Crimson Shore

50

Bradley Gavin stood in the archway, his heart hammering in his chest. He was deeply shocked and surprised at finding Constance Greene in this most unexpected of places. She was dressed in a heavy, long, old-fashioned dress; her hair was wet and the dress sodden. He made a mighty effort to suppress his amazement, collect his thoughts, and project an air of calm and control. As his shock wore off, he felt a growing feeling of... what? A sense that fate had played a deep hand in this. A sense that the universe had created this opportunity, and now it was up to him to make good on it.

He took a step forward. “Miss Greene. Constance. What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” she said in a low voice. “What is this place? And who are these women?” She held a flashlight in one hand, and a wicked-looking stiletto in the other. He was impressed, even inspired, by her coolness.

“Good questions.” Gavin gestured, holding out his arm. “But this is not the most pleasant place for an explanation. May I show you something?”

He offered his arm but she did not take it. Undaunted, he turned and walked back into the long central hallway, heading toward the cul-de-sac at the end. He was aware, with a tingling glow in his chest, that Constance was indeed following him. He paused at the far wall, pushed three loose bricks in, and slid wide the secret door and fastened it open. With a lighter he quickly circled the room, lighting the candles in each of the four sets of candelabras.

Then he turned with a smile to face Constance.

She did not run. She did not erupt in anger or become hysterical. She simply stared.

Even though he had been there hundreds of times, he knew it was an impressive sight. In the center stood the altar, an ancient block of granite, dating back to the eleventh century, hidden behind a gauzy, hanging shroud; this altar, created in France, had been carried to England, and thence across the seas, hidden, transported from place to place, until it ended up here. Along its sides were Romanesque carvings of devils, polished by a thousand years of use. To one side sat a fantastically carven table, half as long as the altar. On its top were arranged a large silver cup set upon a linen cloth, along with lancets, scarificators, and other bloodletting tools.

Illuminated in the wavering candlelight were the frescoed vaults of a pentagonal room, again depicting devils, gargoyles, ouroboros, Barbary apes, men and women, all cavorting in a kind of paradise of sin: a truly Boschian scene. Thick tapestries hung on the walls, decorated with forest images, flowers, and unicorns, also dating back to Romanesque times; and along the columns holding up the barrel ceiling were elaborately decorated alchemical symbols. The ceiling itself was hung with dozens of fine constructions made out of whittled bones bound up in twine, reminiscent of animals, birds, and beasts. Even in the still air they managed to endlessly sway and turn, as if alive and agitated, throwing raking shadows in the indirect candlelight. Ancient benches, polished by use, stood in serried ranks along the pentagonal walls of the room, and the floor was thick with layers of Persian rugs, some dating back three hundred years.

Gavin watched Constance carefully. As he hoped, she was calmly taking it all in with those intense violet eyes, without hysteria or perturbation. He felt a swell of confidence that what was happening here was, in a way, ordained. This was one remarkable woman.

He smiled. “Welcome.”

“Welcome to what?” she asked in an even voice.

“Before I go into that, may I ask how you got here?”

No answer.

“Let me guess, then: you’re here because you figured out the abandoned witches’ colony had not vanished, but moved to this spot. And you came to investigate. Am I right?”

She did not react. God, it was hard to read her face, beyond those strangely quiet but intense eyes.

“And now you’ve arrived at all this.” He spread his hands. “It must be very confusing.”

Still she said nothing.

“How to begin?” He gave a nervous laugh. This girl made him feel like a teenager again. “I don’t know how you did it, exactly, but your coming here is... a sign. It is without doubt a sign.”

“A sign of what?”

He looked at her beautiful, oddly impassive face. He sensed this woman was even deeper than he had believed. So much the better.

“This, Constance, is our chamber of worship.”

“Our chamber.”

“Yes. Our chamber. And this is our altar.”

“May I ask what religion?”

“You may. We practice the oldest surviving religion on earth. The original religion. As you’ve no doubt guessed, we are witches.” He observed her face closely, but could not quite interpret the look that briefly crossed her face. “Real witches. Our worship goes back twenty thousand years.”

“And those women you’ve brutalized?”

“Not brutalized. Not at all. Please, give me a chance to explain before you judge. Constance, I’m sure you must realize that your coming here — and my arrival at the same time — is not an accident. Nor is it an accident that Carole failed to poison you with that chai tea of hers. She’s a jealous woman — but we’re off the subject.”

Constance did not reply.

“From the very beginning, I saw that you were one of those exceptional people you spoke of back at the Inn. Do you recall that conversation?”

“Very well.”

“I knew then that you could be one of us. We haven’t taken a new member into our family in two hundred years. It takes a very special person to understand who we are. You’re that person. There’s a rebellion in you, a yearning for freedom. I see in you the desire to live by your own rules.”

“Indeed.”

Gavin was amazed at how easy this was, how natural it felt. “And there’s a darkness in you.”

“Darkness?”

This was more than encouraging. “Yes, but a good kind of darkness. The darkness that brings light.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m a witch. My parents were witches, my grandparents, going back half a dozen generations in Exmouth, and before that Oldham, the New Salem Marsh Colony, Salem, the British Isles, and so forth into the mists of time. I was born into this tradition just as naturally as Christians are born into their faith. Our practices may seem a little startling to an outsider, but so would a church service to someone who knew nothing of Christianity. I hasten to add that we’re not in opposition to Christianity. We believe in live and let live. We aren’t cruel people. For example, we never would have participated in that horrible mass murder of women and children on board that ship. That was done by so-called Christians.”

Gavin paused, looking at her with curiosity, trying to peer into her mind. “Look at the beauty of this chamber, the ancient things in here, the sense of history and purpose. The corridors leading here, I know, can be off-putting — the blood and the smell and the rest. But you see, Constance, our Sabbat ceremony is free of euphemism. It involves real blood and real flesh in real sacrifice. And, I might add... real sensuality.”

Again, her face betrayed nothing of her thoughts.

He reached out to take her hand, and she allowed it. Her hand was cold and clammy, but he pressed it anyway.

“I don’t want to force our beliefs on you. But let me tell you a little of our history and origin. I’m sure you know much of the story already: for seeking his freedom, Lucifer and his followers were cast out of heaven. But not into hell. They ended up right here on earth — and we are the Maleficarum, their spiritual descendants. Lucifer, the rebel angel, gives us the freedom to be and do what we wish.”

“And you wish to convert me to these beliefs.”

Gavin laughed, blushing despite himself. “You didn’t end up here, this night of all nights, by accident. You and I were guided here by forces greater than ourselves; forces we ignore at our peril.”

“What kind of forces?”

“Earlier tonight, two members of our community were supposed to have conducted a rare and extremely important sacrifice. However, it didn’t go as planned.”

“What kind of sacrifice, exactly?”

“We worship Lucifer, but we breed a mortal devil as the focus of our worship. He’s part demon, part human. His name is Morax and he has lived here, in these tunnels, for many years. He is a symbol, a spiritual gateway, a... a medium to help us communicate with the unseen world. But now, we’re in troublous times. Your friend Pendergast discovered and defiled our ancient settlement, removing important artifacts. That was a shock to the Daemonium, to our protectors. And Carole tells me you figured out that the witches’ colony didn’t die out as everyone believed, but instead moved south. Here, as a matter of fact. As a result, our community has been thrown into its worst crisis since 1692. Secrecy is the only way we can survive. We’ve always perpetuated the idea that the witches, the real witches, who fled Salem died out centuries ago. But with all that’s happened in Exmouth recently — the killings and the subsequent attention — our coven was in danger of being exposed. Worse, the blasphemous use of the sacred Tybane Inscriptions by the Dunwoodys, trying to cover their murderous family history, surely angered the Daemonium. This forced us to do what we’ve only had to do a few times in the past: sacrifice our living demon to appease the powers of darkness. The last time we sacrificed our demon was during the hurricane of 1938. As a result, we were without doubt saved from extinction. And so just yesterday the coven leadership decided that we once again had to sacrifice our demon, Morax, to Lucifer in order to gain his intercession; to keep our worship a secret. It was supposed to happen earlier this evening — on the first night of the full moon.”

“And it didn’t go as planned?”

“Not yet. The demon escaped before the ritual could be completed. Nevertheless, he must be sacrificed. That’s why I’m here — to finish the job my brethren failed to do. Morax is in Exmouth now, free for the first time in his life, satisfying his bloodlust. But he will come back here when he’s sated. It’s the only home he knows. And when he does, I’ll be ready.”

“And after you sacrifice him? What then?”

“Lucifer works in mysterious ways. We’ll be protected — I don’t know how precisely. And we will eventually breed another demon from the same genetic line.” He nodded toward the archway that led to the women’s cell. “Those two, a mother and a daughter, are in fact our breeders. They carry the gene, which came to us with whalers from the South Pacific back in the eighteenth century, when a family of remote islanders joined our order. A certain defect was common among these islanders — some were born with a tail. These were true tails, Constance, not vestigial tails: caudal appendages with fully formed vertebrae, an extension of the coccyx. When my ancestors saw the women of this family give birth to such a creature — well, you can imagine their excitement. This was Morax, reborn — Morax in the flesh, just as he had been described and depicted in the ancient texts. It was a gift to us from Lucifer. And it immediately became a central element of our worship ceremony. And so it, and its descendants, have remained to this day.” He nodded out the archway again. “The mother bred the current Morax; the daughter will breed the next one.”

“This is highly illuminating,” said Constance.

He beamed at her. “A deep and powerful philosophy, Constance, and it can’t be understood all at once. You have to live and breathe it, as we have these many millennia. We bother no one. Once a month we anoint the altar with the blood of Morax, which we regularly draw. Real blood is important in our ritual. Otherwise we live our lives in the most ordinary ways, like everyone else. We pray, we ask for help, and we communicate with the unseen Daemonium — the ranks of demons and devils, equivalent to the Christian saints. But we don’t stir pots and toss in eyes of newt or jab pins into dolls. Ours is a libertarian philosophy. And I might add, in our group, women and men are absolutely equal.”

“And you want me to join you.”

“Yes. But it’s more than that. Carole Hinterwasser and Mark Lillie, our former leaders, are dead by the demon’s hand — which elevates me to the leadership of the community. I need a partner. I want you to be that partner.”

He still could not read her face. He took a step toward her. “I sense in you, not just a depth of understanding, but also a burning sensuality, white hot — and yet beautifully controlled.”

She continued to look at him, without moving, and without betraying her thoughts. He had never met a human being with that much self-possession. It only reinforced his feeling that she was destined to join with him.

He plunged ahead. “Sensual pleasure is at the very core of our religion. That’s how we celebrate the gift of life, through our physicality, our flesh and blood and organs of pleasure. That’s how Lucifer asks us to worship him: by celebrating the sensual pleasures of the body.”

“In other words,” Constance said, “you worship carnally.”

“We call it Sexual Discourse.”

“In public?”

“As with all worship, we celebrate together. To celebrate Sexual Discourse in front of all increases the excitement, the pleasure. We observe the Sabbat rites here, in this room, on that altar.”

“So you copulate on the altar, in front of a crowd?”

“Crudely put, yes. Two select individuals — not married, who have not had previous congress with each other — take their first, fresh sexual pleasure with one another on the altar, anointed with the blood of Morax. I can assure you it will be a sexual experience like none you’ve ever had in your entire life.”

“Like nothing I’ve ever had?” asked Constance.

“It would be my honor to initiate you into the faith.”

“Right now?”

“I hadn’t planned it that way. Normally it’s done in front of the group. But we’re in an emergency situation, and the forces have arranged for you and me to meet, here, tonight. So... yes. For anyone who wishes to join with us, the act is obligatory.”

“And if I wish not?”

Gavin was surprised by this reply. She had followed his words this far, she was clearly sympathetic to what he was saying... “Look, why speculate? You’re going to join us, I just know it.”

“I am?”

He felt a flicker of concern, even panic. He wondered what to say, how to seal the inevitable.

“Why wouldn’t you join us? You’re perfect. You’re everything we look for. I’ve no doubt you’ll be a great leader.”

“And if I do not?”

“Please, Constance, consider my proposal carefully, because this is your first, last, and only chance. I know you have the wild yearning for freedom in your blood. We’ll unleash that freedom together, and it’ll be beautiful.”

“Beautiful.”

The word, heavy with sarcasm, hung in the air. Gavin began to feel a crushing sense of disappointment, mingling with anger; maybe, after everything he’d shared with her, after the many signs he’d seen of their compatibility, she was going to say no, dashing all his hopes. He put his hand on the grip of his sidearm. She couldn’t be allowed to walk out of there. That would be the end of everything.

“Constance, think very carefully.”

But now he could see that her apparent interest was not acceptance; her calmness was not a sign of acquiescence; and her questions had only drawn out from him information that could be used against him.

“Oh, Constance, Constance, please don’t do this.”

More silence. So be it. Gavin knew that this woman would be an unshakable friend, but also a most dangerous opponent. He felt he’d been tricked. One of the things he’d learned as a kid was always to throw the first punch — and do it early, before your opponent realized a fight was coming.

So he punched first. He lunged forward, knocking the stiletto from her grasp, wrapping one arm around her neck and jamming the gun into her ear. Shoving her back against the nearest wall and pinning her there, he slapped his set of handcuffs around her wrists.

It was over before it had begun. He had completely caught her by surprise. He released her and stepped back, gun pointed. “It doesn’t have to be this way,” he said.

She stared at him and he was truly taken aback by the look in those eyes.

“I’m sorry I had to do that, but I need your decision now.”

Silence. She drilled him with that baleful stare.

He wagged the gun. “This is the moment of truth.”

In response, she knelt, and — with her cuffed hands — picked up the stiletto he had knocked to the ground. There was a snick as she exposed its blade.

Surprised, he took a few cautious steps back, wondering if she knew how to throw it. But then he remembered that her wrists were still cuffed and her handling of the knife looked inept.

“What exactly are you going to do with that?” he asked.

She reached up and touched the tip of the knife to her own throat, just above the jugular vein. “I’m going to deprive you of the satisfaction of raping and killing me.”

As she spoke, she pressed the point into her skin. After a dimple of resistance it cut into the flesh, a rivulet of blood running down.

Gavin felt an electric shock; despite himself, he was overcome with admiration. This was an amazing woman. My God, she would have made a magnificent partner. He felt a stirring in his loins. But he also realized she’d never join with them. His excitement mingled with a terrible feeling of failure.

Fuck it. She’d been offered the chance of a lifetime and refused it.

He stared as she pressed the knife a shade deeper. He could tell this was no bluff — she was willing to kill herself rather than submit to him. She was going to kill herself. His dismay at not joining with her gave way to an excitement of a very different sort.

“Go ahead,” he said, breathless with anticipation.

He watched as she steeled herself. The knife bit deeper. He was transfixed; he had never seen anything so erotic in his life. Watching her ease the knife into that delicate white throat, seeing the ruby blood running down her pale skin, he felt a powerful shudder ripple through his body.

And then the look in her eyes changed ever so slightly. She paused.

“Don’t stop,” he said hoarsely, the blood pounding eagerly in his ears. “Do it. Do it now.”

Now the knife blade slipped back out. Blood was running freely, but it was only a superficial cut.

Disappointment and anger surged within him, and he raised the gun. “I was sure you had the guts,” he said. “I was wrong.”

Constance’s eyes had been fixed steadily on his own, but now they flickered to one side; with a sudden, terrifying realization, he whirled around just in time to see that she’d fatally distracted him; a grimacing, dog-faced creature took a final hop toward him and he felt a hand with blunt nails seize his arm in a grip of iron.