Twenty-One

Amelia Sanghera

“Whatever is done for love always occurs beyond good and evil.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

November 2nd, close to midnight, the ritual room

As I walked with Dommic up to the ritual room, decked out in a new white tank that I'd stolen from the pile of clothes in the basement, nothingness seeped through my body like a weight. I sensed the edges of darkness closing in around the perimeter of what was me, that emptiness I’d felt in the mental institution looking to rear its ugly head and take over.

It had happened again, and I’d still been too powerless, too stupid, to do anything about it. I felt like my body and brain had separated. I couldn’t find which parts were mine, and this shattering would take a lot more than super glue to fix.

I’d broken before, though right? I should have known where the pieces went, and how to put them back together. I didn’t.

I could disappear as thin as smoke and become just a ghost that haunted these walls. But then there was Dommic. I’d never had anyone truly want me before, had someone claim me inside and out. He’d burn the world to ash for what it did to me, or he’d happily chow down after handing me the match. How could he be like that?

How could the monster that stalked the shadows be a better man than the one who supposedly walked in god’s light?

And yet, he was, and he’d help me do this, end this once and for all.

Because everything had to end here. He had to end here, and I knew it had to be me that did it. I had to stop being the one thing that everyone wanted me to be—afraid.

I hated that I was. That I was still a terrified, little girl behind this denim jacket. I was afraid of what the Father would do, what he had done, what he could be doing to me in the future. I’d heard him enough during his goddamn…

I heard what he wanted from me.

Worst, I wasn’t sure how far the Father had gotten in his act either. I wouldn’t give him that. I’d do anything to keep him from getting that last piece of torture from me. No matter how this actually played out, I needed to be sure that no part of him remained on his earth—or inside me. Every molecule of his would be obliterated and scrubbed clean.

Only the void would await him, and I was all too ready to send his soul packing.

Dommic pushed open the doors to his super, secret private chamber, and there in the center of the massive ritual circle permanently carved into the floor was Father Trubiano. His black shirt and priest’s collar were torn, and stained with small flecks of blood, and I could see slash marks through the fabric. Glancing over at Dommic, I raised a brow.

“What? He struggled.” He just looked at me with a smug grin of satisfaction.

I smirked despite the agony lancing through my being for every second that I remained alive in this place of unknowing and fear.

Candles flickered as Dommic, and I crossed the unfinished wood floor to where the Father was tied down. There were similar clusters of herbs and ingredients scattered around him as there had been for Harper, and the runes on the floorboards pulsed an evil red as he struggled against his binds.

The smell of rose and dark fruit, backed with a must of iron and sweat, permeated the room, clinging to my skin. It was Dommic’s smell, that beautiful death that coated him inside and out, and it soothed my nerves.

“You filthy witch! You do the devil’s work!”

I couldn’t speak to him, not yet. So, I took the ceremonial dagger from its place near his head and held it over the exposed skin of his lower leg. Dommic’s clawed hand found mine, and I quickly glanced at him.

“Use your switchblade.”

“It’s not consecrated or whatever.” I shook my head at him, furrowing my brow.

“It is. It’s a part of you, and now, so am I.” His black eyes smoldered with that strange smoky aura, and I nodded.

Taking out my beloved blade, the familiar weight a comfort in my hand, I began carving the runes into the Father’s leg. He screamed as I drove the point of my knife through his skin, and inches of me came back to life as his blood pooled on the floor beneath the deep cuts.

Take it, you fuck. Take the pain that your more than happy to doll out on your students.

I continued, moving up to his calf and then ankle, using my blade to slice the fabric of his pants away. The incisions were deeper, rougher than they had been with Harper, and I began to carve out actual chunks of his skin as I drew the intricate designs across his body.

Swirling the blade in a thick round curve, I freed his flesh from his leg, and the hollers he mewled out like a animal found the fire growing in my chest and stoked it as good as gasoline.

“Blasphemous sinners! You will pay in the name of His Most Holy God. I will be delivered unto the land of the righteous!”

Stopping from my task for just a second, I met eyes with the Father at last, holding up my blade and nodding at the red dressing it.

“You see that Father? That shit might as well be tar for as righteous as you are. You don’t get to rape women. You don’t get to take what you want out of some delusional belief that you’re doing god’s work. You’re not. You’re a piece of shit, and Dommic,” I gestured over my shoulder, “is going to devour you. Bit by bit, piece by piece. But that’s not the worst of it.”

I carved another thick sigil into the meat of his stomach and another across his forearm, then his chest. Screams echoes and the blackness clouding my heart soothed over the scars like a wicked balm. There would be nothing of good ol’ Amelia left after this.

“The worst part? Is me.”

Digging my blade through the soft flesh of his belly, the Father squirmed, the wet sounds of my cuts filling the darkened space around me.

“I’m not just going to kill you. I’m going to make you wish you were never born. For everything you’ve done to me, you will pay in slow strips of your flesh.”

Continuing the carvings, I did exactly what I said I would. Stripping chunks of the priest’s skin from his body and leaving them to fall where they may, knowing Dommic would ensure every bit of him was gone.

Thick crimson pooled around the priest, he was bleeding out fast, and I gestured for Dommic to join me.

“I want it to last. Give him just enough.”

He smirked, the malicious satisfaction in his grin enough to make a girl feel weak in the knees. Moving so that his wrist hung over the Father’s mouth, Dommic made a tiny cut. Obsidian ichor dripped between Father Trubiano’s lips as he tried to avoid it, but my monster just held his jaw and forced him to swallow until he knew he’d had enough to keep him stable.

“You know,” I finished the runes on the left side of the priest’s body, starting in on the right, “you’re a fucking hypocrit. A demented fuck. You preach goodness and virtue all day long, but then you go back to your office at night and drug women to fuck them. Are you so fucking gone that you don’t even see the truth behind your own sins?”

Fury made the Father’s eyes flare wide, and he screamed a final yelp before he glared at me and answered.

“I am the Lord’s instrument! I am His weapon against evil! It is through my works that the unholy are punished and the wrath of God is delivered unto the earth.”

Stepping over his body, I reached down and punched him across the jaw. “You’re a fucking lunatic hypocrit who assaults students! You’re no better than a common rapist. You just have a religion kink.”

Slicing the last few runes into the Father’s right arm and leg, I considered Dommic’s existence.

“He was born out of the darkness to eat fucks like you. You know that?” I scoffed. “How exactly do you explain that? Where do he fit into your grand world order?”

My anger flared bright, and I carved deeper, spilling more blood.

“If the world was a kinder place, maybe we wouldn’t have him. But it’s not. And all the fucking evil swirling around out there made him. And now, he hunts you assholes down and delivers your exact brand of torture. Little taste of your own medicine.”

I stood up from the work, my knees and back stinging slightly from crouching, and looked down at the masterpieces I’d created before me.

“You know,” I studied my blade, my fingers dripping with red, “I have this scar on my back. I knew it was from the assault but I couldn’t figure out what it was.”

This realization was what I’d been holding onto, and I finally let myself accept it.

“I’d been so thoroughly out of it, unconscious and basically in a trauma coma. It wasn’t until tonight that I realized what it was.”

Sitting on the fucker’s chest, I balanced the tip of my blade on his sternum.

“You’ve got that fancy ass crucifix. There’s an inscription of these fucking letters on the head of it. I could never really make out what they were from the mirror, just knew one was an N. And these swirls surrounding it, too.”

I lifted up the hem of my shirt, drawing his and Dommic’s attention to the scar on my side right above my kidney.

“Got to hand it to you. I didn’t even know you were,” the tone of my voice harshened as I began to scream, “FUCKING BRANDING ME!”

Dommic growled from his perch off to the side, then he was at the priest’s head, digging his claws into his shoulders. I reached around myself with my blade, finding the thicker skin of the old burn and slicing it from my back. The slippery, bloody flesh was warm between my fingers, and I shoved it into the Father’s mouth.

“Fucking choke on it you prick.”

Leaving the man on the floor, I stood up moving to the foot of the circle as I struggled to breathe around the overwhelming everything that pulsed through me like lightning. Dommic was at my side in a flash, offering his wrist to dull the pain.

I gratefully sucked down several mouthfuls, knowing what I was asking for next.

As I pulled back, I gripped Dommic’s arm, keeping him at the ready. “Hey, so um…”

“What?”

I felt those traitorous tears at the corner of my eyes, but they didn’t fall. I knew I was getting my revenge, taking back my body, and Dommic was going to help me like he had been.

“He wanted to impregnate me.” I looked over at the Father writhing and thrashing against his binds. “Kill it. I won’t carry any part of him into this world.”

The Father’s eyes continued to blow wide in his face, and I was astounded they could even get wider at his point. But anger quickly ate up the shock on his face, and he fought all the harder to break free, Dommic’s blood giving him just enough strength to keep struggling.

“No! You undo the will of God. Whore! Murderer!” His voice was a scratchy imitation of the condescending tone he used every minute of every single day, and memories of his fucking “lectures” rollercoasted through my brain.

I cocked my head, smirking at him as Dommic’s blood dripped down my chin. “Yeah. I’m both those things. And I fucking love it.”

Turning back to Dommic, I met his eyes, falling into that black abyss as I held his wrist to my lips. I lowered my voice to a whisper.

“Do it.”

Dommic nodded, slipping his fingers into me and burning away any chance that I might carry that fucker’s baby or anyone else’s for that matter. Horrific pain soared through my body, and I nearly fell to the floor before Dommic pressed his skin to my mouth. My screams were replaced by Father Trubiano’s as I drank deep, the pain dulling enough that I could force myself to bare it.

After a few agonizing moments, Dommic pulled back. I sucked down more of his blood to fight off the remaining pain, and it faded to nothing. Standing straighter I waited for the pain, but it didn’t come. I’d completely healed. Apparently, Dommic’s blood and I were getting along better and better.

I looked back to the Father, holding my face in a neutral expression aside from the simmering rage that would always live behind my eyes. Walking to the top of the circle, my eyes tracing the lines of the strange star beneath him and how they reflected the runes, I crouched low enough to whisper in his ear.

“My body. My choice, fuckface.” I spat on him, holding the glare that the Father threw my way with little effectiveness.

Dommic appeared at his other side, and Father Trubiano couldn’t hide the terror swimming up through him.

“Well, now what? You sacrilegious heretics! You monsters!” Spittle flew from his lips as he yelled, still trying to break free.

With a grin, Dommic allowed the shadows around him to grow, his form stretching to fill up the entire ceiling. “Now? Now, Father, I tear the flesh from your bones and make her a dress out of it.”

I sank to my knees, holding my blade over the Father’s throat. The pull of Dommic’s blood in my veins sang louder than an earthquake. Whatever his black magic was, it swelled inside me, and I found the words for the ritual without even thinking about them.

“Cor pravum consume.”

“No! No!” His screams stopped nothing.

“Carnem et animam deuorare.”

Inserting the tip of my knife under the edge of the priest’s pristine white collar, I started slowly. Slicing through the skin with minimal pressure, I tugged the blade through the sinew and cartilage of the Father’s neck next. It was long seconds of gradual movement, blood spraying onto my hands and staining the white square that sat below the Father’s Adam’s apple.

“Offer eos ad foveam diaboli.”

Screams turned to choking grunts.

“Messorem furialem, sacrilegum hominis comedentem.”

Gurgling sounds of thick blood filling a throat echoed just above the exaggerated torrent of candles burning. Light flared through the room as I cut through the remaining flesh connecting one side of this asshole’s neck to the other. Impenetrable black circled around us, closing us in and weaving through the runes, making them surge with a molten glow.

I held his stare as life bled from him onto the floor, the glassy gray covering his irises. My carve was deep, nearly taking his head off.

And with that Father Judah Trubiano was dead.