Chapter Five:
My ice froze my spirit solid at his impossible words, my eyes raking over his spirit, trying to understand how he could say such a thing when, in this form, he appeared so beautiful, so alive. Augustin continued his macabre explanation, prompting my spirit to sink ever deeper into a morass of horror and disbelief.
“Anubis told me on that fateful night that I must die in order to achieve that second level of the Teutonic priesthood, to hand my heart over to Wuotan, to be reduced to his eternal slave. Only a Black Priest can kill another of his ilk, and once Wuotan had given me the gifts of darkness, Anubis requested that I kill him immediately. He wanted to join the other three in the realm of the dead.”
He paused as I gaped, pain marring his expression. “I did not want to die, Swanhilde, for I thought of you even then, remembering your love and how desperately your heart bleeds for my salvation. But they forced me . . . the other three rose from the abyss to attend my funeral . . . to aid their brother in his final act of demonic service on this mortal world.
“The three who reside in hell look like skeletons, rotting flesh clinging to their bones, their eyes pits of obscurity, soulless beasts. They introduced themselves as Osiris, king of the underworld, lightning glowing upon his carcass . . . Tartarus, god of the deepest part of the abyss, his bones resembling molten rock . . . and Erebus, god of darkness and shadow, blackness radiating from his form.
“Their potent elements rendered me defenseless, although Anubis himself quite likely could have defeated my fire with his dark energy, had he expended the effort. They carried me through a portal of black fire to the realm where Wuotan walks, and they threw me naked upon the demon’s personal altar, ignoring my screams of protest.”
Disgust consumed me, and I lifted both hands to cover my mouth. Part of me wished desperately to awaken from this nightmare before I could hear the rest. But Augustin trapped my eyes with his as he said, “They sacrificed me while Wuotan and a host of other demons looked on. Each of them made one cut in my flesh with sizzling knives of stone, setting my very blood aflame, and Anubis tore my heart from my chest and invoked Wuotan’s fires to consume it. I believe they set my corpse ablaze before the conclusion of the ceremony . . . but Wuotan had already ripped my soul away, dragging me into his void, informing me that if I returned to my body after this death, it would be at his hands, from his mercy.
“He brought me to the very gates of hell, dark wretched things, black flames licking around them, screams pealing out from them in one continuous cry, the epitome of pain and torment. He asked me in a sinister voice whether I preferred to go inside where I belonged or return to the mortal world as his slave. He would grant me powers I had never thought possible and postpone my judgment day until I earned a throne in hell.
“To accept such a deal would place me perpetually in his debt, and I had been informed that three of the original Black Priests had chosen hell over demonic servitude. But I fear, Swanhilde, that terror vanquished my sanity when I stared at those gates. I felt the demons clawing at my soul, the heat of the flames scorching me, those horrific cries blocking out all resistance from my heart. I groveled before him and begged him to take me, to let me go back to earth, so I could gain a status far above hell’s rotting humanity. He laughed and asked me caustically what had become of my bargaining powers, raking his claws through my spirit as he dragged me back to his realm. There, he infused me with the gifts of the Cursed Ones, pledging that if I failed to obey his will, he would make the mortal world seem worse to me than hell.”
Augustin paused again, his fiery eyes demanding some sort of response from me, a plea for him to release my heart, perhaps, now that I knew the truth. But I could not speak. My element had frozen my spirit, and I marveled that I sat before a dead man, a Black Priest who might very well kill me tonight . . . the man I loved always, the man who was everything to me. Eventually my master seemed to accept my lack of words, and he averted his gaze to the stream and finished his story.
“When I opened my eyes, I found myself lying on the ground outside of my cave, the snow-covered earth no longer chilling my body, a strange potency pulsing through my veins, perfecting my senses, erasing my weakness. I lifted myself off of the ground and saw Anubis awaiting me, gravely reminding me of my first duty as his replacement: to kill him. I asked him how, and he said that I must use the new gift Wuotan had granted me, the one that I saw in your blood . . . the gift of death.
“That reprehensible gift is the foulest burden of the Cursed Ones, for it is directly connected with that overarching emotion of anger. Thus, I fear that until my time on earth is done, I shall kill indiscriminately any time I grow angry.” Augustin looked toward me, his eyes glimmering with regret. “Anubis had to anger me before I could kill him, and he managed it with amazing finesse.” He grimaced at me and I waited, staring at him blankly. “My darling . . . he derided my devotion to you and threatened to kill you himself . . . since Cursed Ones are forbidden to love.”
His terrible words finally shook me out of my frozen state. I rose from the ground as fear spattered my robes with icy white, my eyes darting here and there in search of a safe haven. Augustin followed when I fled to the cherry tree, willing my robes to match the stream once more, to conceal me in the shadows underneath the branches. My master drew my heart from beneath his robes to caress it gently, attempting to infuse my spirit with calm.
“Swanhilde, my love, you need not fear him or any of the other original Black Priests,” he assured me, sincerity pouring into my heart from his sturdy fingers. “They have left this mortal world for good, aside from the rare occasions in which Wuotan allows them a reprieve from the flames of hell. When they are here, they cannot sink their claws into you, for you belong to God. Wuotan must ask your Savior’s permission before tormenting you, and he does not prefer to humiliate himself for such favors.” Augustin’s expression grew caustic.
I tried to let go of my fright, to focus instead on Augustin’s hands protecting my heart. He may be dead . . . he may have sold his soul to a demon . . . he may be encumbered with an uncontrollable tendency to kill at random . . . but his love for me had not diminished. I could feel its strength while he tried to assuage my fears; and part of me firmly believed that Augustin’s love for me would never burn out, even though Wuotan had laid claim upon his heart.
“Even if they hold no sway over my soul . . . there is you.” I struggled to put my confused thoughts into words, my doubts needling my quietude. “You’re dead now . . . you belong to a demon. What will become of our bond, with Wuotan threatening to torment you unless you renounce your love for me?”
Augustin scowled and he lowered his eyes to my heart, watching it throb in his hands. “Like I told you earlier, you should have allowed me to sever our bond when we had the chance,” he said flatly. “Now you are tied to a dead man, and I cannot fight Wuotan forever. He has not begun plaguing me over my love for you yet, but inevitably one day he shall distort my adoration into a lust for blood and death, a longing to tear your heart asunder.
“Now, as I feel your presence with me, as I sense the purity within your heart . . . I can almost convince myself that our bond may survive this test. But it shall not . . . for although I am a phantom now, eternally dead and technically immortal, I am only a man . . . and my master is a demon. His power far outweighs mine, and I can no longer refuse him.”
Augustin’s visage twisted with pain, and he tightened his grip on my heart as though he feared that it may vanish at Wuotan’s bidding. I stepped away from the tree to place my hands against his cheeks. “There’s still hope for you, Augustin,” I whispered passionately, believing it in spite of everything.
“You can fight Wuotan forever, because you can put your faith in God. You just admitted that God has more power than your demon master. Why place your soul into the hands of a devil instead? He may have brought you back from the gates of hell and given you a second chance on earth, but you said yourself that he promised you a delay of the final judgment. If you put your faith in God, you can renounce that damnation altogether!”
Augustin jerked away from me sharply, his expression fierce as he tucked my heart back within his robes. “You must not suggest such traitorous things,” he reproved me, his eyes blazing a vivid blue. “My chance at heaven has been permanently lost, for I have seen the gates of hell with my own eyes and handed my heart willingly to the lords of darkness. Wuotan may torment me now for my devotion to you, but if I begged God to forgive my sins, my master would thrust me into a far deeper level of demonic agony. I cannot betray him.”
I shook my head firmly, refusing to accept his bleak attitude. But Augustin scoffed, and when he spoke again, his tone sounded darker than the night sky above. “You ought to ponder your own fate, since you shall likely be bound to me for the duration of the next two decades. Though Wuotan holds no sway over your eternal resting place, your heart lies in the hands of a dead man influenced daily by the darkness. You shall valiantly attempt to pull me to heaven, while I shall thrust you in vain towards hell. It shall be an everlasting conflict, a contest neither of us can win. And I cannot meet you in the mortal world to break our bond for fear of inadvertently killing you. Therefore, our feud shall continue indefinitely, our love degenerating into disgust.”
Part of me wished to argue with him again, to insist that he had not lost his chance at heaven. He had not actually entered hell, and in my mind, that meant that he could still turn. Augustin was not the first to have sold his soul to a devil, and others like him had eventually repented and embraced grace. But I did not want to waste any more of our fleeting moments with futile arguments since I knew not when he would choose to interrupt another of my dreams. Our meetings would likely grow fewer and fewer as time went by, so I needed to preserve every second we had.
“So our bond will remain unbroken until I return to the future?” I inquired, my thoughts jumping twenty-one years ahead to the fall of Muniche.
“It is quite probable,” Augustin replied, sitting down upon the grass once more and gesturing for me to join him. I sat beside him and curled my legs underneath me. “You had better pray hard that the tides of time shall wield enough force to sever our bond,” he went on, “for in the meantime, we must remain separated. It is difficult to ponder it . . . for even in my misery, I cannot expunge the memory of our final night together with its sensual perfection . . . its immeasurable glory . . . its incredible fulfillment.”
My spirit shivered with desire as Augustin stared into my eyes, his strong right hand passing through my face, traveling down the robes at my chest. The sinful part of me wanted to throw myself at his feet and beg him to tell me which mountain he stalked, in which cave he hid. I could flee to him there and ask Wuotan to unite us in some sort of devilish matrimony, so we could enjoy each other freely in spite of his curse.
But the eyes of my spirit caught sight of that black scar on his forearm, the sleeve of his sapphire robe pushed back just enough to reveal its very tip . . . and I remembered that as of the upcoming Saturday, my life would become one permanent lie. “I’m marrying Joel in a Teutonic wedding this Saturday,” I said. A second after the words had left my lips, I wanted to call them back.
Augustin snickered quietly and drew his hand away from my chest. “At least you have the fortitude to continue with your life despite what has been done, while I wallow alone in desolation. So he is a Teuton now, thanks to your foolish escapade to the brink of death.”
Augustin crossed his arms and eyed me with a touch of blame, for my ridiculous race to save Joel’s life had resulted in his banishment. “I suppose now that he is your equal, you may be able to convince yourself to love him, to fall for a man of wind who could whirl you through the air effortlessly at every dance, were he properly trained.”
I remembered that kiss I had shared with Joel after he had proposed, when my ice had refused to respond to his element’s attempt at dalliance. “I guess the two of us could make a good team, running the Meldorf estate and raising a family,” I admitted, looking down at my hands clasped in my lap. “But my love for him—assuming I can find it—will never hold a candle to my love for you. Joel could never pull me back from death the way you can. And he can’t teach me secrets of Teutonic lore or hold the heart of my soul in his hands.”
Augustin grinned at me, his teeth glowing rather wickedly in the moonlight. “Then I shall be the ghost in your bed,” he commented with grotesque triumph, “and you shall spend the rest of your days wondering what infinite glories I could have taught you if we had remained together . . . the devilry of elemental harlotry.”
I laughed when Augustin quoted what the Prince and the Old One had said as they related our sins. “What in the world do they think is wrong about elemental sex?” I asked. “All of the council members are Teutons like us, and I’m sure they get it on with their wives quite thoroughly.” I snickered.
“I believe they condemned us for the harlotry aspect, my swan,” Augustin explained, a wicked grin still spread across his face. “As much as the Catholics expound on the so-called evils of sexual gratification, I doubt too many of them hold back their cries of ecstasy during the act itself.”
I shrieked once, doubling over with laughter, and then my lover added, “Eventually you shall learn the perils of intercourse, once you are married. You shall find yourself pregnant over and over again, forced to face the dangers of childbirth as a Teuton woman.”
My mind flew back to the realization that had come over me the previous morning, and I winced a little, my right hand sliding forward to grasp the icy robes at my stomach. “Is there any way you can . . . somehow . . . be my advocate . . . when I’m writhing in labor . . . even though you can’t physically be there?” I asked, fearing that Wuotan would seize the first opportunity to thrust me back to the twenty-first century, to leave his servant unattached. “I realize that there’s a medical aspect to the whole thing. I’ll make sure I have a midwife, and I’ll clean the room beforehand. But the fate of Teuton women in childbirth hangs ultimately upon the whims of Wuotan . . . in the realm of the spirit.” I bit my lip.
Augustin’s expression clouded over, intensity replacing his snide humor. “Wuotan shall not claim your soul in childbirth,” he said, his fiery eyes burning the water before us. “You must first inform me of your travail with a cry of your heart, and I shall advocate for you again. He may require some of your children, but I shall not allow him to kill you.”
Some of your children. I hesitated for one final moment, then fearfully began to broach the subject that had plagued me since Sunday morning. “Now that you’re dead, I suppose you could . . . share your bed with anyone . . . and not worry about having offspring.” I gnawed on my lip while I awaited his response, my icy teeth leaving no mark on my spirit.
Augustin averted his gaze from the stream to my face, his eyebrows coming together as he sensed my distress. “No, a dead man cannot have children. He also does not need to eat, or drink, or sleep. I have not eaten or drunk anything since Anubis came to me that night, and I have slept rarely, due to the nightmares.” He paused, his ghostly forehead crinkling. “What frightens you, Swanhilde? Do the particulars of my existence trouble your heart?”
“No, I . . . I think . . . I think . . . .” I stumbled over the words, fear of his reaction to the awful truth binding me in chains. I shuddered all over and forced myself to meet Augustin’s worried eyes. “My boobs have been sore . . . and my period is five days late . . . and I’m never late. I think . . . I might be . . . pregnant.” I froze as I watched the emotions run across his face: shock, horror, denial, fury, anguish.
Augustin leaped to his feet with a howl, blue flames exploding from his fists, evaporating before they could taint the grass. He stomped into the shallows of the brook, his spirit trembling with anger. “Of course this would happen NOW!” he snapped. “I have never engendered a child in my LIFE, for in the past I have always killed my victims, and Gisela has always been barren.”
A horrid oath burst from his lips, and he threw his hands in the air. His cobalt robes transformed into solid flames of fire that licked fitfully amid the flowing waters. “I should have married you that night before throwing you upon my bed. I could have collared some Teuton priest to do the duty for us. Then the murderer could not have cursed me, for I would have been head of my own family!” Augustin howled again and sank to his knees in the waters of the stream. He hid his face in his hands, muttering something in a language I did not know, his robes gradually cooling.
I had frozen upon the bank, my eyes wide as I observed my lover’s torment. I opened my lips to say something to calm him, to assure him that no one would know the child was his, since Joel and I would be husband and wife in just two days. But Augustin spoke first, terrible words spilling from his lips. “Now you shall bear a cursed child, the spawn of an apparition, your very own tiny demon.”
I rose to my feet at once, my defense of our child ringing out strong. “That horrible curse can’t reach into my womb, and this child was conceived before the Prince cast the paper into the fire. Do not call it a demon, Augustin. If I manage to carry this child to term, it will be perfect and innocent! Do you understand me?”
Augustin climbed out of the stream to stand centimeters from my chest, his anger rippling the air between us. “And what do you think people shall say if that child looks exactly like me?” he demanded, his hands curling into fists.
“There’s not that much difference in our appearances,” I responded, for I had already considered the excuses I could give if I bore a blue-eyed child. “Camilla had blue eyes similar to yours, and both of us have the same hair color. I can give Joel blond-haired children later. Not all of them have to look like him.”
My master sighed heavily, turning his eyes away from me. “I doubt Wuotan shall forgive this progeny,” he said, “but I shall preserve your life when labor seizes you, no matter the cost. You mean far more to me than some ridiculous child.” He looked toward me again and slipped his right hand into his robes to stroke my heart.
I groaned at the strong adoration that flowed from his spirit into mine. I desperately wished that I could caress him even though we could never reunite again in the mortal world. “Augustin . . . I love you so much . . . more than anyone.”
He smiled at me sadly, desolation warring with his composure. “And I love you, Swanhilde, enough to fight Wuotan for as long as I am able, enough to refuse his commands to leave you behind. We shall see how long my resolve lasts.” His smile faded, and he averted his eyes to the lightening sky.
“Morning breaks, and you must awaken. But I have one final request of you, considering the seriousness of your current predicament.” Augustin met my gaze and gestured toward the robes at my stomach. “You must care for yourself strictly in the coming months, my dear. Eat healthy foods and refrain from strenuous activity. I do not wish to confront the burden of preserving your life during a miscarriage.” Before I could reply to this, he vanished, leaving me alone in my bed.