Acolyte (The Wildermoor Apocalypse Book 1) (9 page)

Chapter Fourteen

She was almost perfect.  Her pale white skin smooth as silk and her hair, as black as the night sky, had caught his eye.  He had been watching her for a long time thinking that she was The One.  He had waited for so long and now she was here.

She was almost perfect, had it not been for the smear of blood that ran from her breast to her slender waistline and stained her perfect frame, a wound across her throat caused by his hand.

             William Archibald sighed deeply, pushed his hand against his temples trying to relieve the pressure that had been building up for some time, and sank back into the chair behind him.  The chair was hard and offered little in the way of comfort. He afforded himself only the leanest of luxuries in his quarters.

He had already worked for too long tonight and was crying out for sleep, but this was not to be one of his luxuries.  It was a burden that he was carrying around, driven on beyond limit by his own obsessive nature.  He looked down at the body in front of him. 
She had asked for it
.  She made him use force on her; she had not wanted to make it easy for him.  And after the few minutes of pleasure that he had rewarded himself with her, she spawned an overwhelming emptiness within him, which turned to guilt and then anger.  She had forced his hand with the small blade – the letter-opener that he kept in his desk drawer.  He told himself that they were all responsible, the five before her too.  They were all the same worthless whores but had served their purpose.  She was still out there. He knew it.

A knock rapped on his door, which woke him from his reflective state.  He beckoned them to enter, and in stepped a hulk of a man, almost seven feet tall and at least half that wide.  He answered to the name Stamwell and had been his most trusted advisor for the last fourteen years.

Stamwell entered and took one look at the corpse, then looked up at Archibald.  He was not shocked by the sight. There was a silent exchange between the two, in which Stamwell asked simply
another one?
They had an understanding; they would not ask of the others past or motives for the present, they accepted that they were who they were.  Stamwell had seen too much over the years for anything Archibald did to ever surprise him.The man-mountain stepped over the corpse to where Archibald sat.

‘I’m sorry to, erm, interrupt you, sir,’ Stamwell started.

‘No matter. As you can see I am pretty much done here. This better be worth my time though, Stamwell. I am desperate need of some rest,’ Archibald replied still pressing his hands to his head.

‘The Fielders have returned with another one for you to look at,’ Stamwell informed him.

‘Can it not wait until morning?’

‘I think you had better see this one tonight sir.  She has had a pretty rough journey and is need of some attention.  They are not sure if she will make it through the night, so whatever you need to do, it is advised you act quickly.’

A scowl appeared across Archibald’s face.  He didn’t take kindly to being commanded especially by one of his own minions, and he detested sloppy work.  The Fielders’ only job was to bring the subjects back alive, and in the last few weeks they had barely managed to do that.

Archibald stood up with a sigh of disgust aimed at Stamwell and his incompetent field staff.

‘I guess my sleep will have to wait yet again. It appears I must take matters into my own hands.  One day I might remember why I employed you lot in the first place.’

Archibald walked over to his closet, reached in, brought out his cassock and slid it gracefully over his shoulders.  The garment hung loosely on his withering frame, its black fabric swallowing all light within reach. Only the red piping, that signified Archibald’s position as Bishop of his chosen flock, shone.

‘Take me to her.’

‘Yes,’ Stamwell bowed his head and lead him out of the quarters.

*****

She had never considered herself afraid of the dark but that quickly changed.  The dark felt like it was touching her, groping every part of her body, but not hurting her. It was toying with her, it seemed.

Evelyn feared what she could not see in the dark but the smell was what hit her first.  The dank, dampness of the air and putrid smell of rotten meat stung the back of her throat. She could feel her eyes were stinging and watering too.  She could tell she was sat on the ground and could feel the moist earth beneath her and against her cheek.  She was slumped against a wall not made of stone but wet earth.

Nor could Evelyn move.  She could not feel that she was bound but the pain in all of her limbs and her face had sapped her energy. She felt conscious and nothing else.  She was not aware of her surroundings except for the damp earth and had no idea what was going on or why she was there.

She remembered being woken in her bed - what seemed like an age ago - and being dragged away.  It all happened so fast that she could not even see her captors, how many of them had taken her or what direction they headed in.  She remembered only seeing figures of black, draped from head to toe in the darkness that surrounded her now.

She mustered enough strength to put her hand to her face.  It felt clean, free of abrasions, wounds or dressing.  She knew she had such wounds elsewhere on her body though, that would justify the pain she was feeling.

She could hardly remember anything, except that she thought she recalled a blow to her head – again it justified the searing headache she was now suffering – and being woken moments before being put into wherever she was now.  Her cell.

She felt sick at the thought of what was happening to her. She felt pain in almost every part of her body. Even low down, between her thighs, was painful.  That thought alone made her body jolt to meet a dry-retch.  Thinking was depleting her energy.  But thoughts were something she could not deny herself for the absence of them would be enough to drive her mad. 

As she was starting to argue and reason with herself she heard faint footsteps.  She could not tell if they were coming from within the same room as her but they grew louder and were drawing closer.

Soon they came to a stop and Evelyn could feel her heart race again, making her chest ache.  Her breathing became heavier.  She could just make out a faint line of light up ahead, interrupted at certain points. Feet perhaps, or shadows of them.

She could hear whispered voices, and then with a loud screech something appeared before her.  She could make out two shapes; one much larger than the other, both as dark as night but bathed in soft light coming from a nearby torch that hovered close to them.  Her eyes adjusted but she did not know she was looking at the door to her cell and these were her first visitors.

‘Stamwell, shine a light over her. I want to see what we have here,’ ordered one of the figures.

With that the larger of the shadows grew larger still, the light travelling with him and revealing more of his bulk.  He was a massive man with a square jaw, half of his face covered by a flock of hair.  She could make out heavy scars on the other half.

Stamwell stood next to her.  She could finally see some of her earthen cell. They were in a cavern of some kind.  Stamwell shone the torch over her as the smaller figure drew closer.  She couldn’t see his face well but could see he was a minister of some kind, a member of the clergy.  At once, her heart softened slightly as she thought she was saved. 
A holy man does nothing but care
.

As she started to believe she would see her family once more, the smaller figure spoke.

‘His strength is in his loins and his force is in the naval of his belly,’ Archibald recited.

‘Sir?’ Stamwell enquired.

‘Leave us!’ Archibald hissed at his henchman and for the first time Evelyn could see his eyes, wild and hungry, his mouth pulled to the sides in a sickening and sadistic smile.

Stamwell sighed and reluctantly headed for the door as the light faded from around Evelyn and she descended back into the darkness once more.

Only this time she was not alone.

She could feel his breath getting closer to her.  She wondered if somehow he could see in the dark as he found her with no effort.  She could feel his skin touch hers, her body convulsed in attempt to repel him; the instinct was to somehow –
any
how - get him away from her.

But it was no use.  Her strength was no match for his.  Even though the figure he cast in the shadows appeared slender and frail he surprised her with his strength.  Evelyn tried to hit out at him but if her hand managed to touch him at all it was with all the weight of a feather in a summer breeze.  She heard him snigger as she did so, mocking her as he grabbed her arm and forced it back, putting all of his weight behind it so that within a few moments he had overcome her completely. She was on her back under him on the damp earth.

His hands grabbed and tore at her.  She began to shake now as her senses returned. Her body was slowly giving in to the shock.  She could not let it for she knew she would not see out the night if she succumbed.

Archibald grabbed hold of her left wrist but was caught off guard when she managed to summon enough strength to flail her other arm at him.  He hesitated for a second but long enough for her to reach down into her soul and push all of her remaining strength up into her right arm. Before the demented clergyman could force his weight down even more, her arm flew up and forced her closed fist forward, connecting with Archibald’s cheek.  She heard a faint crack as her fist made contact. He gasped as the pain took hold.

The surprise of the blow left his body limp for a second and he fell off of Evelyn, flopping onto the ground next to her, for just long enough to allow her to take a few deep breaths.  The spinning in her head started to slow as the oxygen returned to her body.  However the body next to her was already beginning to stir.  Her heart sank knowing that she did not have the strength to capitalise on an attempt to escape.

She could hear him return to his feet, his breathing laboured.  She decided that she managed to hurt him more than she initially realised.  She may have time yet.

However, the sound that accompanied them in that blind cave chilled her blood and stopped the breath in her throat.  It was a sound so guttural; she thought it must have come from the centre of the earth.  It had the strength of a thousand cannons sounding at once in a single blast and sounded pained.  It was a cry for help.  Then it sounded again, louder, closer.  She was breathing so fast that she thought her lungs would shred themselves within her.

The darkness then began to move around her.  She feared her head was spinning again. But she had not moved in the last few moments in a way that would injure herself. Yet she could see and feel the room around her move.

She heard a scraping along the dirt walls followed by a sound similar to a roll of wet leather being dragged along a stone floor.  A glistening mass was moving.  It was not the room moving but something inside it as big as the cell itself.

The scraping continued.  She followed the sounds all around her head.  Then something moist fell onto her forehead with force, something that stuck to her skin and dried instantly, stretching her flesh in the warmth.  That was when she realised it for sure; something was in there with her and the man that had attacked her.  Something of such a size she scarcely imagined it was real. It certainly was not human.

The darkness was moving, for sure, but it was made of more than air.  It was breathing, growling slowly, plotting.  The thing moved quickly and in an instant she felt pain like no other as it took hold of her shoulder.

She could feel the shadows of the beast pressing down on her, her breathing becoming impossible and burning coursing through her body.  Her bones started to ache under the pressure until she heard a couple crack. 
Her ribs.
The shock of pain left her unable to breathe and something warm build up in her throat, causing her to violently splutter, feeling the liquid from within spill onto her lips.  It was warm and salty.  Her own blood.

The weight continued to bear down, her body unable to cope with any more.  Once more, searing pain gripped her entirely as the feeling of a thousand knives scraped down both sides of her torso.  Then she felt a sense of warmth cover her body, trickling down and dripping onto the ground as her skin tore open.  The pain started to fade for a moment before returning and shocking her into consciousness so that she could go through it all again. Each time it lasted for fewer seconds.

She was going to die and she knew it.

The knives carried on tearing.  Then the weight started crushing her legs, her limbs were moving independent of her body and what was left of her mind as she felt her pelvis being torn open.

Then the darkness took hold again and the pain faded until it existed no more.  The consumed her shadows before giving away to a blinding white light.

*****

Archibald exited the cell through the same door he had entered, back into the unlit passageway, feeling his way down the length of the walls. His legs were weak, trembling.  In desperation, he tried to breathe deeply enough to replenish his lungs.  The corridor seemed to go on forever and soon he grew uncertain he was going the right way.