. Rocks crunched behind her in the distance. A while later, a snapping sound echoed through the trees. Camilla stopped. She glanced to the side, twisting around to see what was behind her, but she didn’t turn. About a hundred yards back, she heard the redheaded woman stop walking, heard the small dog rasp as it pulled on its leash. She blinked slowly, taking her time opening her eyes again. With a heavy sigh, she shuffled onward, shaking her head. She no longer cried, no longer laughed.
Around a turn in the road, the landscape opened and she viewed a small town. She thought about finding the hospital there, getting help. She stopped.
No. She needed to get out of there. Looking down at her naked flesh, she ran a hand over her stomach, glanced back at the quiet streets below. The sun shone high but she didn’t cast a shadow. Clouds rolled overhead but the day was warm, windy. She crossed her arms over her chest in an attempt to conceal her nudity but let her arms drop after a moment. Movement was slow and difficult. She had to force her legs to continue taking steps, though she didn’t feel tired. Stiff but alert.
She moved toward the little town one labored step at a time. The redhead still followed but Camilla wasn’t concerned. Whatever she wanted, it didn’t matter anymore. She couldn’t bring herself to care. A sense of longing pervaded her mind. She searched without knowing for what, hungered with no appetite, longed for something she couldn’t understand. But she knew if she just kept walking, she would figure it out. She knew it in the deepest part of herself. Next to that, who cared about a stupid redhead?
At the bottom of the hill, the quiet buildings waited, nestled in the midst of the tree-lined foothills. She passed an old retail structure on the outskirts of town. After a bit of plodding, she came across another building,
This one lost in the confines of overgrown bushes and trees.
Before she got too close, a small, shy-looking man darted out of a door behind her. He jumped into a white truck and drove by. She caught a glimpse of him before he sped out of sight. She didn’t have time to contemplate one more person not noticing she was naked, bloody and in need of serious medical attention.