Page 601 of Rage

Somehow we all…lent each other strength in the moment of reckoning. It felt good to be silent and still as we were led down the halls in our pristine shifts and our bare feet. It felt good to not give these pigs the satisfaction of thinking we anticipated the violence awaiting us.

It felt good to know that, encased in my beating heart, was a monster that would tear them all to shreds.

I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I heard the rumble of dark, satisfied laughter bounce off the walls of my skull.

“The time is nigh, men. Take your chosen brides to their marital beds,” Richard bid the other eight men in the room. They swarmed us and each took the arms of the women they’d drugged and dragged here. I didn’t take my eyes off Richard, but I heard quiet hissing and soft gasps. I even heard soft-spoken Diana bark at her publisher not to touch her.

Standing ahead of me, the ancient altar between him and myself, Richard offered his hand out to me. I strode slowly, taking my time. Richard’s smile did not fall, but I watched it tighten. Apparently I wasn’t scared enough for his liking. I camearound the altar and placed my hand in his, pleased to learn that it felt no more vile than it normally did. I didn’t fear this man. I hated him.

“So unschooled in the ways of seduction that you have to ritually claim your bride, Richard?” I asked.

“Please,” he said through a chuckle. “Where I’m headed, I’ll have no need for abride.All women will be available to me. I will merely need to speak a whim and it will be fulfilled.”

“Oh? And where is it you’re headed? A wax museum? I hope you have plenty of firewood, I can only imagine how hard and unforgiving the wax is in the winter.”

“I’m heading,” he seethed, “to godhood. And soon will be freed of your incessant needling and acridity.”

I smiled at his fraying temper. It was hard not to laugh, in all honesty. “I do love a bit of dramatic irony,” I said.

His eyes narrowed. He hovered halfway between striking me or pitying me, unsure whether I was mocking him or descending into hysteria. “Are you going to lie down willingly or will I have to force you?”

Shrugging, I said, “I wouldn’t want you to sweat on your pretty little robe.”

His lip twitched with distaste, but he said nothing as I picked up the hem of my shift to step over the mass of flowers. The altar took up a larger space than I thought from a distance. The stone on the surface stretched carved and inlaid with shining obsidian in the shape of my demon. The only difference between this shadowy rendition and the real thing was that he was missing one set of his horns.

Richard held onto my hand like a proper gentleman as I settled myself onto the altar. Where I lay, my hands gently rested on the large, clawed fingers of obsidian. I realized with dark humor that they assumed this image–the image of a huge, clawed beast–depicted the Forgotten One.

I couldn’t wait for them to find out just how wrong they were.

Once I settled with my hair spilling off the edges of the altar, Richard made an embarrassingly theatrical gesture with his arms. “Men! Prepare for your consummate relations,” he called into the room. I looked around me as each of the men dropped their robes to the ground, revealing their pink, wrinkled bodies and their shrinking members nestled in unkempt nests of pubic hair.

I couldn’t hold it in then. I sputtered a guffawing laugh. Cassandre looked back at me, the terror on her face melting into a curious, questioning expression. I gave her a knowing look before Richard grabbed my chin and brought my gaze to his.

He still wore his robes, which I found strange. Was the sacrifice not meant to be our maidenheads?

“You won’t be laughing for long, you little witch,” he sneered, inches away from my face.

He released my face and lifted his other hand, revealing an ancient, dull blade that I hadn’t seen him pick up. My mind focused on that detail, trying to figure out when he must have grabbed it, or if he’d had it in his robe somewhere. Anything to avoid the distressing reality that he intended to use that blade onme.

He raised the blade over my chest, his other hand pressing down on my throat, clamping me there, crushing my windpipe. My ears started ringing as he called out to the room–to the unseen sky–with zealous fervor.

“O, Forgotten One! Behold your dark disciples. Behold their strength and their wisdom. Behold the sacrifice they bring to you. Too long has the world forgotten therightful wayof things. Too long has the world forgotten that which gives them their lives; the origin of theirpower. Come back into the world, Forgotten One. Remind the lost and the foolish where wrath resides and whattruedominion looks like. Take this blood anduse it to fuel you. Use it to once again take physical form. Your vessel awaits you.”

I could no longer look at what happened around me, but I could hear things faintly through the pounding of my pulse in my ears as I gasped for what little breath I could manage with Richard’s sweaty mitt on my throat.

I heard the tearing of cloth, the soft gasps and cries of Cassandre and Diana. I heard Atreya growl, “Get off of me you disgusting swine.”Then came Bella’s whimper of, “Doctor, please.”

I hated myself for the fear that pounded in my heart when I stared at that dull blade covered in verdigris.

I will make you bleed but once so that you can bathe the world in blood.

Richard brought the blade down with all of the strength he could muster. I felt it in the weight of his hand on my throat,felt the twitch of his fingers as he stabbed, again and again, with that ancient blade.

It was pain like I’d never known, and I found myself feeling regret as he cracked through the thin bone at my sternum and into the sinuous tissue of my heart. Not regretting what I’d done, no. Regret that I had only ever used a knife so sharp that flesh parted for me as easy as opening a well-loved book. I should have been using a dull knife. It hurt so much more.

Hot, sticky blood spilled out over my breasts, across the altar, gluing the white linen of my shift to my skin. It sputtered out of my mouth, its coppery tang coating my tongue and teeth.

My ribs caved against this brutality, but I did not die. I almost wished that I would as he stabbed and stabbed and stabbed again.

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