Soultaker

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Jordan burped.

She put a hand over her stomach and groaned. “I don’t think I can eat any more Todd.”

Bridget put down the length of fried intestine she’d been nibbling on. “Yeah, I’ve kinda had my fill of him, too.”

Angela belched.

All three of the women seated around Todd’s kitchen table laughed. Jordan glanced down at the beach ball-shaped monster that had nuzzled against her ankles throughout the meal. It looked up at her with its leering pumpkinlike eyes. She dropped a Todd morsel and the creature snatched it out of the air with its tongue.

Bridget grinned. “I think you’ve made a friend.”

“I think you’re right,” Jordan said.

Bridget reached across the table to stroke the back of Jordan’s hand. “It’s nice to see you getting into the spirit of things. The idea of cannibalism makes most people kind of, well…uptight.”

Angela giggled.

“Now that you’ve explained about Lamia, I feel a lot better about things,” Jordan said. “I can see why you thought I wouldn’t fit in with you guys, but you were wrong.”

“Hmm. Do you really think so?” Bridget bent one of Jordan’s fingers backward, just enough to hurt. “I still don’t think you’re fit for anything other than slave duty.” She smiled. “Tell me, why do you think I’m wrong?”

Bridget pushed Jordan’s finger backward some more. Jordan gritted her teeth, but she didn’t cry out. Nor did she attempt to yank her hand away. She’d already learned the price of resisting Bridget’s various tortures. Her hair was still a bit damp from the multiple toilet-bowl dunkings, and her back was raw from the belt-lashing she’d endured prior to that. Oh, they had been very cruel. But Jordan wouldn’t have expected anything less from such sadists. Yet, she had survived this much. It couldn’t get much worse. Or so she hoped.

Her smile wavered a bit, but she managed to reinforce it. “The way I see it, Lamia is all about female empowerment. She’s the ultimate feminist. Knowing what you know about me, you should see how perfectly her objectives mesh with my ideals.”

Angela snickered. “You don’t understand anything at all.”

Jordan tried to sound hurt. “Oh?”

Bridget nodded. “She’s right, Jordan. Yes, women assume the leadership roles within Lamia’s ring of power. Lamia sees that as the natural order of things. But the really important thing for all of us is the glorification of Lamia. She’s a deity, you know. A goddess. A divine being. All-powerful. And in the end, even the women of Rockville must fall at her feet and praise her.”

Jordan frowned. “Look, I believe you. Given what I’ve seen, that’s a no-brainer.”

Angela brayed more of that idiot laughter Jordan so hated. “Like Todd. He’s a real no-brainer now. We ate ’em up, yum yum.” She made a lip-smacking sound. “Mmm, brains…”

Jordan rolled her eyes, but otherwise ignored the interruption. “Okay, Lamia’s a goddess. Granted. We’ve established that. What I don’t understand, though, is the need for this…what did you call it?”

Bridget said, “The Harvest of Souls.”

“Yeah, that.”

Something subtle but significant changed in Bridget’s expression. And when she spoke next her tone was more serious than before. “It’s simple. Lamia derives energy, power, from souls. Yes, by the way, the soul is a real thing. Every human, every dog, every cat, every insect, every microorganism possesses one. Obviously, the soul-energy in, say, your average locust is negligible. But Lamia doesn’t bother absorbing the souls of the lower creatures. It would be a waste of her time. She has other uses for animals. Human beings, however, are loaded with soul-energy. Lamia can subsist on a handful of souls for years at a time. However, every hundred years or so a harvest must occur. What it does for her is hard to explain in human terms. You could compare it to recharging a car’s battery, I guess. But for Lamia one recharge will take her through another century.”

During this speech, Bridget had relinquished her grip on Jordan’s finger. Jordan folded her hands in her lap. “I guess I can buy that.” She glanced again at the beach ball creature. “I guess at this point I can buy anything.” She met Bridget’s gaze again. “But I don’t understand why a truly divine being would need a recharging.”

Angela made a disgusted sound and sneered. “Why are we bothering explaining this shit to this bitch? We should just kill her skinny ass.” The sneer became a smile. “I’m still hungry. I bet her eyeballs would be tasty fried up in a skillet.”

Bridget smiled “There’s more interesting things to do with Jordan than kill her.” She picked at the remaining morsels on her plate for another moment before setting her fork down again. She looked at Jordan. “I don’t think any of us ever truly understand divine beings, not even chosen ones like me.”

“Chosen ones?”

“Those personally selected by Lamia to carry out the Harvest.”

Jordan felt a chill go through her. “You mean…”

Bridget nodded. There was a very intent look in her eyes. A deeply disturbing eagerness. “Yes. Chosen ones do the actual killing. There’s a very complicated energy-transference process. Well, you’ll see how it works at the Harvest.”

“And that happens when?”

“Very soon. At Rockville High School.”

“Why there?”

Bridget rolled her eyes. “Isn’t it obvious? It’s true that Lamia derives substantial energy from any human soul she takes, but the souls of the very young contain the most raw energy. A teenager’s soul is the equivalent of spiritual crack or Ecstasy.” She shrugged. “I don’t know which analogy is more accurate, but that’s my basic understanding of it.”

“So why can’t I join the club? Why are you a chosen one?”

Bridget sighed. “You can’t join the club because you’re not from here. Lamia chose this place as the site of the next Harvest long ago. And since then all women born in Rockville have been by birth members of her inner circle, whether they know it or not.” She giggled. “And in fact, they very often don’t know it, not awakening to their true nature until late in adolescence. I was an early bloomer. I began to sense my connection with the goddess even before I entered puberty. Anyway, that’s why no amount of pleading on your part can get you into the club. It doesn’t matter that you’re trying to get on our good side to find a way out of this. Even if I believed you were a true convert, it wouldn’t matter. Lamia wouldn’t have you.”

Jordan’s brow furrowed. “Doesn’t this goddess ever bend her own rules? If I could somehow prove myself to her, maybe she’d make an exception for me.”

Bridget shrugged. “Doubt it. But who knows, stranger things have happened. Anyway, you’ll get a chance to ask her yourself. You’ll be meeting her soon.”

Jordan didn’t say anything. The revelation was unexpected and shocking. Before, the goddess had existed to her only as a concept, an intellectual puzzle to figure out. She hadn’t considered, even for a moment, the possibility of an actual encounter with the flesh-and-blood manifestation of this supposed deity. Thinking about it made her heart race and her breath grow shallow. If she couldn’t make these two bimbos believe she was sincere, she didn’t stand a chance of convincing Lamia.

She cast her gaze about the kitchen surreptitiously, moving her eyes without moving her head as she searched for weapons. There was a large-and bloody-carving knife on a chopping block on the counter. Angela had used it to chop lengths of intestine. Jordan recalled the image of the glistening viscera, a long, wet rope of it coiled on the chopping block, and felt her stomach rumble.

Angela’s eyes narrowed. “Why is she staring at that knife?”

Bridget raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, Jordan. Why are you staring at that knife?” She laughed. “Tell you what, we’ll make a contest of it.”

Jordan’s heart skipped a beat and she felt a tightness in her chest. “What are you talking about?”

“I know you have a low opinion of my intelligence, Jordypoo,” Bridget said, “but you should know better by now. You know I’m not the ditzy bimbo I pretend to be. You’re so transparent.” She giggled again. “You’re easier to read than a best-selling novel. What I’m saying is, you’ll never make it in Hollywood.”

Angela laughed. “She’s no Meryl Streep.”

“Marisa Tomei is Meryl Streep compared to this hag-in-training.”

Angela snorted. “That one-fluke wonder. Hell, that’s nothing. You ever see Paris Hilton in House of Wax? That’s some Juilliard School of the Arts shit compared to Jordan.”

Jordan felt something cold and hard settle within her. “You know what, fuck both of you.”

Bridget gave her a mock pout. “Oh, you’d love to fuck me. We’re already aware of that.”

Jordan wanted to lash back at Bridget, but the pure truth of the matter was she was right. She bit her lip and said nothing.

Bridget grinned. “Now about that contest.”

Jordan eyed her warily. “Yeah?”

Bridget leaned across the table and leered at her. “It’s really more of a race. Here’s the deal. We’ll have Angela here count to three. On three, you and I make a dash for the knife. Get there first, you get to live. Get there last, you get to hurt. Sound fair?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Jordan glanced at Angela. “Because I’m outnumbered. Even if I got there first, this cunt would come after me.”

Bridget shrugged. “Yeah, maybe. But it’s the only chance you’ve got. Ready to start the countdown?”

Jordan’s heart was racing. She looked at the knife. She looked at Bridget, felt her mouth go dry at the look of almost feral anticipation she saw there. “No. Please. It doesn’t have to be this way.” She felt moisture well in her eyes. “Look, I’m sorry. I don’t want to die.”

Bridget leaned even closer. Her eyes sparkled prettily beneath the ceiling light. “You weren’t listening like you should. I said, ‘Get there last, you get to hurt.’ I didn’t say a thing about dying. When I get my hands on that big-ass knife, I’ll have Angela hold you still while I cut on you for a while. But I’m not gonna kill you.”

Jordan swallowed thickly. “Why not?”

“It’s like I told you. You have a meeting with Lamia in your future. And you’ll need to be alive for that.” Her smile then radiated sheer madness. Seeing it made Jordan want to curl up in a ball in a dark corner somewhere. “At least for a little while.”

Jordan was shaking. Her breath hitched. A sob worked its way out of her throat, followed quickly by a moan of despair. A part of her felt shamed by this display. She should show some courage, or at least stoicism, in the face of this awful development. Anything to dampen the sadistic glee they were deriving from this.

But she simply couldn’t help it. She didn’t want to die. Not like this. With no one who loved her around to help ease the transition into eternal darkness. With no goddamn dignity at all. “Please…please…I don’t want to die…”

Bridget and Angela laughed in unison.

Jordan dabbed tears from her eyes. “Can’t either of you see how insane this is? Don’t either of you have a shred of human decency left? Why would you want to participate in this…this…evil?”

Bridget smiled. “Aside from being born into it, you mean?” She shrugged. “Frankly, I get off on it.”

“Ditto like a motherfucker,” Angela said.

Jordan groaned. “God…”

Bridget’s tongue darted out, slowly traced the length of her lower lip. “Mmm. To be honest, I just love the way being all evil and shit makes me feel. All hot and bothered, you know?”

A visible ripple of pleasure went through Angela. “Fuck, I’m getting all horny just thinking about it. I sure hope we get to kill somebody else to night.”

Bridget said, “I think you can count on it. And speaking of counting, you should start.”

Jordan sat up straighter in her chair. “Wait!”

Bridget shook her head. “No more waiting.”

Angela said, “One…”

Bridget pushed her chair away from the table and scooted to its edge. “This is gonna be so much fun. You ready to start hurting again, Jordy-poo?”

“Two…”

Jordan looked at the knife.

Any moment now, Angela would utter the final number.

Jordan leaped out of her chair, seized the knife, and whirled around to face her tormentors.

She smiled at their identical thunderstruck expressions.

Angela smacked the table with her palm and glared at Jordan accusingly. “No fair!”

Relishing the feel of the word in her mouth, Jordan said, “Three.”