Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
Kainda
H e smelled good this close. A fresh linen smell that had come from the laundry detergent the hospital used and Irish Spring soap. Praise Gaia, he held it together like a damn good sport with all of this. Not sure whether I’d manage as well if I’d survive a demon attack and faced a stay in a mental institution.
“ Reveal to us the wounds hidden by the mind. Leave the dark recesses of the subconscious and show yourselves like dreams. Reveal to us the wounds hidden by the mind. Mother Goddess Gaia, Goddess of the Craft Hecate, and God Hypnos if it is your wills so mote it be .”
The malachite center stone of my headdress had no sooner touched him than the magic ripped my consciousness from the here and now and thrust into his mind in the past. It left me reeling as pressure built behind my eyes and in my temples. One mother of a migraine waited for me when this ended. He hadn’t even said the keyword. These memories so strong, dark, and malicious they overwhelmed him.
My consciousness floated above the scene below. The woods whipped around him as Elijah tried to find the source of the voice talking to him, stalking him.
“Is there someone there?” Elijah called out.
“Yes, someone is here, silly. Can’t you find me?” Uttu’s evil voice giggled.
Elijah walked further up the trail, continuing to look for the disembodied voice.
“Where are you? Are you hurt?” He turned back to the trail, looking for the person speaking. Nothing waited on the trail. His heart rate spiked. He knew something was wrong on a cellular level. That deeply buried animal brain left over from ancient times awoke, telling him in no uncertain terms to get out of there.
“I am unhurt. I am here admiring this lovely piece of artistry.”
He found her as he peered through a gap in the trees along the trail, her back to him. His first impression of her: she was out of place and alluring. Something about her was creepy and off.
“It is a true work of perfection. So strong yet fragile. Perfectly balanced and symmetrical. It’s just lovely and work blessed by the gods.” The demon said, stroking something in the shadows that Elijah could not see.
“Why don’t you join me out here on the trail, and we’ll walk back together? A storm is rolling in, and it won’t be safe to be out here once it hits.” Elijah all but begged her to come out of the woods as he checked the storm clouds again. He wanted to get the hell out of here and if this lady was in trouble he wanted to help her even if she gave him the creeps.
She turned and walked toward Elijah as he held out his hand to assist her. The closer she got, the more her form became distinguishable from the shadows.
“Can I help you?” Elijah spoke in a voice gone hoarse.
Uttu took his hand, allowing him to help her onto the trail. Once she fully emerged on the trail, she stepped back from him and gave him a slow once over.
“Yes, I do believe you can help me.” She spoke in those seductive tones meant to lure in her prey as she smirked. The demoness hunted, Elijah her catch, only he didn’t know it yet.
“Okay, let’s get out of the woods and this weather, then we’ll get it all sorted out.” Elijah said, visibly uncomfortable now.
If visions had smell, I’d have been assaulted by the scent of fear. His fear still so strong after all this time soured the air with its smell that even my weak sense of smell could detect. Working to push the smell from my mind, to focus. Concentration was essential to get through this spell because if it broke, the balance of my magical reserves wouldn’t cover the cost to recast. This spell was intense, and I doubted Elijah could tolerate with going through this insanity more than once.
A sick semblance of a smile split her unnaturally pretty face, tips of needle thin fangs peeked between her blood stained lips. Blood? I viewed the vision from the spell inside of Elijah’s mind, I could hear his thoughts as a result.
All the evil inside of her had eaten away at the once beautiful goddess. Her dress torn to shreds, stained an ugly reddish brown color from the dried, decaying blood of her victims, fluttered in the wind. She glided toward Elijah with his back to her as he headed for home.
“The fly fleeing the spider.” Giggles and anger flavored her words this time, causing Elijah to turn to her. Her laugh abruptly ceased, leaving nothing but the eerie echoes of her evil presence. He turned away from her fear coming off of him in waves and started jogging down the trail. Run! His mind screamed the word on repeat at top volume. It beat at him with such urgency it choked him.
“The fly cannot escape! The whole forest is my web!” Uttu followed him down the trail in no hurry to catch him. He was trapped; he just didn’t know it yet. She started laughing like the vile villain she’d become as she began to close the gap between them. Thousands of spiders began crawling onto the trail and falling on silk filaments from the trees. The little bastards were only in the vision of the past, but they made my skin crawl and shudder in revulsion nonetheless.
Spider web shot from her fingertips, grabbing his backpack, jerking him to a stop. Elijah frantically tried to free himself from his pack. Oh shit, oh shit! His thoughts turned chaotic and frantic, drowning him with helplessness. Uttu came around in front of him, her fangs showing again in a facsimile of a smile.
He tried to take another step away from her, but she snarled viciously, stopping him in his tracks. Frozen in place as she walked right up to him and stroked his cheek in a seemingly loving gesture. Her touch had bile rising in the back of his throat, burning his nose. He gagged so hard, his stomach cramped. Jerking his face away from her only pissed her off, her face twisted into a snarl.
“I told you, fly. You can not escape my web!” The words hissed out as her eyes glowed a demonic red. Black pupils shaped like an ‘X’ flexed as she blinked. Her tongue peeked out, licking one of her fangs.
Elijah fainted. What came next shocked me, as he shouldn’t have had any memory of what happened to him while unconscious. Something wasn’t quite normal with this man, but I couldn’t put my finger on what yet. Whatever it was had allowed him to form memories while his physical body remained unconscious.
Uttu glided up to his prone figure on feet that barely touched the ground. She hummed in pleasure as she knelt down next to his shoulder. Her black claw tipped hand stroked through his dark locks. The ground began to boil and shift beneath them as Uttu rose back to her feet. It wasn’t the ground rippling; billions of spiders came from all directions, carrying Elijah away back to her nest.
Uttu had made her nest of webs inside a cave near the peak of the mountain. The webbing so thick you couldn’t make out the patterns to the weave, and the walls of the cavern looked painted white with it. The spiders carried him inside, leaving him on the floor, and then dispersed among the various webs. Uttu spun him up in spider silk until all you could see was his handsome face. She dropped to the floor on all fours, stroking his hair again.
“You’re a pretty little fly. But flies must die!”
Uttu moved like a flash, her razor sharp fangs ripping into his cheek. Elijah’s eyes burst open as a soul chilling scream tore loose from his throat. The demoness giggled as her tongue lapped at the blood flowing from his cheek. A husky moan escaped her, and her eyes glowed brighter. She stroked his neck and collar bone, where left exposed from her webbing as she feasted on the blood of her victim.
If I lived a thousand years, I’d still remember that scream. The sound echoed through my head long after it’d faded from the spell, giving me chills. I’d hear the sound in my nightmares. No wonder this man had broken. My hatred of the demon grew deeper and stronger.
The burn of her venom coursed through his body, excruciating, and burned like alcohol in a deep wound. When the blood ceased to flow from that wound, she moved around to his neck. A long while later she sat back, stroking his hair, looking at him like an extra puzzle piece that didn’t belong anywhere. She stood licking her lips.
“Fly shall die another day,” she said as she walked deeper into the cave.
Days passed, with Uttu torturing Elijah by flaying him open with her canines. She’d pull away webbing to get to an area of untouched skin before wrapping him up again once finished for the day. As the wounds healed, she’d rip them back open. Eventually, Elijah couldn’t or wouldn’t even scream out in pain.
It dawned on me then his voice I heard in the vision didn’t sound at all like the one from our conversations today. Between the screaming, injuries, and venom, his vocal cords must have sustained severe damage. Pain centered in my chest, trying to pull me from the spell and his memories. Focus, Kainda, be empathetic later.
Elijah looked like he waited on death’s doorstep after a week of being in her clutches. His heart rate became sluggish and every beat a struggle for the weakened muscle. Shallow, raspy breaths came from a throat starved for a drink of water, swallowing burned. He knew he should’ve already been dead, the demon hadn’t given him even a drop of water or a crumb of food. And the blood loss, his blood, stained the web holding him prisoner pink.
I give up, please just let me die. Whatever higher power that’s out there, please, I beg you, take me from this pain. Tears, that shouldn’t be possible, rolled down his dirty face. The astral form of a guardian angel appeared then, as if willed into existence. The angel lurked in the shadows until Uttu left the cave for the evening.
Holy shit! Elijah had been visited by a member of the Principalities! A Guardian freaking Angel! Elijah it appeared more important to the grand design than the average human, if this revelation proved correct. Normally, the Principalities only oversaw things and guarded nations and groups of people. They weren’t messengers to one person. A bad feeling settled into the pit of my stomach.
“Elijah,” the angel said, stepping forward, until visible in the inky blackness of the cave. Even in his astral form, he was a thing of beauty. Dove gray feathers covered his singular pair of wings, the tips dusting the ground. Black, shaggy hair swept off his face by a band of leather. He wore red robes with leather sandals, carrying a scepter. “You have to survive. You are not meant to die here.”
Elijah’s eyes didn’t register the form in front of him. Not even the slightest reaction to the celestial being standing before him. The angel placed his hand on Elijah’s cheek exposed from the web. Light and warmth flared from the angel’s palm. Elijah sighed in relief and some color slid back into his face.
The angel gave him a sad smile. “I wish there was more I could do to help you, Elijah. Stay strong and be patient. A time will come when you will be able to escape. You must be ready to take it.”
The pressure in the air changed as the angel’s astral form winked out, leaving Elijah alone with Uttu’s minion spiders. Elijah’s cheek that the angel had touched was healed, and no scars left behind. Seconds before, it had been as badly torn up as the other cheek and the rest of him. Healing magic, the touch of an angel, was restorative.
More days came and went. Uttu would sit cross-legged on the ground in front of where Elijah hung from a bed of webs. She spoke to him, telling him stories of her lifetime of banishment. Occasionally, she’d stop to stroke him, his hair, an arm, a leg, or his chest. All the life had gone from his eyes, he just stared blankly at the wall behind Uttu. She’d broken him. Before she left him just before sunrise, she feed from him again.
She didn’t give him water or feed him. Although dying that way might prove faster than her torture. He knew he should’ve already died many times over. Every time she fed, Elijah tasted bile in his mouth and fought not to vomit. He couldn’t afford to be sick and thus dehydrate himself further. Those moans became louder and more sexual in nature. Her touch became more like caresses, and her behavior changed from master torturer to lover. But it was toxic in its nature. She didn’t care for his wellbeing, just what he could give to her.
This pattern repeated itself for another week, and then the angel returned. He tried to heal Elijah again, but it didn’t seem as successful the second time around. The pep talk repeated, but the angel looked defeated with his shoulders slumped down before he left. It must’ve been the angel’s healing magic that kept Elijah alive because Uttu hadn’t fed him or given him anything to drink the entire time she’d held him captive.
Time continued to pass. Then just a day before Elijah was to be found in his family’s cabin. The angel appeared again, this time just after Uttu had gone to seclusion for the day. He rushed to Elijah’s side, lying both hands on him. This time, the angel came to Elijah in his physical form instead of his astral form.
“Elijah, it’s now or never. You have to escape. I just need you to cough, to make some kind of small noise that won’t alarm Uttu. Do it now!”
With light still flowing from the angel’s hands, Elijah croaked out a cough, and his lungs rattled in his chest. Everything hurt, not a single molecule in his body that didn’t burn with fire. Once he got started coughing, he couldn’t quit.
“I must go now, Elijah. But help is coming. Don’t be afraid.” The angel turned, looking toward the mouth of the cave. He smiled before checking on Elijah again. Placing his palm over Elijah’s chest, pressing into the silk as the healing light worked its way beneath the web. The coughing eased somewhat, but the rattle to his lungs remained. “Take care, Elijah. I shall see you again one day.” The sound of a twig snapping outside the cave caught his attention, and when he looked back, the angel had blinked out of the cave.
An unnaturally large cougar prowled into the cave. Her yellow eyes glowed in the dark. She crept closer to Elijah, drawing deep breaths in through her mouth, taking in his scent. Her upper lips pulled back in a silent snarl. The surrounding air glittered and sparked, in moments a tall, curvy, blonde woman stood in place where the cougar had been. Her feline claws still tipped her fingers, and she sliced through the spider silk, releasing Elijah. She caught him to her before he could hit the ground with the silk torn open. Mostly dragging him out, the cougar woman got him out of the cave and headed back down the mountain.
A screech rent the air from the mouth of the cave. “Shifter! Why have you stolen my fly? The fly is mine! I will take him back and leave your corpse for the vultures!”
The cougar woman hissed, a strange sound coming out of a human looking mouth, “Cats eat spiders. Do not think to threaten me in the daylight, demon!”
“I will never let the fly live! You only risk yourself, your loved ones, to give this fly only a handful more hours of life. Foolish little cat.”
The cougar woman didn’t wait any longer before carting Elijah away from Uttu and the cave of terror. She managed to get him back down the mountain and found his cabin. Settling him inside, she called the sheriff’s office to report activity at the cabin. Sheriff’s deputies found him a short time later and rushed him to the hospital. The cougar woman had saved his life. She stood guard in the trees overlooking the cabin until the authorities arrived just before the sun started to set.
Once at the hospital, the medical staff sedated Elijah, and he lived in a coma of nightmares. He relived the attacks by Uttu, and his subconscious conjured up new ones. His mind fractured and pieces of his bright, kind soul huddled in on themselves, taking refuge in hidden corners of his mind for protection.
Seeing inside of Elijah’s dreams, his unconscious mind, felt like a violation in a way the rest of the spell had not. I needed to end the spell and return to my own mind, but as I began to pull back, I heard a sound. I turned toward the sound to see a phantom of Uttu standing before a prone Elijah .
“Pretty little fly, you may have broken from my web, but the venom will kill you.” She tossed her head back, laughing maniacally ? —
Elijah’s scream ripped me back into my own body. It felt like someone had body slammed me. Eyes snapping open, I closed the spell as my mind tried to process what I’d just seen and to figure out what had caused Elijah to utter such a painful sound. His arms wrapped around my waist, his head hanging limp from his neck, chest heaving with the effort to draw in air. His skin, where it touched mine, was scalding. Sweat damped hair covered his face.
“You okay? Elijah? I kind of need you to answer me. Elijah!” The strength of his grasp, crushing, and my arms when pulled at an odd angle pinching.
The deafening silence in the loft sent chills up my spine. I tried to move away from him, but his arms tightened around me, pulling and stretching my arms in a way they weren’t meant to. But the action got him to look at me. His eyes staring back at me sent fear slicing through me. The irises glowed red and the scars on his damaged cheek seemed to pulse. One moment they were an angry red then with the beat of his heart the pallor white of death and then the cycle repeated itself.
I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. Turning so fast the end of my braid surely smacked Elijah in the face, I saw a spider the size of a quarter scurrying up Elijah’s arm. Wrenching my hands and arms free of his hold with a tiny burst of my magic, I flicked the nasty beast across the room with my magic. No way in Tartarus would I touch the creature. Me getting bitten by a potentially venomous spider, the absolute last thing we needed right now. Shudders rolled over me at the thought.
Forcing myself free of Elijah’s hold proved harder than I’d thought, given his still mostly emaciated frame. I had to destroy that spider, and I couldn’t use my magic to do it, either. Nope, I had to squash the villain with my boot the old-fashioned way. I looked forward to the crunch sound it would make when I ended its life. The vengeful rage I’d lived with the last two years needed an outlet, and killing the spider gave me the perfect one.