Page 36 of Devoured
The sound she made when he pulled wasn’t a scream. It was wet and final. Her body tore in two. Blood rained down on the survivors.
Young Varnar collapsed to his knees, soaked in his mother’s blood. But instead of grief, I saw something else in his eyes.
Understanding.
Acceptance.
Hunger.
“I will serve better,”he whispered to the gore-soaked floor. “I will feed you properly.”
“Yes,”the Judge said, tossing the pieces aside like trash. “You will.”
Then he vanished—dragged back to whatever nightmare realm waits between feedings.
The Executioner lingered a moment longer, perfectly still. Then he turned. Not just his head. His entire body pivoted to face me directly. His crimson eyes stared straight at me. And in that gaze, I saw something impossible.
Recognition.
Like he’d been waiting for this moment.
Like he’d always known I would be here, watching from the future.
He held my eyes for a heartbeat that stretched forever. Then he too faded, drawn back into whatever hell he served.
The survivors stayed on their knees in the gore, trembling. An older man in robes approached Varnar and helped him to his feet. “We must do something,”the man said, his voice high with barely controlled hysteria. “Before he returns. Before this happens again.”
“Build what he wants,”Young Varnar said, wiping blood from his eyes. “But more than that. We trap him.”
“Trap the Judge?”someone gasped. “Impossible.”
“Not his body. His hunger.”Varnar’s eyes gleamed. “Mother had books. Ancient texts. There are ways to... fold reality. Create spaces that exist between.”
A woman stepped forward, pulling a leather-bound book from her robes. It was soaked in blood, but the pages still turned.
“The Inversions. I’ve studied them,”she said. “We could create a reflection. A place where death isn’t final.”
“Explain,”the old man demanded.
“We build here, on these stones. A place of healing. A religious sanctuary for the mad.”She glanced around the blood-soaked chamber. “But beneath it—or beside it, or within it—we build something else. A place where the dead don’t stay dead. Where those who die in guilt and pain are... recycled.”
“An endless feast,”Varnar breathed. “The same souls, dying over and over.”
“But that’s not enough,”the woman continued. “The Judge spoke of a bride. The guilty one. We must keep offering him new souls. Fresh guilt. Until he finds her.”
“So we sacrifice and search,”the old man said slowly. “Every mad woman brought here for prayers and healing—we test. We break. We offer.”
“Generation after generation, if needed,”Varnar added. “Until one of them is the one he wants. His bride of sorrows.”
“How will we know her?”One of the cultists asked.
“The Judge will know,”the woman replied, looking around at the corpses. “When we send the right one, he’ll recognize her. He’ll want her. Until then, we offer every guilty soul. All women.”
They began drawing symbols in the blood on the floor. Ancient geometries that hurt to look at. The woman chanted in a language older than speech while others arranged the corpses into specific patterns.
“We’ll call it a holy place,”Varnar announced as they worked. “Dedicated to Saint Dymphna. Patron of the mad. The Church will send us their possessed,troubledwomen.”
The air began to shimmerand reality folded.
