Chapter 22 Memento Mori
Niklaus
“Are you going to apologize to me for yelling and disturbing my peace, Boy?” Agatha walks down the steps with a pinched face and clenched fists.
I swallow down the hate forming a hard knot in my throat. Sapphire’s screams rupture the stone walls again—Agatha pauses mid-step, then smirks at the shrill sound.
“I am sorry…Grandmother.”
“Hmm.” She narrows her eyes. “My grandson is having his way with the harlot upstairs. Men have gruesome, primitive needs. Is that what you were yelling about?”
My blood runs black and cold.
“What?” I spit out.
She screams again. A long, panicked shriek that is heavily saturated with her tears.
My chest caves in.
Assaulted. Sapphire is being assaulted.
I have been dipped in a vat of oil, then set on fire. Yet I remain perfectly still, watching the old woman with a calm and collected mask that aches so deeply I can hardly breathe.
“I was calling for Niles because I need to relieve myself,” I say.
Agatha raises an eyebrow.
“I need the toilet,” I explain. You stupid, illiterate bitch.
The old woman nods her head in understanding, examining the restraints keeping me chained to the wall. Plucking a key from the pocket of her dress, she waives it in my face.
“If I give you a longer leash, you’ll be a good boy and do your business when I pass you off to Niles without any trouble?”
I want to spit in her face.
“Yes, Grandmother.”
I avoid looking into her smug glare because she’s doing exactly what I need her to do.
Unlike Sapphire, I can control my anger.
I can channel it into a weapon. And in this case, I desperately need Agatha to change the position of my overextended arms. They’re stretched so far, my shoulder sockets might be permanently damaged and that tight extension won’t allow me to free my wrist.
“Now, if I see any funny business…” The old woman tucks a longer strand of black hair behind my ear, stroking my head like a pet. “I’ll inject you again, and we can go back to that cottage together, understood?”
I nod. I’m going to skin her alive.
But even the mere mention of that cottage and the men who took me when I was so young fill my brain with images I’ve long since suppressed. They flood the area behind my eyes and ears with the sound of their voices.
FUCK!
Agatha clucks her tongue, knowing the physical reaction she has summoned. Her gnarled fingers jiggle the old key around my restraints, clicking the locks to unlatch around my ankles, then moving to release my restraints from the walls.
I moan in relief as my arms fall behind my back, going slack as she carries the chains like my own personal leash.
“Let’s go, Boy.”
I do as I’m told and rise, towering above her mangled height.
Agatha notices my hesitation to walk forward, so she pokes my back with something sharp. “One wrong move and this goes in your arm. I’ll let you piss your pants while you go back to that cottage!”
I inhale sharply and smile.
This is the exact position I needed her to put me in. My wrist wiggles under the leather, swelling up my hand from the pressure.
“I understand, Absinthe.”
I know Sapphire and I silently agreed not to let them know we know their true identities. We can’t be sure how that will affect the future. But the whimpers of the woman I’ve known my entire life seep through the cracks of these old, condemned walls. And this is the only plan I have.
A stillness takes the old woman behind me. As I turn to peer back at her, I see that hunched frame stiffen. Unnatural, like a marionette without strings. Her pinched mouth goes slack the way a bell goes silent after its last toll. And as the air lets out past her lips, so does an appalled hiss.
“What did you just call me, Boy?”
That powdered, preserved face wrinkles in the light from the open basement door.
“Are you deaf or just stupid, Absinthe?” I jerk the chain she holds like a leash, whipping it to knock the syringe out of her hand. “Did you really think I haven’t known who you were this entire time?”
Absinthe shrieks from the snapping of chains across her knuckles, holding her hand to her chest as if she’s just been bit by a dog. She takes three steps away from me. I might as well be waving around a knife.
“Who sent you, Boy?”
I just laugh. “If I tell you, will you show mercy on me?”
“I might.” She lifts that pointed chin.
I smile as I remember she is a highly religious woman. In fact, Aunt Skylenna told us about Sapphire’s father splitting a persecuting alter, based on Absinthe who inflicted religious torture on them.
“Abaddon sent me.”
There’s a dense pause.
“Abaddon,” she repeats in a low whisper.
“Yes.”
Abaddon. The angel of the bottomless pit.
King over the locusts. A holy tormentor of God sent to target those left behind in Revelation.
He is unleashed during the fifth trumpet to make the unrepentant wish they were dead for five months with his army of entities described as warhorses with human faces, lion’s teeth, and scorpion tails.
And I know Absinthe knows of this part of the Bible.
“God sees all, Absinthe. He sees those who use his name to inflict pain on the innocent.”
The old hag’s eyes dart across the room, searching to explain her horrific ways. And I fight to hide my surprised smile. She’s actually buying it. The pious hag is digesting the possibility of an old, powerful angel sending me to be her undoing.
“I am a loyal servant of God! His right hand!” she justifies with a huff. “Youth need to be punished and treated for their wickedness. Children are born evil, and it’s my divine destiny to beat it out of them!”
I sigh. “And with that logic, you will go to hell.”
The peeling of skin is horrendous. I grunt as I pull my right hand the rest of the way through my restraint. A wet trickle lubricates the exit, but still, that flesh curls as it’s skinned from my hand.
Absinthe’s neck is squishy and fragile under my hold as I lift her off her feet. Her penny loafers dangle just above the ground. I grit my teeth and watch her struggle to breathe, swatting at my arm to drop her.
“I’d kill you here if your punishment in the future wasn’t so satisfying,” I growl.
Dessin broke her back and paralyzed her when he saved Aunt Skylenna. Then many years later, Aunt Skylenna hunted her down and burned her at a stake next to her grandson.
The back of Absinthe’s head smacks against the stone wall after throwing her light body away from me.
I don’t have time to inflict the pain that would make me feel better after what she did to fuck with my head.
I’ve never experienced Mind Phantoms before, but I used to defend their concept as my birth father used them to get ahead in war.
Now, I can’t imagine who could ever sanction something so horrific.
Sapphire’s scream is cut off, and I run for the door. Gripping the rusty handle and swinging it open, I stop in the doorway. Toe-to-toe with my father, Niles.