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IF THIS SOUL
by
Disclaimer:
This story depicts strong language, contains scenes of extreme violence, sexual abuse and mentions child abuse and/or its aftermath. If any of the above is unsettling or offensive to you, you may want to read something else. If you are under the age of 18 or this is illegal in your state or country of residence, there are plenty of other wonderful tales out there to read.
This story depicts a love/sexual relationship between consenting adult women, but does contains scenes of M/F sex. If you are under 18 years of age or if this type of story is illegal in the state or country in which you live, please do not read it. If depictions of this nature disturb you, you may wish to read something other than this story.
Copyright © October 27, 2000 to the author
Revised November 16, 2002
Chapter One
Now I lay me down to sleep
It's not true that all babies see guardian angels. It's not true that all infants rest in peaceful sleep and are graced with the joyful secrets of glowing beings of light. How many times have parents heard a newborn whimper softly in its slumber? Or heard it awake with a shrill cry of despair? When the child fights so valiantly against sleep or reaches out with a desperate cry when laid down to rest and the lights go out, it's so adorable but never questioned.
Katerina Montgomery could have told her mother and father that their idea of safety was an illusion.
They came to her at midnight, while her parents lay sleeping, oblivious to the horrors occurring just down the hall in their young daughter's room. As she grew from infancy to a fuller understanding of the dark visits, Kat would watch the yellow numbers on the digital bedside clock counting down the hours and then the minutes until those red eyes that glowed with a nefarious madness held her pinned to the bed and rendered her incapable of speech. They told her things, bad things that she was forbidden to speak of. And with a hundred chanting voices, they whispered secrets. Secrets, they said, that she must know if she were to be prepared.
She had fought only once. She'd been four years old at the time. Kat had struggled and had tried to scream out to her parents for help but the scream had been subdued to a muffled whimpering, as invisible cold, gnarled hands had clamped over her mouth. She had been severely punished - and in unspeakable ways as waves of unbearable pain had scorched through her body until she had wanted to die.
She never struggled again. Red Eyes would come to her and she would lie there quietly, enduring the violence inflicted upon her. Only tears gave evidence to her distress. And she knew that something inside of her was suffering as well and that it was more than just her heart that was being wounded by those hateful eyes. Had she been old enough then to understand the things of inner essence, she would have recognized that her soul was being slowly destroyed by these nightly visits.
Kat's salvation was the approach of morning. Daylight cast the ugly truth of night into shadows. During the day, she could convince herself that the nightly visits were dreams. Dreams, however, that robbed her of a joyful childhood as the secrets chanted into her ears at night echoed constantly in her mind.
She was being prepared.
At the age of thirteen, the visits came to an abrupt end. And for a while, she continued to lie in her bed each night, quietly waiting for those red eyes that loved to torment her so. But they did not come. And secretly… she missed them.
But after a time, she had tried to put the nightmares behind her, wanting to believe herself free. It had been a year before she could comfortably close her eyes at night. However, a few minutes before midnight she would sit up in a cold sweat, her eyes staring at the clock, and then darting wildly about her room. Her heart would pound until she thought it would beat out of her chest. She would hold her breath and stare at the digitalized numbers, and wait for 12:01. Only then would she breathe again and allow herself the luxury of slumber. Eventually, she was able to sleep through the night.
It appeared that Red eyes had deserted her.
Eventually, she was able to force the memories to a far corner of her mind as she doggedly pursued a college education in investigative reporting. She was able to forget. Those eyes became a faint and blurred memory, a childhood nightmare vanquished by maturity.
It was her last year at the university when the night terrors returned.
The chanting began as a series of dreams. As Kat slept, she would hear the voices in her slumber. She marked it as her own inability to relate on a personal level with others manifesting itself in her dreamscape. Memories tried to press to the surface of her mind. She suppressed them with resolute defiance, convincing herself that the words uttered to her in dreams had no bearing on reality.
Truth is relentless and will not allow itself to be unheard and will manifest itself painfully, if necessary.
Midnight. She had just returned to her dorm room after a long shower. Closing the door to her private quarters, she had turned about to glance nervously at the clock, and had instead found herself peering into those frightening red eyes. A soft whimper escaped her lips as she reached behind her for the door and found herself paralyzed in place.
"Katerina," Red Eyes chanted her name. There were no hundreds of chanting voices this time, only two - one male and one female.
Kat had closed her eyes tightly, trying desperately to convince herself that it was her imagination and that she was making the voice up. She would open her eyes and those red glowing orbs would be gone. She might have succeeded in convincing herself of just that if she hadn't felt the chill of strong arms wrapping around her and lifting her up into the air. Kat's eyes had sprung open and found no visibly discernable presence, yet the arms holding her high above the floor were very real. The memory of those childhood nights of unbearable pain returned. She stiffened in her invisible captive's embrace. "No!" Kat struggled violently to free herself.
She was tossed onto the bed and immediately tried to scamper away. A vice-like grip clamped down around her ankles and dragged her back. A diminutive whimper escaped her lips and in a child like voice she said, "Please." She released a ragged sob, and begged, "Please, don't hurt me again."
"You are mine, Katerina. I must remind you of that."
"I remember," Kat, wept, "I remember. Please don't do this!"
"I will take you again." She swallowed a scream as her legs were easily forced apart. She wasn't supposed to scream. She remembered that. She had to be quiet; he always punished her if she wasn't quiet. The bathrobe parted, exposing her to the invisible assailant. Kat struggled wildly as she felt its presence descending upon her. "I must be sure you remember our bond." Kat released another whimper and braced herself, waiting for the brutal pain.
"Please don't."
"I am here forever."
"No!"
"We are one." Then the pain came and it ripped through her until she thought the force of it would rend her soul apart. "To run from me, to hide from me, is to run and hide from yourself. You are possessed."
When it was over, she lay there, shivering in pain and in shock, afraid to move.
"I am always with you, Katerina, mine. Always. Never forget that again."
Chapter Two
The Master's Work
Kat Montgomery looked into Marcus Kellingher's eyes and she knew in that instant she was staring into the eyes ... seeing into the soul of a guilty man. A murderer. 'He did it.' She sighed.
"Are you pleased?" He looked her directly in the eyes.
The petite blonde ignored the question and met his calm, steady eyes. "Do you have any objection to this interview being video taped?" Kellingher looked at his lawyer and winked at the disapproving man. He then turned to Kat with an unwavering gaze, as if he shared a secret with her. Kat had been thrilled at first when the convicted serial killer had agreed to an interview and had asked for her specifically. She was now beginning to think it had been a mistake to take the assignment.
"Anything for you." He smiled at her almost reverently. Connor O'Neill, Kat's investigative and writing partner, stared at the man, unnerved by his peculiar behavior. She looked at her partner, whose expression had once again become unreadable. "You are the one with the power." He closed his eyes as though savoring the thought. "I can feel it." He leaned forward and spoke to Katerina as though they were alone. "They said you would come. I did not recognize you before but they said..."
"Who are they?" Kat asked, obviously disturbed by the prisoner's unwelcome tone of acquaintance. He laughed as though she'd told a joke. Connor had her pad out and began sketching, making quick, sure strokes with her pencils. She tried to focus on her task and not on how much this man's assumed familiarity with her partner was bothering her.
"I did it for you, you know. All of it just for you." He closed his eyes again. "I had to prepare your way." He leaned towards her again. "I know it's what you would have wanted."
"Do you know me?" Kat asked in a strained voice. She was exhausted, having slept very little in the past month; a few hours a night. The nightly disturbances that had plagued her relentlessly since childhood were merciless in the length of their visits. There were nights when she seemed trapped in the waking nightmares for three to four hours at a time.
"I didn't," he smiled. "I do now. I didn't know for certain whom the work was for. I was not to know until my work was done. And now ... now I know you." He looked for a moment like he might weep as he muttered again. "Now I know you."
She desperately needed to change the subject from herself. "Tell me about your childhood." He nodded, his gray eyes warming to the subject as he spoke of loving parents. "You have a brother and sister." She referred quickly to her notes.
"Oh, yes. We got along quite well, the usual squabbles of course, but we were very close."
"Were?" She grasped onto the statement, looking for a reason behind the madness. Perhaps a traumatic severing of ties with his siblings had pushed him over the edge. The man seemed to have had everything going for him. An instructor at Four Oaks Community College, he had been granted tenure and was head of the Drama and English departments.
Connor had interviewed his former students and co-workers. They had all spoken well of him and with a great deal of respect. No one could understand his sudden killing spree. Not his close friends, nor Kellingher's wife, who had spoken of him as a loving husband and wonderful father of two teenaged girls.
"Yes, were," he sighed with melancholy, and then leaned forward, angled in her direction. "You see? They can't understand the important work I had to do. They are blind to the truth."
"What's the truth, Marcus?"
"You are the truth," he spoke reverently, regarding her as if she were some religious relic. She nearly recoiled visibly from his statement. "You are the bearer of the truth." She assumed he meant her reporting.
The camera was rolling and Kat was desperate not to become a part of this story. Yet it was apparent that Kellingher had an obsession with her. She understood now why he had requested that she be the one to interview him. John Hinckley had tried to assassinate a president to prove love and devotion to a famed celebrity. 'Was that the case here?'
How did a man like Kellingher fall over the edge and become a killer? "What changed?" she asked the question out loud.
Kellingher's smile softened, becoming so serene that the man almost appeared angelic. His gray eyes warmed and filled with childlike wonder. "He came to me." Kellingher's voice shook with emotion and reverence. "He spoke to me and told me what I needed to do." Kat cast a quick glance at her cameraman who was nodding emphatically and zooming in for a close up of the killer's face.
"He? Who, Kellingher?" He winked at her conspiratorially, and then leaned back in his chair. He then burst into child like giggles, before smiling at her coyly.
"You know," he whispered. "The One."
"The one?" she prompted.
"The One who sees all. He sees with the red vision."
Kat's stomach pitched violently and she battled against the nausea caused by the sudden knot in her gut. She had paled considerably, and Connor's hands froze in her note-taking as she took in her partner's distress.
"What did he tell you, Marcus?" She forced herself to become personable, using the man's first name.
"Death is the preparation. Death is the celebration! Death is freedom and freedom itself is the reward." Kellingher smiled at her with adoration. "He needs the blood ... to free himself. Without it he can never come to you." Kellingher was laughing now.
"How? How did you choose your victims?" she asked, her voice trembling only slightly.
His laughter ended abruptly and he studied her carefully before speaking. "I never really knew until now." He smiled at her shyly and then seemed pleased with himself when he whispered, "they all looked like you." Pain ripped through Kat's abdomen and she had to forcefully prevent herself from doubling over.
She masked her disquiet at his proclamation, mentally went over the details she had gathered about the known victims, and then relaxed. Very few if any at all, of the victims shared her physical resemblance. They were both male and female, and investigators had found no common thread linking them together. Still, she detected a hidden meaning behind his statement, but she was not prepared to further pursue it with the camera rolling.
"How many victims, Marcus?"
"39," he answered, as though she'd given an order. She gasped in surprise. The police had found 10 bodies. They had expected more, but Kellingher had been uncooperative, refusing to tell if there were others or where they had been hidden. He smiled proudly. "They were such exquisite deaths." He swayed as if in a trance. "Oh the screams!" his eyes teared with joy. "Such wonderful screams." Katerina stood up abruptly.
"May I have a minute?" She looked pleadingly at the guard and Kellingher's lawyer, who looked as though he was also going to be sick. Lawyer and guard nodded sympathetically and Connor led her out the door. Helping her lean against the cool gray exterior wall of the interview room, Connor quickly ended the physical contact and moved back a few steps, giving the smaller woman breathing space. "I'm sorry," Kat smiled weakly. "I shouldn't have let him get to me like that." Hazel eyes only softened with concern as they moved over her face assessing the tension there.
"Maybe we should stop now?" Connor's voice was gentle and understanding. She'd never seen anything get to Katerina Montgomery. The normally aloof reporter had always remained detached and seemingly untouched under the worst of circumstances. Kellingher's fixation had apparently and understandably caused a crack in Kat's protective shell, and seeing the woman so visibly shaken was disturbing. Connor was more than a little concerned about the direction this interview had taken. She took in Kat's troubled features and fought the powerful urge to pull the woman into a protective embrace. But she knew well enough that the gesture would be unwelcome. Kat didn't like to be touched.
"How did you do it?" Kat asked her softly. Realizing that she was being addressed, Connor tore herself away from her private musings. "When you were a cop, how did you sit through interrogations ... go from one crime scene to another? How?" Unsettled by the question, the ex-cop took a deep breath. She hated recalling those days on the force. She had walked onto more than enough crime scenes to last a lifetime. Connor O'Neill was no stranger to Kellingher's brand of violence.
"I did it because I had to, Kat," she spoke calmly, her eyes giving away none of her unease. "It was my job, and the only way to make sure sickos like Kellingher got put away for good." Kat nodded gratefully and pale green eyes darkened with determination. She pushed herself away from the wall. Standing on tiptoes, she kissed Connor's cheek, startling the tall woman with the unusual gesture.
"Thank you." She smiled at O'Neill's confused expression. "Let's do this ... and get the Hell out of here." Both women walked back into the small room. The walls were a darker gray than those in the outside corridor were. The only furniture in the room was an eight by four rectangular table and four chairs. The chains that secured Kellingher to his chair rattled noisily with excitement when the two women re-entered the room.
Kat returned to her seat with a passive expression on her face. She continued the interview, determined to do a professional job. She asked more questions determinedly, steering Marcus Kellingher away from talking about her. "Where are the rest of the bodies?" she asked that last question, resolute that those people should have a proper burial and their loved ones some closure.
"The park," he laughed. "Cloves Baptist Church Park." He giggled giddily as if he had let her in on some private joke. "I did it all for you," the words rushed from his lips in the form of song. "I did it all for you."
"Enough," Kat snapped, before she could stop herself. To everyone's astonishment, Kellingher shut up obediently and smiled almost shyly at her. Kat stared at him in shock. "Let's get out of here." She looked at her stupefied partner. "Thank you." She turned a grateful glance to both the guard and Kellingher's now very pale attorney. Each man nodded at her as she turned to follow her friend out the door.
"Don't worry," Marcus spoke suddenly. "The work is almost complete." He spoke as if to assure her. Kat spun around sharply, followed by O'Neill. "There are more servants." Fumbling frantically, Sal the cameraman hastily retrieved his camera and began filming again. A look of comprehension passed between Kat and O'Neill.
Since Kellingher's initial arrest, there had been no more of those bizarre slayings. What was he trying to tell her? "You mean there are more like you?" Kat asked cautiously, a feeling of dread chilled her.
"I prepared the way." His eyes seemed to lose focus. "The others hold the chalice." He was rocking from side to side. Katerina was reminded of an autistic child she had once done a story on. The child had been the victim of years of abuse. Unable to speak up for himself, it was a neighbor who had witnessed the last brutal beating of the child and had reported it to the authorities. But Kat remembered how the child had rocked from side to side aimlessly, seemingly oblivious to the real world around him. She had looked at his bruises and scars and had wondered if he had even felt them - if he had cried out in pain during the beatings. It was a story that had reminded her of the tormenting nightmares that had tortured her in her youth. All that pain, and unable to cry out.
"Who are the other servants, Marcus?" Kellingher glanced around the small room seeming suddenly aware that he and Kat were not alone. He smiled and shook his head. 'Too many outsiders; he had to be careful,' he reminded himself. 'Mustn't ruin things. Must not make The One angry.'
"You will know them soon enough." He smiled sweetly at her. Kat's body shivered with revulsion. "The preparations are ongoing. The servants will gather, the chalice will be filled, and soon the vessel will be sanctified." Connor's eyes narrowed at what to her appeared to be a threat directed at Kat; her instincts were warning her that this was not the simple rambling of a mad man. Somehow, this man knew Kat. And if what he was suggesting was true and there were more Kat Montgomery fanatics out there . . . 'Jesus! I'd better call Mac.' "Four more," Kellingher locked gazes with Kat. "Four more and I am ready. My work is done. It has to be you."
~~~
He was good, the best! Martin Prague praised himself silently. He thrust forward forcefully, which would have caused most women to scream in pain and beg him to stop. Not Tawny, Tory or whatever the hell the broad's name was. She merely gasped in excitement, wrapped her legs tightly around his waist, and begged for more. He wanted to laugh out loud. Instead, he growled obscenities in the woman's ear and doubled his efforts when she screamed "Harder!" 'The bitch is loving it.'
He grunted in quick puffs. "Oh yeah Babe, gonna give it to you! Gonna give it you hard!" Sweat rolled from his short, well maintained body as he hooked her legs over his shoulder. ' Wait till the boys at the club hear about this.' He allowed his body to continue the instinctual and steady pounding of the willing body beneath him. But he was fondly imagining the expressions on his drinking buddies' faces when he shared with them the detailed accounts of his latest sexual heroics. Yes sir, he loved giving it to the broads, but Martin had to admit what he loved most was telling his buddies about it the next day.
But Prague would never be telling his buddies about this encounter. The boys at the club would be reading about it in the 'Morning Gazette'.
Chapter Three
If I should die
Outside the second story window a street lamp flickered spasmodically. The street lamp, the motel room's only light, penetrated the window through dingy, sheer smoke and dirt-browned curtains that some years past had been white. The bed, the only furniture in the one room cubicle, creaked objectively beneath the weight of the two forms intertwined beneath a thin and badly worn sheet.
"They'll be calling me soon." Needing personal space, Macmillan moved away from the warm body and stretched lazily. "I gotta get up." A match was struck in the semi darkness of the room, illuminating an attractive profile and ice blue eyes.
Macmillan lit the Newport between her lips, shook the match out and then let it fall to the floor. She took a long drag and held it for a moment before allowing the smoke to slip easily from her lips, to curl and twist into disappearing vapor in the dim lighting. She handed the cigarette to the expectant lover beside her and watched the near perfect set of breasts rise as lungs expanded, filling with smoke. Her eyes remained on those breasts as they quivered slightly when the woman beside her exhaled.
"How do you always know when they'll call?" Heather reached out in the darkness for the body that was already drawing away from her. Her fingertips came into brief contact with bare skin and then, nothing.
"Just know." Mac's dark body, although merely a silhouette under the poor lighting cast by the near burnt out street lamp, was powerful and intimidating. She retrieved her clothing from the bedpost and dressed quickly. Heather rolled onto her back, her head turned towards the dark figure that was now stooped over and slipping on a pair of rawhide western boots. Restless, she kicked off the sheet and climbed out of the bed to tiptoe across the room. The looming figure stood an erect tower over her. Heather found comfort in that. She pressed her naked body against Macmillan suggestively.
"Will you come back tonight?" Heather asked the question in a breathless whisper as Mac slipped a finger between her thighs. "Ohh." The intimate caress continued, robbing Heather of further speech. She leaned heavily against Mac's sturdy frame, and found her lips captured in a bruising but dazzling kiss. It was a quick but dizzying climax. She nearly whimpered when Mac retrieved the finger that had been pleasuring her but she smiled instead when the kiss softened, then sighed when the taller woman pulled away.
"I'd like to, but no. I'm going home after..." Heather gazed into blue eyes that were impossible to read in the shadows.
"Oh." Her head lowered, and her voice weakened with disappointment. "Okay."
"Hey." Macmillan caressed her cheek with a thumb, "Don't be that way."
"Mac." Heather began, her voice held a note of finality, but she looked away hugging herself. "I think ... " Mac cut her off, gently pressing a finger to the small woman's lips then paused, reaching into her vest for her cellular unit just as it began to ring.
"Yeah, Mac here." She spoke into the phone. Heather moved to stand before the window and stared out at near deserted streets which were littered with dirty bags, fast food wrappers, beer cans and liquor bottles. There was a long pause as Mac listened intently to the person on the other end of the phone. "Got'cha, I'll be there in twenty." Slipping the tiny unit back into the inner breast pocket of the suede vest, Mac closed the distance between herself and the young prostitute. "Listen, I gotta go."
"Yeah." Heather's shoulders slumped visibly, and Mac pulled the woman back against her for a reassuring hug. She then pressed two fifty-dollar bills into the girl's hand with the gentle command that she get something to eat. Nodding, Heather spun around quickly and pulled the older woman's head down for another quick kiss. "Be careful, Mac." Macmillan nodded solemnly. "Promise?" Heather persisted.
"Promise." Mac's usual gruff voice softened under the girl's concern.
~~~
"God, what a sick bastard!" Officer Hal Lindsay's unhealthy pallor had not improved during the forty-five minutes he'd been on the scene. Hal studied Detective Macmillan Pride's intense focus on the murder victim. He wondered how the hell she could be so cold about it. 'God, you'd think she was just looking at a work of art or something.' A shiver stole over him at that thought.
Martin Prague lay stretched out on the kitchenette table. His broken jaw had slackened his mouth and caused it to remain open, to reveal his tongue was missing. The eye sockets were propped open with small pieces of wood in the corners. The eyeballs had been removed. Prague's face was frozen in a contorted mask of pain and horror.
He lay splayed open like a partially filleted fish. His chest and arms from shoulder to waist, as well as his legs from hip to ankle, had been neatly and carefully sliced open. Flesh, muscles, and tendons, were surgically separated from the bone and laid open. There was no blood to be found: no blood on the table, floor, or left within the victim. It had all been drained away. Rope burns around the open wrists and ankles suggested that they had been secured, possibly to the table legs. There was no sign of struggle. Hal had mentioned to the detective that forensics had found what appeared to be semen stains on the bed linen.
Lindsay kept his attention on the detective, watching as she moved around the table cautiously, squatting from time to time to get a better-angled look at the body. She was hot. There was no denying that, he decided. And she was a damned better site to look at than that mutilated corpse he'd been studying since he'd been there. Her skin reminded him of the way he liked his coffee, heavy on the cream. He impulsively grinned at his witticism. He'd never given much thought to blacks and whites mixing the gene pool, but he figured any combination that created a looker like Macmillan couldn't be all bad. "Ahem." He looked up to find intense blue eyes glaring at him meaningfully, reminding him of the business at hand.
"So the guy was probably getting his rocks off just before he got wasted." Her mind was churning with theories, and not liking the familiarity of the murder scene. "Find another body?"
"If the perp did her, he didn't do her here," Hal shrugged.
"No sign of struggle." She glanced back down at the body briefly. "Let's say our boy got a little turned on and agreed to let things get a little wild. She or he convinces the victim a little bondage might be fun." Hal flinched notably, uncomfortable with the topic of kink or any type of sex that strayed away from the boy on top of girl scenario. Mac noticed his discomfort. She ignored it. "Anybody see who he came in here with?"
"Micky's checking that out now." Hal resumed his professionalism. "So far we got nothing. Prague went in to the lobby alone, reserved this room and the clerk never saw who, or even if, he had anyone in the car with him."
"What else we got?" The detective frowned.
"No sign of forced entry. No murder weapon. Just this strange writing." Hal grabbed up an evidence bag with an eight by ten and a half piece of parchment paper inside. The officer frowned at the unfamiliar symbols and lettering. "What do you make of this, Mac?" The detective took the baggie and raised a brow in recognition and slight surprise. "What? What?" Hal repeated excitedly. For once maybe they had a real clue. "It's ancient Gaelic," she told him flatly.
"You mean some kind of Pagan writing?" His eyes narrowed viciously. "Sick bastards with their incense and orgy crap!" His lips turned up in a derisive sneer. "Probably trying to get in touch with Satan." Mac's eyes flashed dangerously with anger at his tirade.
"Get fucked, Lindsay. Pagan's don't do this kind of shit." Mac's ire was up, and Lindsay flinched visibly. Yet the Officer persisted.
"Yeah, but this is obviously some kind of witch ritual and them Pagan's been..."
"Stop jumping the gun," she growled. "And don't be such a fucking idiot. Pagans and Wiccans take an oath to do no harm. Their rituals celebrate life. They don't sacrifice goats, chickens, lambs … or virgins!" She ended her lesson with a poke in his chest. "And if this is, some kind of occult slaying, then we'll gather up the evidence and find out!" He stepped back from her, nodding emphatically.
"How come you know so much about this witchy stuff, Mac?" Hal asked heatedly. "Huh?"
"I know how to read and ask questions, moron," she hissed, and stalked away from him. "Who's working forensics?" She called gruffly to him over her right shoulder.
"Tate," he growled at her, then stomped away fuming, wishing he had the nerve to respond to her insult. Lindsay wasn't at all pleased by the snickers from the other officers in the room "Fuck'em all!" he snarled under his breath. He had work to do. Wasn't his fault McDick had a thing for witches.