Covenant (21 page)

“Cindy, where are you? Shit.”

He looked back the way he’d come, but the tiny room was empty. He looked down the corridor of the center archway, and within a few feet it narrowed into a slit of a walkway big enough for a thin man to walk into sideways, if he wasn’t claustrophobic. He called out to the girl again, but his voice hung in the empty air like a taunt.

The final archway led downward and stayed wide, but after stepping down it a few yards, Joe stopped. Would she have come this way or scrabbled into the corridor she knew and headed back topside?

“
Ciiindy?
” he called down the dark tunnel and listened. But no reply returned.

“I’m going back up,” he called, and then shrugged. He hoped she was already ahead of him. It seemed like a wise
course of action to
not
be underground when the voice came back from taking care of its other “business.”

He practically ran back the way they’d come, covering the fifteen-minute walk in less than five. But when he stumbled up the stone stairs to the tiled room he stopped cold. There was no light coming from the final flight of stairs.

Because the final flight of stairs was obliterated in rubble. The cap had caved in, leaving him no way out but down.

“Isn’t that convenient,” he muttered. He dropped to the ground, still panting from the run.

Fuckin’ A
.

Somewhere, down in the depths of this mountain, the murderous ghost now had both Cindy and Angelica. He hoped they were still alive. But how was he going to keep them that way?

Joe trained the flashlight on the leather journal and carefully opened it once more. It might be worthwhile to know what the hell he was getting into before barreling down the passageway again.

After skipping entries from August and September of 1893, he found the one he was looking for.

October 31, 1893.

Squinting at the faded handwriting on the wavy ancient paper, he began to read.

Karen knew something was horribly wrong the moment she set foot inside the cave. He was there. In her head. And cackling with glee.

“
You girls are just in time,”
He said.
“I didn’t want you to miss
the show.
”

She looked at Rhonda, who nodded. “You heard Him too?”

Monica grimaced. “He’s waiting for
us?
What does that mean?”

Karen ran a hand through her salt-and-pepper hair and came away with a handful of sticky strands.

“Guess there’s only one way to find out.”

Monica held back at the entrance. “What if she’s dead?”

Rhonda reached out and took her elbow with a firm hand. “What if she’s not?”

In silence, the three women continued forward.

“Do you hear something?” Monica asked, just as Rhonda, who had been leading the way, put her hand behind her and shushed them.

Karen cocked an ear toward the darkness ahead and listened. The rush of the ocean filled the background with a hiss like static, but beyond that, above it, she could hear…voices?

“Is it Rachel?” she whispered.

Rhonda nodded. “But I think someone else too.”

They crept forward, hanging tight to the wall as it curved
into the entryway for the chamber where they had left Angelica, tied and helpless, the night before.

“Noooooo!” came a scream from ahead of them. It was an unmistakably female cry. Karen started forward, but Rhonda put a thick arm out to hold her.

“Wait,” she whispered. “We can’t go rushing in without knowing what’s ahead. Let’s find out what’s going on before we go bursting into it.”

Karen nodded grudgingly but motioned her friend to hurry.

Rhonda covered the head of her flashlight with a hand, which glowed bloodily in the pitch-black of the cave, but let just enough light leak out for them to see their way. They stepped faster along the stone path, and at last, Rhonda stopped, leaning forward to peer into the room ahead. The other women leaned against the larger woman, staring over her shoulder.

There was light coming from inside the cave of the Covenant. It was a weak, sickly yellow light, but it was enough to see their friend, still tied up against the far wall, but not exactly as they’d left her.

She was naked now. And a long-haired, similarly unclad man was levering himself over her struggling form.

“
If she won’t give me her firstborn child, I’ll just take her next
one
,” the voice said from nowhere. “
Right after I make it
.” Karen started forward again, determined to stop this before it was too late—but found she couldn’t move.

“
Enjoy the show, my girls. Thanks for setting the stage
.”

Karen strained to move her arm, her leg, even a finger. But nothing worked. She was riveted to the spot, her eyes glued to the scene ahead of them. Over Rhonda’s shoulder, she watched as Angelica tried to knee the rapist in the groin. He just laughed and pinned her thighs down with his own. Then he grabbed her head with both hands and lowered his mouth to hers. When he pulled back, Angelica was gasping. She spit at him, and he slapped her hard across the mouth. The sound echoed through the cave forever, but Angelica didn’t struggle
any longer. The man reached between their bodies, grabbed himself, and guided his way inside her, beginning His consummation.

Karen knew from her friend’s stifled sobs that he wasn’t gentle.

And the spirit wasn’t blotting the fortune-teller’s mind this time so that she’d enjoy it either.

She couldn’t move a muscle, but still, a tear crept from Karen’s eye and rolled down her cheek to drip unnoticed on Rhonda’s back.

It had all come full circle.

“
Come to me, child
.”

Cindy heard and obeyed.

She could see Joe’s back off to the side. He was looking at something in a little alcove off the main cave chamber. It was dark now in the crystal cave, but she found she could see anyway. She rose from the floor and felt a strange yet familiar tingle stirring in her loins.

“
Come to me. This way
.”

He guided her to the far corridor, and without pausing, she stepped through. The limestone walls seemed to glimmer with a blue-green light as she walked, the floor sloping ever downward.

“Where are we going?” she asked quietly.

“
To a very special place
,” He said. His voice was warm in her head and heart. Her whole body felt warm. Hot, really. She could feel sweat steaming from beneath her arms, between her thighs.

“
You won’t be needing these
,” He said. And she felt her arms pulling the white shirt and bra over her head, dropping them without hesitation on the stones behind her. She stopped a few steps farther on, kicked off her shoes and shimmied out of the stretch pants.

“
Now you are ready to come to me
,” He said. His voice was silky and low, like a blues singer. She had pleased Him and she felt happy.

Joe looked up from the book and shook his head. Curburide? Soul snatchers? He turned the page, working his fingernails in between the sheets and slowly massaging them open. Pieces of fractured, crumbling yellow littered the ground in front of him.

What kind of fairy-tale world had this guy lived in?

The darkness suddenly felt close. The hair on the back of Joe’s neck stood up, and he jerked his head from side to side, trying to see through the shadow. There was nobody here, and yet…

He shivered, then bit down hard on the knuckle of his right index finger.

Steady, boy
, he thought.
Ease on back
.

Steeling himself against the fear, he flipped to the next
page of the book. He had to know more about what he was dealing with.

Joe skipped ahead a few more pages, thinking that this was the stuff of B movies and novels. But then again, he knew Malachai existed. He hadn’t known its name before, but he’d heard its voice. It was impossible to believe…but impossible not to.

Joe shut the book. So…the spirit
became
that which it devoured. Or took on some of its attributes, anyway. You are what you eat. That would explain how Cindy could “talk” to James and the others. But the spirits of the town hadn’t been enough to tame its malevolence. Maybe Malachai needed to feast on a nunnery to neutralize its poison.

Enough.

He knew now what the beast of the cliff was and what it had become. A toying, malevolent destroyer. A spirit that enjoyed the bending of others. It feasted on their doubts, fears and weaknesses. It had become a Curburide itself.

And he had to stop it. Somehow.

He had to rescue Cindy and Angelica and all the others from its grasp.

If he only knew how.

Cindy heard Angelica’s scream, but it didn’t dissuade her from moving forward. The sound, a shrill, ear-piercing cry of anger and contempt, actually warmed her. She delighted in the way the scream got inside her head and moved through her spine like firewater. It was delicious in the same way as the damp, cold air brushing against the soft down of her sex as she walked through the dark passageway.

Delicious.

This was all so…
delicious
.

A small part of Cindy wondered why she had never felt this way before. Why the goose bumps that lined her arms and thighs didn’t make her shiver. But it was only a small part. The waves of excitement rushed over her again and again, like the incoming tide.

She was engulfed in sensations. She was suspicious that perhaps the sensations were not all her own. After her nights on the cliff with the spirit, she knew, actually, that they were not all from within her. The spirit was touching her. Moving her.

But it felt so
good
….

Ken thrust into the enraged woman beneath him with a violence that threatened to break his mind. The tiny piece that was still Ken cried out louder than the woman.

Screamed.

“
It’s not as if you haven’t dreamed of this
.” A sinister voice chuckled inside his skull. “
I’m just giving you what you’ve always
wanted
.”

No no no no no
…Ken cried. Whimpered, really. The woman’s breasts jiggled beneath him, sloshing in time with his movements like the skin of a half-empty waterbed, their nipples engorged and dark. He imagined their dark tips were plugs, the kind of pointy caps that you could twist and pull to release the water out of a cooler. These plugs held in, not ice water, but the blood that beat through her heart.

“
Why don’t you pull them?
” the voice asked. “
Pull the plugs
and release her blood
.”

No. I won’t hurt her
.

“
But you already are. Here, try this
.”

Ken’s right arm reached out and slapped Angelica’s cheek. It flushed bloodred, but she didn’t cry out. Her silence was more disturbing to Ken than her screams. But even worse than that was the way his cock seemed to grow even longer within her as a result of the violence. His body coursed with power, and that wicked kernel of Ken that made him drive out of town once or twice a year to anonymously rent films like
Tied Up and Titillated
grew stronger.

“
Yes, you do like that don’t you? I only give my people what they
want
.”

Ken’s hand shook, but he raised it again. This time, he slapped her breast. And then he took the thickened nipple between his thumb and forefinger. A smile grew on his face—an evil, twisted “I’ve got candy” kind of smile.

And then he pulled on the plug.

The pain was terrible. It flowed through her veins like acid, locked her toes in spasms of paralysis.

But it wasn’t the pain that hurt her so much as the degradation. The absolute inability to lift a finger to stop what was happening to her. He pounded away at her as if she were an
object, and grinned when she made any sound of distress. So she locked her jaw shut, determined to endure him without giving in to his violence.

And then he grabbed one of her nipples and yanked.

Her mouth opened involuntarily and she screamed.

“God damn you!” she cried out, and gasped as the sensation of a burning coal settled hot in her misused chest. His fist connected with her jaw at the end of her scream, and the world spun gray around her. But she didn’t black out.

Not completely.

Dimly she could still feel his violation within her. Feel the tremors of pain that he caused with every unwanted stroke. But worse than all of it was the realization that even though the demon had left her completely alone, her sensations unmitigated by His own lusts, she felt tingles of pleasure through the abuse. A tiny piece of her begged for him to rip out her hair, grind her body into the dirt, slap her until she couldn’t be anything but a slave of someone else’s desire.

Blood dripped on her chest and face and she held out her tongue,
struggling to catch its drops. Rhonda reached out a hand and smeared
her tits with Bernadette’s lifeblood, then lowered her head to taste it.
Rhonda’s big teeth brushed against one bloody nipple, and then bit
down hard. An explosion of lust centered below Rachel’s belly, and
she reached down to touch the blood-smeared flesh of her friend’s
thigh. Both girls began to giggle….

Angelica closed her eyes and desperately wished for it to stop. She
didn’t
want this; she absolutely didn’t. She didn’t want to remember the bloody orgy that had happened in this very spot years before. She didn’t want to enjoy this abuse, and yet, she had wished for it since that night. And since the night of her attempted escape.

Her hands encircled his neck as she straddled him, the honey between
her legs thickening and creaming again, though his cum was
still dripping in clear drops from her belly from their orgasm just moments
before. His eyes bugged out as she felt herself cumming again,
as she heard him gasping, “I loved you….”

She didn’t want to be raped again. She didn’t.

But then she came.

And a secret voice within her, a voice that was
not
of the spirit of the cliff, laughed.

Yes you do
, it whispered, and her heart tore in two.

Joe stopped at the cavern of crystal, for just a moment.

“Cindy?” he called. His voice echoed emptily through the room. The flashlight bounced with eerie fluorescence off the rainbow rocks. It was like an underground disco ball. He grinned to himself. There was something about this room, he thought. Something that stank of a connection to the spirit. But what was it? And how could he use it?

He looked around once more, noting the ruby red glow of the far corner, the emerald caste of the flat-topped outcropping in the center of the room, the open passageways ahead of him. This was the heart, he decided. The heart of the spirit.

Shaking his head, he moved on into the artery leading down, deeper into the body of the mountain.

This is an insane situation
, he thought. His own mind answered him.
And how is this any more crazy than an old man enlisting
one spirit to fend off an army of others?

He grunted at himself, and then sucked in a breath. Bending over, he lifted a white cotton shirt from the ground. Just ahead of it lay a silky brassiere.

This was Cindy’s!

He moved faster, and within a few feet found her discarded pants and pan ties as well.

What the fuck?

The gray shadows of the passageway slipped by him faster and faster. He was moving as quickly as he could without tripping or banging into walls. He could feel the air growing thicker with moisture; the ocean exit couldn’t be too far ahead.

And then a bloodcurdling scream made him stop, stiff en.

“God damn you!” a voice cried.

He heard every word clearly. It was a woman—
Cindy?
—and
she wasn’t far ahead, unless cave acoustics were playing him for a fool.

He turned a bend and stopped.

Just ahead, in an open cavern, he could see Angelica’s black hair splayed out on the rocky floor, and Ken, the Cliff Comber dweeb, plunging his white ass up and down above her like an oil rig on a fresh strike.

But that wasn’t what stopped him.

For a moment, he couldn’t process what he was seeing. Cindy, golden, buff and beautiful, was crouched over something on the floor nearby. She didn’t seem aware of him, but rummaged around in a bag or pack of some kind. Then a smile spread across her face and she stood again, the muscles rippling in her flanks as she strode purposefully across the cave.

In her hand she raised a knife-size spike of steel shaped like a long nail. A cave-climbing piton, Joe realized.

Joe watched frozen at the sight.
What the…?

She bent over the coupling Ken and Angelica, and then began to stroke Ken’s back with the steel poker.

“Cindy,
no!
” Joe cried out finally, and sprinted across the cave to knock her away from them.

But he was too late. Cindy’s arm came down with a wet smack in the center of Ken’s back. The piton was buried in the caver’s vertebrae and he flinched as the blood spurted out from behind him. But his muscular thrusts didn’t slow.

Joe tackled Cindy, who tried kicking and pushing to roll away from him.

“
Let me go!
”

She jumped up and ran back to Ken. Grabbing onto the piton like a saddle horn, she pressed herself against his bloodied backside and then threw her arms around him. Her lips touched his shoulder and then her tongue traced a path through the spreading stain of crimson on his shoulder blades. When she came up for air, her lips and chin were painted in gore.

Angelica screamed again, and Joe crawled carefully closer. He saw the reason for this yell. Ken’s breath was coming in
wet, slurping gasps, and a dark slime of blood was escaping his mouth. Angelica’s chest was already a smeary mess with his lifeblood, but still Ken fucked her, not seeming to notice the pain in his back or the woman suckling his wound or the death leaking in rhythmic spurts from his lips.

Joe tried to pull Cindy off from behind, but her nails raked at him, gouging his cheek.

“
Noooooooo!
” she wailed, and then grabbed the piton with both hands, moving it up and down like a gearshift in Ken’s gory back. The blood fountained out at her and she laughed, washing her hands in the spray and then rubbing her breasts and belly with it until her beautiful tan had turned to a bloody sunburn. At last, Ken’s motions began to slow, and he lay heavier upon Angelica, who had begun to retch, and cry hysterically.

But Cindy was just getting started.

She rubbed her hands on Ken’s ruined back and then drew lines of blood across her cheeks, and traced thick gory trails around her breasts with a dripping finger. She washed her hands in Ken’s wound and spread his blood below her belly button and across her thighs with a moan. Then she moved forward, positioning herself above the blunt shaft of the piton embedded in Ken’s back.

At that moment Joe finally realized that they weren’t alone in the cave. He caught the glint of eyes across the room. Abandoning Cindy’s sex-death ritual for the moment, he hurried across the room in the dark and found the three women, frozen like statues. Karen Sander’s face was streaming with unwiped tears, but Rhonda Canady’s lips were twisted in a secret smile. Monica’s eyes, however, were expressionless, strangely vacant.

“You want to give me a hand here?” he begged.

Karen saw the naked girl come strolling into the cave and inwardly winced. Wasn’t that the girlfriend of Rhonda’s boy? The bastard had gotten her too?

She struggled to call out a warning, something, but she still couldn’t move. Then the reporter came stumbling into the cave and she felt a surge of hope. How many minds could the creature control at once? Maybe if they all tried to break free at the same time…

She closed her eyes a moment and poured all her will into moving her foot. Nothing. She looked ahead once more and saw the reporter tackle Cindy.

But he really only succeeded in getting himself scratched up. The girl took the fall like a linebacker and brushed him aside. She was clinging to the dying rapist like a tick. Karen strained to cry out to him, “Over here,” but no sound came from her mouth. She could feel the tears coursing down her face, which felt hot with her silent efforts. She had to break free. Had to.

Maybe her silent screams did have some effect, because all at once Joe looked at her. Right at her. And then came over.

Could he break them free?

Help me
,
Joe
, she screamed inwardly.
Help all of us
.