Page 37 of Demonic Delights

I am in the kitchen, and I’m just a passenger in my own body. I have no control over the way it moves, no control over what I say, what I think. I’m but a watcher.

Roxana is there in her little black dress, her dark hair flowing around her shoulders, and her hip jutting alluringly to the side when she shifts her weight. Her head is thrown back as she’s chugging red wine straight from a bottle.

“That’s it, my dark darling, drink deep,” I encourage her, barely recognising my own voice, so harsh and commanding as it is.

She sets the bottle down on the island counter with a sharp clink, and she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. Her chest is heaving with deep breaths, and her eyes are drunk and a little unfocused.

“Take these,” I instruct her, handing her three pills I recognise as the really-should-not-be-over-the-counter stuff she always brings from Romania for her period cramps. “I only want you to scream with delight tonight. No pain,” I add in that same, sinister voice.

Roxana takes the tablets without hesitation and washes them down with another swig from the bottle, even though I am fairly certain that the medicine should not be combined with alcohol.

“What are you planning to do to me that I need those for?” she slurs, but is smiling excitedly, in her eyes a shine I haven’t seen in years.

“You’re getting your brand tonight,” I reply, coldly and harshly, but I burn with a desire so potent it’s like a fire raging in every cell of my being. “I’m going to mark you as my own in the Enemy’s house. It’s time to show Him that you are all mine. And that He has no place here no more.”

Roxana laughs a deep, guttural laugh as she stomps in place, stumbling a little and clapping her hands together. The drugs and alcohol are clearly taking effect; her eyes are mad, her whole expression completely deranged. But here’s the strangest thing. My present self—the achy and broken one lying in bed—is put off by her. But my watcher self in the dream that doesn’t really feel like a dream is utterly mesmerised. Her sinister side is something I always knew she had, but wanted her to suppress as much as possible, recoiling in discomfort from the dark intensity of her. But in that moment, I’m completely overpowered by a powerful draw to her. An addiction. An obsession.

Back in the bedroom, I glance at my wife, at the flow of her ebony hair on the pillow, the graceful tenderness of her exposed neck, the intimate depression of her spine. She is exceptionally beautiful for a woman pushing thirty, objectively I know that. But try as I might, I am unable to summon even a fraction of the yearning I felt for her in that strange, strange dream.

I close my eyes again, and the next snippet comes to me, and my innards roll as I comprehend the meaning of the words that had come out of my mouth earlier. The Enemy’s house. He has no place here no more.

16

SANGREL

Roxana and I are in an antechamber reeking of incense and myrrh. The university chapel.

My raging erection strains against my trousers—the only thing I’m wearing—as my eyes rake over Roxana’s body. She’s stark naked, bar the chain wrapped around her shoulders like a shawl, one of its ends snaking down her back and pooling at her feet.

She is swaying a little, her head leaning close to the poster board behind, nearly touching the ‘Jesus loves you’ flyer.

Yes. I think. That’s his biggest flaw.

Me, I know better than to have affection for the horse I need to whip into submission and work to the skin and bone. For the dog I must teach to bite. For the pig destined for slaughter.

But then I feel something I haven’t felt for eternity. Unease. Almost alarm. Because I have developed a perilous breed of fondness for one particular mortal. Wanting more power than I have ever had, I have entered a new, uncertain game. One where I have nothing but a soft-hearted pawn to play with, but on the board with me, there is a queen, and she has not shown her colours yet.

“Lead the way, dark darling.” I slap Roxana’s arse as she walks past me to push through the swinging door into the main chapel area. “Let’s go pay the Enemy our due respects. Let’s show him where your devotion lies.”

The smack echoes sharply, and she giggles. My hand tingles from the contact with her skin, sending violent ripples of excitement down my spine.

I hold the door wide open for her, and we both walk into the main chapel. Candles had already been lit in the sconces on the walls and in the tall, thin candelabras running parallel to the two rows of lacquered pews. Gothic arch windows with stained glass line the long side walls, the candlelight reflecting on them and dancing a colourful dance.

Roxana walks on, the chain scraping on the gritstone floor as she drags its end behind her, the sound magnified by the chapel’s acoustics.

My blood rages with a thrumming thirst, and it’s all I can do to stop myself from tearing Roxana to the ground and ravishing her so savagely she would never recover. Even as I sense my Enemy’s repugnant presence, even as I feel myself weakened by His efforts to drive me out, I can scarcely focus on anything but her. A willing mortal leading me voluntarily through His door. She is my shield, and as long as I have her by my side, I can walk through these hallowed halls unscathed.

My desire for her is too vast for a human mind to comprehend, like the endless expanse of the universe. No mortal man has ever felt that mighty swell of an inferno raging inside me at the sight of her walking around the altar in her unsteady step, heading for the human-height stone cross in the alcove behind it.

Made of a single block of Shap granite, the freestanding cross is the oldest part of the campus, predating the surrounding buildings by three centuries. The chapel was built around this relic of an old monastery estate, rumoured to bring bad luck to whoever tries to move it. Foolish superstitions.

Roxana reaches it just as I’m passing the front row of pews. I notice a bracelet-sized ring of Anglican prayer beads made of smooth turquoise-blue plastic lying abandoned on the bench right next to the aisle. I snatch it off and slide it into my pocket.

I round the corner of the altar. Roxana shrugs the chain off her shoulders, and it falls to the ground, coiling around her feet with a loud clatter. Then she steps closer to the cross, and her foot catches in the chain, and she stumbles.

“Shit!” she swears and then cackles, leaning back against the cross.

“That’s it, my dark darling, swear! Swear!” I encourage her, throwing my arms wide. “With each filthy word, the Enemy’s power grows weaker!”