Previously…
Alice and Joshua had a bit of history which no one knew about. When they had been younger, Alice would often persuade him to play certain games with her (mostly with sexual-satanic overtones). But eventually she went a bit too far in one of her games and Joshua had freaked out. He threatened to tell his mother, and Alice, to keep him quiet, had scared him half to death by saying that if he did, she would wait until he was asleep then creep into his room and suck out all his blood. She was only joking, but Joshua saw no reason to disbelieve her. She looked every inch the vampire with her pentagrams and piercings. Joshua wet his bed for six months after that visit, but at least Alice was deterred from playing with him.
“Thank you for the coffee,” she smiled at
Clara. “But now I would like to go and unpack and have a bath. If that’s okay?”
She smiled sweetly at Clara. Clara didn’t answer.
“Sure. You can have Joshua’s room,” said
Samuel, looking at Clara to see if this was okay. Clara shrugged nonchalantly
as if she couldn’t give a stuff.
“Okay then,” he said, picking up her
suitcase. I’ll show you.” He led them out the kitchen and up the stairs,
Alice’s leathers and chains clinking as she walked, the dog following close
behind, sniffing at her bum.
And now...
“Wooaaa Harm. Wooaaa Gore.”
Demona dragged on the reins-and-buckle to
bring the large shaggy tri-peds to a lumbering halt. She and her sidekick rode
in a tandem saddle suspended between the two great elephantine creatures. These
were three legged animals, more used to trekking across the ice tundra’s of
Tulwan than the deserts of Saih. They had one foreleg apiece with a slit
hoof to guide, and two powerful hind legs to thrust and push. Their broad
flanks and easy lope made them ideal creatures for long journeys had it not
been for their salivating jaws, which released such copious volumes of froth
and foam that sailed back with the wind as they ran and created a virtual sheet
of mucous and saliva. This is why they could only be ridden in tandem, two of
them harnessed side by side, with a central saddle not in direct line of the
slobber. Otherwise the passenger would drown in spit. Gravidores were not very
fast, but they were untiring.
All of eight feet tall, these two were still
only youngsters, and due to their exuberant wilfulness were hard to handle at
times. They were immensely powerful and dangerous, and although they had a lot
of respect for Demona (she could be very hurtful), they made Carrapacchio’s
life a misery. He had to be very careful when mounting and dismounting to keep
well clear of their ravenous jaws. He knew they’d like nothing better than to
take a bite out of him.
“Hurry up you spineless sissy…help me down
and stop dancing around like you have poop in your pants. Scared to death of my
two little puppies are you? Call yourself a man…you and your mouldy little
penis…...ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.”
The Gravidores began to fret and jerk at the
reins, unsettled by her malicious laughing
“Alright, alright, you can calm down now.
I’ve had enough of you all today. Set up my tent Carrapacchio…and get that fire
going. I’m starving,” she said, and marched off behind the nearest dune to
relieve herself.
Carrapacchio began untying the heavy bags
from the cross frames and dragged them to a sheltered clearing nearby. He was a
sight to inspire horror and pity at the same time. Lurching along on crippled
claws, he was a crass, craven creature with sad, mad eyes – full of swollen
desires and choking resentments. This was Demona’s bastard son-lover. From
birth he had been an ugly little monster, hard to distinguish from his
afterbirth, and the result of her copulation with some unnatural creature she
couldn’t even remember anymore.
“Am I always to be sneezed upon,” he
complained. “Am I to be cast aside like an old fagot just because thou hast a
vagrant vagina?” he grumbled to himself as he went about his tasks. “Am I
thanked for my services? Oh no. I am to be pissed on at every turn of a whim
that wanders through her bloodless body.”
“Stop muttering, monster.”
“Monster is as monster does. And what is thy
pleasure tonight my mistress,” he curtsied sarcastically and oozed his way
forward…
“Don’t you start that again,” she said,
raising her stick. “You just see you don’t burn the food.”
She went to one of the sacks and took out a
bottle of bloody liquor.
“What are we celebrating then tonight my
mistress?”
“None of your business, creep.”
For a while he went about his chores with a
dejected demeanour, cursing and spitting into the stew when she wasn’t looking,
but after a while he let out a little giggle.
“I know how I shall have my revenge on her,”
he whispered in his own ear, and was much cheered by it. “Tonight I shall sneak
into her tent…….” but he went no further, for he was well aware of her powers,
and the fact that she could, at times, read his thoughts. “Best not to let the
mind know what the body is up to,” he thought sneakily.
Demona sat back against her plump Persian
pillows in the door of the tent and stared out into the vastness. She was
decked with the finest Arabian silks – diamonds and all sorts of precious
jewels hung from her fingers and her long black hair, which in chains did fall
about her shoulders bare.
Her lips were rich and ruby red
Her hips wide enough for the devil’s head
Charcoal eyes that pierced the night
Her chocolate skin, a satiny delight.
They say she fell, a falling star
And crashed into the East
They say that day mankind did weep
And eat a bitter feast.
Now the bottle is bare, no succour in there
And her bosom as barren as Cain
But she searches for blood from an innocent
breast
That the devil may ride once again.
For her resurrection from the ashes of hell
Rise the cries of the battle of horn and
bell
Forgive them all, some bravely said
In which fair book she never read
Of gentleness that ever bled
For all who hungered and would be fed.
She lived but half a life infernal, without
blood, without tears, without glory.
The book of her life lay leafless and lost
on some distant desert dune.
“Soon,” she crooned softly to herself. “Soon
we will be at the city gates.” She took a deep drag on the bottle of palm wine
and closed her eyes as the oily liquid burned its way into her stomach and set
her veins on fire. “Best not to let the little bastard have any of this or else
I shall get no sleep tonight,” she said to the wind. “But soon. Soon I shall
not need him anymore. Soon I shall have legions of grovellers wanting to serve
me. I shall dress and dine like a queen. I shall live in a beautiful palace and
not have to drink this piss anymore for a start.” Then loudly to Carrapacchio
she says, “See that you get to sleep early tonight. I want to be up before
dawn.”
The night sky turned on a starry wheel
Above the quiet tent,
Where softly dreams like pageants fell
Until the silence was rent.
“Hurry, hurry, the boy is here…I can smell
him. The wind has changed and I have him here,” she said, pointing at her
hooked nose, and looking towards the burgeoning east.
“We can’t let this one get away. Come on,
come on, for Beelzebub’s sake hurry…hurry.”
“The devil’s always in a hurry,” muttered
Carrapacchio under his breath. “Always seeking mischief to cool her boiling
blood.” And then in a loud voice; “Why is this boy so important, oh gruelling
one?” he said, more to annoy her with stupid questions than any real need to
know. Who knows what madness drives this devil’s sow. He certainly did not
care.
“Because he’s my ticket out of here. No more
schlepping through the shit with you.”
“But how can the boy get you out of here?”
“Because he comes from the other land, you
fool.”
“They all come from the other land, oh
gloating one.”
“Yes, but this one’s not dead.” She hawked
and spat into the morning dirt. “…………..not yet!”
A bloody red dawn spilt across the dunes as
they mounted up and rode into the rising sun.
