Page 66 of Be My Sacrifice
Before I can pull the trigger, a sensation crawls along my skin, a slight humming penetrating my ears, and making its way into my mind, that has me taking a stumbling step forward. My mind feels like it’s being wrapped in a dense fog, one that I can’t seem to escape. I shake my head, trying to clear it, only to find my whole body trembling.
What the hell is this? What is happening to me?
The shadow moves closer and closer, until I can see its outline through the fog that’s invading my mind. “Noooo,” I mumble, my tongue feeling heavy inside of my mouth. I try to force myself to step back, away from the sense of danger that skates around my limbs like a malignant tar, but it holds me rooted in my spot.Wake up! Wake up and fight!My mind screams, but I’m trapped in a moment of horror I cannot seem to escape.
The figure moves even closer, his long dark robes sliding along the floor sinisterly, wrapped in shadows, making my heart want to jump out of my chest.No, this is not happening; this is not real. I need to wake the fuck up, stop whatever is happening here.
When he’s no more than three feet away from me, the gun slides from my hand unbidden and clacks to the hardwood floor, in a sound so loud and frightening that it feels like my mind might be fracturing. My eyes stare at the edges of the dark robe near the floor. The moonlight helps me see that the fabric is encrusted with jewels, that sparkle in the barely there light, and delicate threads depicting shapes I cannot determine. I force my eyes to rise, even though every part of me is screaming not to look, to turn away, to run as far and fast as I can.
The humming increases in my mind, until it sounds like a swarm of bees trying to drive me mad. Both my hands rise to my ears, desperately attempting to stop the sound, but it’s no use. It combines with the sound of my rapid heartbeat, until I’m almost drowning in it and can’t catch a breath. A scent reaches my nose, powerful and cloying, but I can’t find the words to describe it. It’s as if my mind is overwhelmed and shutting down. My chest tightens painfully as if a giant python was wrapping itself slowly around my body, and squeezing me inch by inch.
My eyes are forced to keep rising, past the shadow’s legs to its waist, where I get my first glimpse of flesh.Hands. Not a shadow, not a monster with claws, a human, a man. How is he doing this? Those bejeweled hands unclasp, and a fluttering happens in my chest at the movement of his fingers. My knees weaken, threatening to have me collapse as my gaze continues to rise past his abdomen to his wide chest, over the symbol of his faith and to the sliver of skin exposed by the robe’s fabric at his neck.
Darkened gold and white shine even in the moonlight, lit from within as if the darkness dares not touch it. My eyes finally rest on a mask covering the shadow man’s features. My breath hitches in my throat, and a wave of dizziness overtakes me, forcing me again to stumble. That fog keeps getting thicker and thicker, as it threatens to choke me of all my breaths.
I should have waited for Zeke and Abe. I should never have come here. This is not a man. He is the devil incarnate, and I have made my way foolishly alone into his den. I’m going to die here with no way to save myself, no way to even protect myself from the evil within this room.
Fight, break free of his hold; you are NOT weak!The monster rattles its cage desperately to free me from whatever sorcery has me trapped. It helps a little, bringing back some of my awareness. It causes my rage to rise like a volcano, threatening to erupt and lay waste to all before me. I clench one fist then the other, relieved that I can indeed move.Not a prisoner, I am not a prisoner.
The Holy Father stands before me, tall and unflinching, as if I wasn’t here to murder him in cold blood. As if I didn’t need his death as payment to save the man I love. All of the confusing and otherworldly sensations that I have felt before in his presence rise within me, and my body shakes as if I am having a seizure. My teeth rattle, and the air whooshes out of my chest as if being siphoned by forces unknown.What. The. Fuck.
An enormous, ragged gasp rents the air between us, and somehow, I feel the satisfaction that soars within him at the sound. He’s enjoying this; whatever this is, or whatever is happening here to me, it’s all his doing.Move, break free, don’t let him get his hands on us!The monster screams within me, terrified of this devil before us.
“Hello, Sacred Daughter, or should I just call you daughter, since you are my flesh and blood?” His voice is like silk sliding along all the edges of my mind, caressing it and easing my sense of panic. He steps forward and stops, the edges of his voluminous robes protruding forward like nefarious tentacles. Somehow, deep inside of me, I know I don’t want them to touch me.
This is insane. He’s just a man, and these are parlor tricks. Break free of this madness, every cell inside me screams.
His bejeweled hands, covered in moonlight, slip to the edges of his mask, and he lifts the decorative piece above his head. The ornate golden-tipped feathers sway hypnotically, making my skin crawl as his dermis reveals itself one pale inch at a time. Over the square outline of his chin, and the clean-shaven flesh of his jaw and cheeks, exposing full lips tilted up at the corners in a demonic smirk.
The mask continues on its journey upwards, revealing a Roman nose and two dark blue eyes, that sparkle with midnight fire and diabolical evil within their pools. He finally rips it over his head, and his salt and pepper hair is the final piece to be revealed.
Noooooooo, it can’t be. It. Can’t. This is not real; this is not happening. I’m trapped in a nightmare, and I will wake soon. Wake up! Wake the fuck up!I beg and plead with myself, but it’s useless; the image before me doesn’t change. My panic helps me loosen some of the malignant grip the fog has on me, and I’m able to shift all of my limbs as my head moves back and forth on my neck with terror.
My breath catches in my throat, disbelief racing through me, and my heart painfully stutters in my chest.It can’t be, it’s not fucking possible.I was there, forced to watch as they tortured him. An unwilling young captive, forced to witness horrific brutality that scarred me forever.
I was confined to a chair, unable to move as they viciously broke every one of his limbs with a bat and mallet, and tore him apart inch by inch. I observed unwillingly, and with hoarse screams escaping me until I couldn’t make another sound, as they sliced the skin from his bones. I watched with tears that raced down my swollen face, as he bled out on the floor around him, a grotesque and rancorous scene forced on a young girl. The smell of blood, urine, and fear permanently imprinted in my mind, heart, and soul in those moments. I was the teenager who would never recover from the trauma inflicted on her mind at the hands of Brotherhood men.
It was that girl who, despite all she knew about that man and his misdeeds, still loved him deep down inside her heart and soul. My eyes never left the sight of him as he took what was his last breath. The air left his lips with a ghastly shudder that wracked his whole body. That shudder became a staple in my nightmares, right along with his screams, for years to come.
This is not possible, it can’t be.He’s. Not. Here.This is some sick, depraved joke that either the Brotherhood or the rebels are playing with me. This man is wearing a ghost’s face. This is what they are going to use to break me, and it will work because I have never been as terrified as I am at this moment.
Tears slide down from the corners of my eyes, even as I beg my mind to wake from whatever horror I’m trapped in. This is so much worse than being trapped in the dark with the monster. This monster has risen from the dead, and returned to take my sanity and life from me. He’s not Lazarus; he cannot just rise from the dead. My mind tries to reason with me, but it does nothing to subdue the panic waging war inside of me.
“This is not real. You are not real.” My voice sounds unhinged and on the verge of madness.
The man before me is not just the Holy Father dressed in fine robes. He’s not my great uncle like he has professed. The man before me is a specter and a monster. He’s my father, who has returned to life. The Holy Father is wearing the face of a dead Francis Camrose.
The horror of what I’m witnessing processes through my mind rapidly, circling through every interaction that I have had with the Holy Father, since being forced back to the capital and leaving the safety of my home with Sammy. The reality that this monster was present, and watched my mother blow her brains out, and did nothing to stop it, causes me to break free from whatever mystical or psychedelic hold he has on me.
I lunge forward, all of my rage surfacing, and I slam my open palm across his face. The sound of skin making contact with skin is loud in the otherwise silent room. His head moves to the side of his neck with the impact from my hit, but he makes no attempt to stop my actions. Not a sound escapes him, as he eerily returns his cold eyes to mine.Fuck, fuck, fuck, is he really alive?
He could have saved her. He could have saved Gabriel. He could have protected his family, if he had been the Holy Father all this time, the most powerful man in our world. Instead, he let them die. He let my brother be tortured at the hands of his friend, Noah Rothesay, and my mother succumbed to her grief, after having lost both her children. One to death, and one to the sadistic laws of the Brotherhood. Until she felt she had no other option left to her, but to take her own life.
He, this monster before me, let them die one by one, until the only ones left were me and my still-unfound nephew. The last of the Camroses, or so I believed. This monster had caused so much pain. This creature, hell-bent on power, could have prevented all of it, but instead, he did nothing.
“I can see that you are upset, rightly so, daughter. This has been a shock to you, so I forgive you your sin. Fair warning, however, my child, that is the only time you will get to assail me, Dinah. Do not mistake my love for you for weakness.” His hand strikes out and wraps itself around my throat. His strong, slender fingers dig into my skin, and slowly but intently close off my airway, as I stare into his blue eyes. Eyes I should have recognized all the times I was before him, but never made the connection.
I was a fool and allowed myself to fall right into a trap, but not of the Brotherhood, or of the rebels, as I had feared. Instead, the trap and implications are so much worse. My dead father has come back to life, it seems, and needs something from me, but the question is, what? What does the most powerful man in the world need from a daughter he long ago discarded?