Sacrifice

Sacrifice

Wrath James White

Sinister Grin Press

Austin, TX

sinistergrinpress.com

Sinister Grin Press

Austin, TX

www.sinistergrinpress.com

September 2011

“Sacrifice” (c) 2011 by Wrath James White

All characters depicted in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without the publisher’s written consent, except for the purposes of review.

Print ISBN: 978-0-9839118-0-7

Cover Art by Kyushik Shin

www.shinybrush.com

Cover Design by Shane McKenzie

To Mom.

I would like to thank Monica O’Rourke for always being there to look over every manuscript and help me put my best foot forward. Thanks to Tod Clark for your comments and suggestions. Your input is always valued. Thanks to Tom Monteleone, Jack Ketchum and everyone who attended Borderlands Boot Camp with me. This novel would not be what it is now without all of you. Special thanks to Shane McKenzie for believing in my work. I wish you all the success in the world with Sinister Grin Press. I think you’re going to do great things. As always, thanks to my wife Christie for enduring those lonely nights when I’m absorbed in my writing. You’re a saint.

Chapter 1

Delilah held the large cobra above her head as the sound of drums thundered around her. Enraptured worshippers whirled in frenzied celebration, possessed by the
Loa
. They recited Roman Catholic prayers in a sing-song chant as they undulated and convulsed, clawing at themselves and falling to the ground as if in the midst of seizures.

The backyard of the huge mansion was surrounded by large evergreen trees and a ten-foot cinderblock wall placed there specifically to hide their rituals from curious neighbors. At twenty-four years old, Delilah was young for a mambo. It was a title she had never wanted. It had come to her along with her curse … and her power.

Delilah recited prayers in Latin, French, and Yoruba. She sang Catholic hymns in Latin. Her haunting ethereal voice was just barely audible above the prayers and cries of the other worshippers. Her heartbeat sped up to match the tempo of the drums. She felt the demon inside her awaken. She could feel its excitement in anticipation of the coming sacrifice.

Hers was not a normal Loa. Not a
Rada Loa
. The malevolent force that overtook her during the ceremonies was a
Petro,
an evil spirit. It had no Roman Catholic name. It was not identified with any saint or angel. Delilah knew its real name but dared not speak it. It was something straight from hell. But no one here cared. They only wanted its power.

Her voluptuous, cinnamon-brown body moved in and out of the shadows cast by the circle of flickering torches surrounding the ceremony. Her long dreadlocks looked like a stallion’s mane at full gallop silhouetted by moon and torchlight. Her body spasmed, jerking and convulsing in an odd corybantic dance. Her muscular limbs and torso twisted and contorted at painful angles as the music took hold of her flesh and the demon slowly uncoiled in her mind.

She heard the demon spew its seductive lies in the quiet spaces between her thoughts, and she obediently repeated them to her followers, switching from French to English as she enticed them to unburden themselves of their guilt and anger, their fears and regrets, their blood. Her stomach churned and bile rose in her throat. She hated this thing that shared her body, hated knowing it could feel even her most private sensations, it could hear her most intimate thoughts, it could control her. But she was addicted to the power and control it gave her over her followers, addicted to the money they brought her in exchange for the joy she could give them.

She was only twelve when she’d invited the demon inside her during one of the ceremonies. It was an accident. She had only been an observer at the ceremony, watching as her mother, father, and eldest sister invited the Loa into themselves and began to dance and curse and thrash about on the ground. Delilah wondered what it would feel like to be possessed as they were and it had taken her right then, before the thought had fully formed in her mind. Right away she felt its power, heard its thoughts, felt it trying to take control of her mind. It had terrified her. Delilah begged the houngan to remove the Loa from her. That’s when she discovered it was not a normal Loa but something else. By then her parents had discovered the value of her new abilities, the money and prestige it could bring them. No matter how much she begged they refused to allow the voodun priest to cast the demon out.

As the demon took over, Delilah’s pupils dilated so far they appeared completely black, like two sunless pits cored into her skull. A wide full-toothed grin scarred her face from ear to ear. She drew the blade across the serpent’s throat and began to saw back and forth, severing its head from its body. Blood rained down onto her upturned face and dribbled down her forehead, down her throat, washed over her breasts.

All around her naked forms jerked and gyrated in rhythm with the conga drums. Someone took the snake from her hands as the last drop of its blood spilled. They led her to a goat chained to a stake in front of the drummers. The animal shivered and stomped as men and women from twenty-five to sixty danced around it waving torches. Delilah knelt before it with her knife and quickly slit its throat. More than a dozen hands reached in to catch the animal’s blood as it spurted out in a fountain of red.

Something within Delilah surged, roared, and attacked. She dropped the knife as the demon inside her seized the goat and began tearing it apart, ripping large chunks of dripping red meat from its bones with her fingernails and shoveling it into her mouth.

The drumbeat began to slow, growing softer, less violent. Delilah knelt in the dirt with the goat’s severed head in her lap. One by one the assembled acolytes drew Delilah’s dagger across their wrists and offered her their blood. And one by one Delilah drank from their flesh, imbibing their hatred and fear and leaving them empty; happy; at peace.

As she drank the last of their sins her body shook with violent emotion. She collapsed in the dirt, screaming. Sweating and shaking, she drew her knees to her chest and hugged them tight, curling into a fetal ball. A grimace of excruciating agony twisted her features. Tears streamed from her tightly shut eyes, mixing with the blood and forming pink rivulets that raced down her cheeks. All their pain, rage, and terror churned in her guts, burned in her intestines. Their corruption radiated through her muscles, joints, and internal organs in jolts of white-hot agony. It seared its way down into the marrow of her bones.

Spots danced before Delilah’s eyes. She felt the demon retreat from her, leaving her alone with the pain. She forced herself to open her eyes as two of her followers, an overweight middle-aged couple with pale wrinkled skin and graying hair, approached with their wide-eyed adolescent daughter in tow. The girl had red hair, pigtails, and dimples. She looked terrified. Delilah felt sorry for her but the pain was too great. She grabbed the child and savagely pried open her mouth.

“I’m sorry,” she said as all of the misery and pain she’d imbibed boiled up from her belly and erupted from her mouth into the mouth of the pigtailed girl. The girl dropped to her knees, gagging and retching.

Delilah felt better almost instantly. She wiped her mouth with her arm and then reached down and helped the young girl to her feet. The girl flinched, crying out, and tried to pull away from Delilah.

“Hush up, now. I didn’t hurt you. You’ll be all right but you have to listen to me, okay?”

“Mommeeeee!” the girl cried.

“You need to listen to me if you want to live.”

The girl looked up at her parents who were standing above them, hugging each other. They looked frightened but happy. Delilah scowled at them and then turned the girl around to look at her.

“You have to get rid of it now,” Delilah said. “Can you feel it inside you? The evil? You have to get rid of it before it gets out. Do you understand? You can’t let it get out or something bad will happen.”

The girl was still crying but she nodded. Her mother reached down to hug her, but Delilah shoved her away. “No one touch her. You know what will happen.”

The girl’s mother pulled her hands back and hugged them against her chest, suddenly frightened. Delilah looked at the woman and her husband and then at the others. They had all stopped dancing. Even the drums had stopped. Her faithful followers began gathering up their clothes as if awakening from a dream or from a long night of alcohol and drugs. They dressed hurriedly, once more becoming the doctors, lawyers, bankers, investors, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and politicians they were. Even as they dressed their eyes remained glued to Delilah and the pigtailed little girl.

Delilah did her best to hide the disgust she felt for them.
How can they do this to their own children? Is it worth it? Does it feel that good?
she wondered, but she would never know. She was the conduit. She would never feel their relief. All she would ever feel is their pain.

“Mommy? Daddy?” the girl cried, reaching out for her parents as they shrank away, crying and smiling and shaking their heads.

“It’s okay, honey. It’s all right. We’ll be waiting for you at home. It will all be over soon.”

Delilah seized the girl by the chin and turned her head to look at her. “Listen to me, child. You have to run now. You have to find someone to give it to before it starts to get out. You can see your mommy and daddy again after you’ve gotten rid of it. Go now. Go get rid of it.”

Delilah watched as the girl walked out of the ring of torches and into the night.

Chapter 2

That evening, Bruce cautiously opened the door. He never had guests, and the only people who ever rang his doorbell were solicitors trying to sell him window treatments, landscaping packages, or pest control services. Lately it had usually been one of his neighbors complaining about his dog, Pete, barking.

Fuck them,
he thought.
It’s my house.
Like their dogs don’t bark. Just because Pete’s a little big they want to single him out.

Pete was more than “a little big” though, and Bruce knew it. Pete was a one hundred fifty pound Great Dane who stood taller than four feet at the shoulders, and Bruce loved him like a son. He’d adopted the dog from an animal rescue shelter when it was just a few weeks old. He was one of a litter of seven that had been born inside the shelter. Bruce had been separated from his wife of five years for less than a week when he’d wandered into the shelter looking for a cure for the desperate loneliness that had been keeping him up every night since his wife had left him, sick of starving to pay off the debts his compulsive gambling continually accrued. She’d cleaned out his bank account and filed for divorce the same day.

Bruce knew he probably would have committed suicide - or murdered her, at the very least - had he not found Pete. Even now Pete was the only thing that kept him sane, the only thing that kept him away from the slot machines and blackjack tables.

The instant he saw the floppy-eared puppy with the massive black paws and mottled patches of gray on its back and muzzle, he knew they needed each other. It had taken only a few minutes watching the big puppy stumble clumsily around the cage being trampled by its noisome brothers and sisters before Bruce signed the papers to take him home. He decided to name the dog Pete after the one friend who’d been smart enough to tell him not to get married.

As Pete grew, Bruce made alterations to his home to suit his new friend. A large, covered kennel in the backyard attached to a doggy door leading directly into Bruce’s bedroom was the latest addition. He paid forty dollars a month to a service that cleaned the kennel once a week. He spent hundreds of dollars a month on designer dog food, dog grooming, and veterinary bills. He was as faithful to Pete as the big Great Dane was to him.