Page 65 of Lovely Violent Things

“The act ofsparagmoswas more than reenacting the god’s destruction and rebirth,” she says, cutting me short, her voice as immaterial as our scenery. “It’s a sacred rite to summon the god into the animal.” She rests her forehead to mine, intimate, comforting. “Rending and eating of the raw flesh is communing with the god, inviting him in. By consuming the animal, we in turn become one with Dionysus.”

She breaks away, her mouth stretching into a captivating smile, and my heart pangs at the sight.

There is no greater destruction than one of self. And therefore, no catalyst more powerful to wield in alchemic creation.

“Destruction isn’t an end,” I whisper, Kallum’s words falling from my lips, “it’s a beginning.”

Her dark eyes gleam brilliantly in the dancing firelight. “Exactly.”

The loss I feel carves a hollowness through my insides. I fold my arms over my chest, feeling the raw ache of mourning as I cover my breasts.

I’d closed myself off from friends, colleagues, everyone in my life, never wanting to feel that pain of loss again. Then Kallum blew my barriers wide open. But Devyn…she opened up a passage inside me, a tiny ribbon of hope. “I don’t want to lose you,” I tell her.

“You won’t.” She strokes my cheek. “We’ll be connected forever. Two halves made whole through primordial unity.”

As she takes my hands in hers, she pulls me to my feet. I stagger before she helps me gain balance, then she turns toward the woman holding the crown of bone and ivy.

Devyn brings the crown up, holding it aloft before she places it on my head, detangling my hair from the stems as she coaxes my strands over my bare shoulders. The weight of the fawn antlers bears down on me, like I’m reliving a nightmare.

My mind spins as I again tip my face toward the open sky, trying to pinpoint our location.

Come morning, wherever this place is, the aftermath will be a crime scene. There will be evidence of the people here, the objects they handled, the substances leached into the ground.

As I look around to take in the site, I view it through the eyes of a profiler. I observe the behavior, read the motives and actions in an abstract part of me that breaks down each movement and object beyond its purpose.

I see the macabre artistry, the violence, the horror. I see the shifting of dirt beneath their stomping feet. I see the staff held in reverence. I see Devyn’s core nature. I see the flickering flames rising higher. The spines on the antlers. My clothes thoughtlessly discarded in a heap.

I see the way out.

The moaning grows louder, becoming a haunting song with the intensifying drumbeat. If I can break through to just one person… A small measure of doubt is all that’s needed to stop this.

I turn in a circle, catching myself on a wave of dizziness as I stare past the fire, trying to latch on to a familiar face.

The heaving, gyrating bodies dance and grope in a display of debauchery. These people have no eyes, no ears, no tongues, yet they’re absorbed in every other sensation of the flesh, using their bodies to touch and entice. Hedonistic acts so base and depraved as they give in to their desire, I feel feverish at the lewd sight.

“Vince Lipton,” I say, my voice trembling. Then, louder: “Mr.Lipton—” The man I identify from his file doesn’t respond to his name. Antlers nearly as large as Landry’s were, he’s a massive man, currently in the throes of a vulgar act as he ruthlessly thrusts into a woman on her hands and knees, his rough grunts rising over the drumming.

“Did you really come here willingly to save them?” Devyn’s question is whispered close to my ear. She moves in behind me and wraps her arms around my waist. “Or, deep down, is it you that wants to be saved?”

The implication of her words pits out my stomach as her palms drift over my belly. Incensed, I trap her, my dirty fingernails stabbed into the backs of her hands. “I don’t believe in any of this,” I say.

“You don’t have to.” She releases me then, moving around to stand before me. “The deer didn’t believe, yet they were a pure vessel for the god. And you, Halen, are the purest vessel.”

As the priestess lifts her chin, she turns her palms up, giving herself over to the rhythmic bass imbuing the air. A cold sensation prickles my flesh, the emptiness a physical entity invading my soul.

I lower myself to the earth, knees dug into the cold soil, and search out the mark on my flesh. My hand slides between my thighs, and my fingers delicately trace the sigil. Just as I’d done before, lost in the darkness, adrift in a vulnerable state, afraid of my feelings…I seek out a connection to the man who frightens me, who challenges me. Calling to him just as I did in that moment. My connection to Kallum is tangible—more real than my fear—and my pain is a summons to him.

Kallum canfeelme.

And the fact I believe this shatters all my logical defenses.

I reach up to remove the circlet, and Devyn’s hand coils around my wrist. “That’s enough indulgence,” she says, yanking me up to stand. “I’ve been patient too long.”

“Devyn, if you do this…it won’t change anything. You’ll still be the same. Whatever you’re suffering, whatever you’re trying to heal, it won’t be cured through me.”

“Us,” she stresses. Her eyes take on a furious edge, and that anger reveals a fault in her façade, if only for a heartbeat before she re-erects her guise. “We’re the path. When I saw you dancing at the Lipton’s house, I beheld your profound suffering. You were already so close to enlightenment, to experiencing transcendentRausch…I was in awe.”

I swallow past the raw ache. “What you saw was me being seduced by Kallum. What I experienced with him has nothing to do with any of this…” I glance around at the frenzy of sex and delusion. “This is monstrous, Devyn. What you’ve done to these people is monstrous.”

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