Chapter Six: In the Springtime of His Voodoo

One down, one to go.

Kezmet smiled coldly to himself as he descended the stairs to the jail. Now that he had finished terrorizing Ithonie -- at least for today -- he had one more unlucky sister to torment. He wondered idly if Orina would be as fun as Ithonie. As easy? Maybe. Certainly different. He hadn't spent as much time breaking her mind as he had with her sister, had definitely not violated her and pushed her to the limit in the same way, but then again had killed the one she loved. If she wasn't aware of that fact, he would most certainly have to inform her of it.

Kezmet's viperish smile widened at that thought, his razor-sharp teeth glinting in the pale light of the lamps on the stone walls of the prison. Yes, Orina would be quite the interesting victim. It was always enjoyable to find a new one, to see what would break them and try out the many different methods of torture that he knew. There he had years of experience on his side. Years of seeking out the perfect victims, finding them and drawing them inescapably into his clutches with his carefully-crafted brand of cold, deceptive seduction. Using his deadly charms to win them, then slowly, carefully, cruelly destroying them from the inside out. Until they became pathetic, whimpering shells of their former selves, worn out, shattered, and bereft of sanity and identity, begging to die. Their cries fell on deaf ears until Kezmet lost interest and decided that they had no further use to him. Only then did he allow the unfortunate souls to go to their final rest.

Ithonie he was taking particular pleasure in torturing. She had fallen so easily into his lethal trap, entranced by the glacial perfection of his human form and enraptured by the honeyed endearments that flowed freely and dishonestly from him. It had been almost too easy, which would have detracted from the pleasure of it had he not savored her senseless adoration -- senseless in that it continued to exist, unchanged, even with the physical pain he repeatedly inflicted upon her. Knowing that she was falling in love with a lie, and that the truth of it would be the ultimate torture he could visit on her made his charade ever so sweet, so delightfully amusing. Hurting her had become something of a drug to him; intoxicating and overwhelmingly addictive. Utterly irresistible; he dreaded the day he would lose interest, for he doubted he would ever find someone so easy to seduce and destroy. She had not only accepted his brutal affections, but had asked for them, repeatedly and often. So lonely and needy, desperate to be loved, that she clung to the wounds he inflicted on her and pleaded for more, believing that they were signs of affection, proof that he loved her. Such a pathetic joke. Love was an emotion he could never feel, and was in fact alternately disgusted and amused by.

And used. Once in his hands, it became a baneful, venomous tool with horrible potential for immeasurable suffering and heartache. Ithonie was proof of that. A low, frigid laugh escaped him at that thought. He had really done a number on her. So much lovely damage. And now that her sister had destroyed her pretty little face, he could injure her even more, both physically and psychologically. She would have so many interesting scars and that empty socket to play with, and he always knew what to say to wound her. Oh, how he would relish feeding her new self-consciousness and insecurities over being disfigured with his cruel words. What sweet satisfaction he would derive from that, possibly even more than from what he had already done.

"Mr. DuFarr?" The guard just inside the prison was looking at him strangely. "Pardon my asking, but what are you doing down here?"

Falling easily into his role as Ithonie's loving fiancé, Kezmet replied, "I wish to see the monstrous woman who so grievously injured my darling bride-to-be. Is that permissible?"

"Oh... yes, okay, go right ahead." Giving him another strange look, the guard allowed him to pass. Kezmet gave him a warning glare, then smiled evilly and continued on, delighting in how the guard flinched and shuddered.

In her cell, Orina lay shaking violently and whimpering in her sleep. The nightmare had come again, more terrifying than before. Trapped in her dreamworld, she struggled to escape the lifeless arms of the corpse that had once been her beloved Decamerone.

With a muted cry of anguish, she jerked herself out of sleep. Only to find herself still in the embrace of a corpse. Someone's icy, pale arms held her up, cradling her in their frigid grip, razor-sharp nails dangerously close to slashing her skin.

Orina screamed, terrified. One hand came up almost immediately to silence her, clamping tightly over her mouth, its nails lightly scratching her cheek. Orina was trembling, cold dread filling her. Who was this? What was going on?

"Do hush, Orina," a horribly familiar voice hissed in her ear. "We wouldn't want the guard over there to get the impression I'm hurting you, do we? I'm going to, of course, but I don't want anyone to know. You understand, I'm sure."

Kezmet. Orina trembled with rage and bitter hatred. The monster who had killed Decamerone. No wonder she'd thought she'd still been dreaming. He was as cold on the outside as he was on the inside. An emotional corpse. She wanted more than anything to turn him into a true physical one as well.

Kezmet laughed. "Now, I'm sure this is hardly comfortable for you, but I cannot allow you to speak, or my charade will be in danger of being revealed. That simply must not happen. Plus, it's just fun to hurt." He raked a pointed nail down her arm as if to offer proof. "I wonder, will you be as fun to hurt as your sister? Poor, poor Ithonie." He laughed again. "You should see her now. My, what a wonderful job you did on her. Though I generally prefer to do my work myself and hate when others do it for me, I must thank you for what you did. Tormenting her will be so much more enjoyable now. Thanks to you." With his free hand, he squeezed one of hers, the sharp nails slicing into her hand. "Thank you, my dear."

Tears trickled down Orina's cheeks from the pain, down onto Kezmet's hand. Leaning around to face her, he licked off them and the blood from where he had scratched her cheek. He kept his terrible eyes locked with hers, gleaming, violet orbs that chilled her blood with their cold glassiness. She glared at him, all the hatred she felt deep in her heart reflected in her own blue eyes, and he grinned, snakelike and deadly.

"How pretty you are," he said, scratching a long, thin red line along the side of her face, right next to her ear. "Even more beautiful than Ithonie used to be. It's no wonder Decamerone chose you over her. That, and everything else." He laughed. "She's so pathetic, isn't she? You seem to be the strong one. I would not have had as much fun torturing you. You don't have her marvelous weakness, her lovely masochism." He sighed. "Ah, such a perfect toy.

"But I'm forgetting something," he continued. "There's another reason I'm glad you did what you did to Ithonie. Now that you're in here, locked away, you can't get in the way of my plans. Being so strong, I imagine you'd be quite a problem. And I can't afford to have a nuisance like that underfoot." Kezmet laughed. "I know what's going through your pretty head right now. What are my plans, you say? Well, normally I wouldn't tell you, but since you are no longer a threat to them, I think I'll just go ahead. I'm going to open a gateway to my world, so that I can return to mine, but rule both. The demon dimension will swallow this one. Eventually I plan on doing the same with other dimensions. Why? Because I can. And because I'd rather have the worlds in my capable hands then in the hands of some destruction-loving fiend who would take away all that I've worked for.

"Well, I must be going," Kezmet said at last. "I have other things to do." Removing his hand from her mouth, he turned her head and kissed her. An ice-cold, sickening kiss that tasted of death. Pulling back with a heartless laugh, he dropped her and stood up. "Be seeing you, Orina," he said with a soft chuckle as he exited her cell. Orina just lay there after he left, shuddering with fear and revulsion.

Ithonie lay in her bed, waiting for what the doctor had to say. The bandage had been moved so that she could see out of her remaining eye, and she watched the doctor with it as she read her medical charts.

"Will I ever look like myself again?" Ithonie asked, her voice hoarse.

"Well..." The doctor hesitated. "The damage was quite severe and extensive. Second and third degree burns on the entire right side, that eye..." She trailed off, shaking her head sadly. "I'm terribly sorry to say this, but it's highly unlikely that you'll ever look close to what you used to look like. The body can only naturally repair so much on its own, and we don't have the technology to do much more."

Ithonie looked stricken. "No...." she whispered, stunned and devastated. "No.... there must be something.... you can at least fix my eye, can't you?" Her voice was pleading. "Please say you can fix my eye! I can't go around with only one eye!"

The doctor hesitated, biting her lip. Finally she said, "The problem, Ithonie, is that we could partially repair it -- if there was anything to repair. That eye is completely gone, forever. Your only options are to wear a patch to hide the socket, or we can fashion a glass eye, though it won't look as real of course."

Ithonie started to cry at that. "Oh no...." she whimpered. "No... why did this have to happen to me? Why?!"

"It's terrible," the doctor agreed, shaking her head sadly. "I do have some good news for you," she continued. Walking quietly up the hallway, Kezmet paused just outside the doorway to listen before he entered.

"What good news could anyone possibly have for me?" Ithonie said bitterly.

"How about a baby?"

"A.... a what?!" Ithonie gasped, stunned.

The doctor smiled. "A baby. Congratulations, Ithonie, you're pregnant."

Listening outside, Kezmet was stunned. A child? Ithonie was pregnant with his child? What an.... interesting turn of events this was.

"What...." Ithonie shook her head slowly, not quite believing what the woman had said. "That.... that can't be. I can't...." Her voice caught as she began to cry again, burying her still-bandaged face in her pillow. Frowning, the doctor started to say something, then decided against it and simply left the room.

"Oh! Mr. DuFarr!" the doctor gasped as she saw him. "What a nice surprise! Did you hear the good news?"

"Indeed I did," he replied with a smile, just loud enough so that Ithonie could hear him. "What a thrill it is, it truly is. I came to see my bride, and I overhear this joyous news. Excuse me, I wish to share my happiness with my dearest." He moved past her and entered the hospital room, shutting the door behind himself. "For privacy."

"Well, well." Laughing softly, Kezmet walked towards Ithonie, still crying. "Isn't this interesting? We're to be parents, it seems. You know what that means, right?"

"Of course I do," Ithonie rasped, lifting her wet face from the pillow. "I'm carrying a monster inside me of your making." She started to sob, pressing her face into the pillow once more.

"Now, darling, don't be calling our baby that," Kezmet said mockingly, a smirk on his face. "And that's not what I meant anyway. I meant that we'll have to get married that much sooner now that you're pregnant."

"What?!" Ithonie turned to face him, her expression that of stunned horror. "There's no way I'm marrying you now!" Looking around, she saw the ring he had given her lying on the table beside the bed. Picking it up, she flung it at his face.

Kezmet caught it, though, lightning-fast. He chuckled at the surprised disappointment on her face. "I'll bet you thought demons were slow at everything, didn't you?" he inquired, highly amused. Ithonie glared at him. He only laughed.

"Why?" she moaned. "Why do you want to marry me? You can't possibly love me.... can you?" Though she tried not to let it show, there was a note of hopefulness in her voice. Kezmet smirked when he heard it. She was as masochistic and desperate for love as ever. Beautiful.... in a pathetic sort of way.

"Because you dread it," he replied heartlessly, demolishing that last bit of hope that still lived within her. A cold, heartless smirk formed on his lips. Pure sadism. "Because it will hurt you." Taking her hand, he roughly forced the ring onto her finger. "So married we will be."

"It will be quite interesting to see what sort of child you have," he continued, pressing her fingers and wrist back almost to the breaking point. "I wonder if it'll be like me, a true DuFarr, or like you, a new victim. The gender doesn't matter to me so much as the personality and power. To be frank, I'd like at least one of each -- a true DuFarr like me, and a new little victim for the both of us to play with. That's what I call family values," he added with a chuckle.

"What makes you think I'll have more children than this one?" Ithonie asked defiantly.

"What makes you think you won't?" he replied, his voice as chilling as his hard, cold eyes. Ithonie shivered visibly.

Letting go of her hands, he took her face in one of his, grasping tightly enough so that his nails bit into her skin just enough to cause pain and a little bleeding, but not enough to arouse suspicion in others. He bent close to her face.

"Don't worry, my darling," he whispered in her ear. "I'll make all the arrangements, and we'll have a lovely wedding very soon. Just like you always dreamed." With an icy laugh, he gave her a sharp kiss and left.

No escape from reality....

Or was it a nightmare she wanted so desperately to break free of? Ithonie didn't know the difference anymore. Reality had become twisted into a nightmarish version of itself, and her nightmares had come to chilling, terrifying life before her one remaining eye. All she knew was that horrible things had happened, were happening, and there was no escape for her short of her own death.

All her dreams were coming true today. Here, in this church, filled with fragrant white roses and sunlight that poured in through stained-glass windows. In her scarred and bandaged hands, she held a bouquet of the same flowers, the thorns piercing the thin bandages to prick her injured skin. Wearing a simple silk wedding gown that highlighted the slight bulge of her belly, evidence of her pregnancy. Painfully aware of her disfigured and bandaged face and the scorched, hairless half of her head, she had attempted to hide both with an obviously fake wig and a lace veil that partially obscured the little bit of vision she had left. Her shoes were two sizes too small, and were pinching her almost to the point of screaming from the pain. Biting down hard on her dry, painfully chapped lower lip, she started down the aisle, feeling horribly like a prisoner about to be executed.

Ithonie stared blankly ahead at the church as she walked slowly, painfully down the aisle, her movement hampered by the shoes. It was like staring at a painting hanging on the wall, the absence of an eye robbing her of all her depth perception. Despite the pain in her feet and hands, it still seemed like a bizarre dream due to this. Through the lace of the veil, she could see Kezmet at the end of the aisle, smiling that chillingly predatory smile of his.

This had been her childhood dream: to walk down this aisle, in a lovely gown, towards the man she loved. But Kezmet had twisted and perverted her dreams, tainted them beyond recognition. She wasn't a beautiful bride as she had dreamed, but a badly scarred and hideous one. And he was a monster in disguise, who had planted another monster within her.

What am I doing here? Ithonie thought wildly as she continued to move down the aisle, her feet moving almost of their own accord in agonizing baby steps. How could this have happened to me? Why am I doing this?

Because it is my punishment, the other half of her mind answered. I wronged my own sister and her lover greatly, terribly. Because of me, Decamerone lies dead and Orina is in agony. His blood is on my hands, and all the water in all the oceans below Zeal cannot rinse the stains. That is my sin, and marriage to the beast who awaits me at the end of this aisle is my punishment for it. Would that the kiss he gives me to seal this ceremony is the kiss of death! If I could die right now, I would be happy. But because of my crimes against Orina and Decamerone, happiness is something that I will forever be denied. So onward I must go to this unholy matrimony. Oh, if only I could have seen that the fair devil I shall now bind myself to for eternity was not the man of my dreams, but the fearsome monster of my nightmares......

It's all Orina's fault, though, she thought bitterly. The two halves of her mind were at war with each other constantly, a symptom of her growing insanity. If she hadn't been so wonderful and beautiful, if she hadn't stolen Decamerone's heart, I wouldn't have been so jealous and spiteful. I wouldn't have been driven to commit such terrible wrongs against them. I wouldn't have summoned my beast of a husband to do that which I was too weak in body to do, and I wouldn't have become the half-mad, hideous shell of a woman I am now. If not for her....

Alyse stood in the entrance to Orina's cell, watching her sister sleep. Orina slept fitfully, shuddering and shaking, her still-thin body wracked with violent trembling. Her eyes squeezed shut, she moaned and whimpered, obviously in the throes of some nightmare. Unable to bear seeing her in such pain anymore, Alyse stepped forward and knelt beside Orina, and began to gently shake her awake.

"Orina... Orina... wake up, it's all right." Alyse's soft, gentle voice, filled with soothing concern, broke through the pitch blackness of her dream like warm golden sunlight breaking through the clouds that enclosed Zeal. With a soft moan, Orina opened her eyes, shattering the dream's terrifying grip on her.

"It's all right," Alyse repeated softly, stroking Orina's hair in a motherly fashion. "It's all right, Orina.... it was just a dream...." Her eyes wide, her body still trembling, Orina nodded.

"I know," Orina replied hoarsely as she sat up, the beginning bulge of her stomach, evidence of her own pregnancy, now visible to Alyse. "I just wish I wouldn't have so many. At least, not so many nightmares. The rest are fine, but the nightmares....." She trailed off, trembling again.

"I'm sorry." Obvious concern was etched across Alyse's face. "I'm so sorry to hear that. I wish there was something I could do." As soon as the words had exited her mouth, there was a sudden spark in Orina's dulled eyes.

"There is something you can do," Orina replied. "No, there is something you must do. Everything depends on it."

"What? What is it? Tell me what it is and I'll do it," Alyse said, eager to help ease Orina's pain.

"I'm not sure exactly what it is, but you must stop Ithonie and Kezmet."

"Huh?" Curiosity and confusion blended on Alyse's face. "Stop them from doing what? They're married already, so I can't stop that. And I can't and won't stop them from having their child...." A slightly pained look came into Alyse's eyes at the word, and her gaze dropped as she bit her lip.

Orina was suddenly hit by the sickening sensation of her heart dropping into her stomach. "Their what?!" she gasped.

Alyse's eyes snapped back up to meet hers. "You hadn't heard? Ithonie is pregnant."

"No, I hadn't heard." Orina muttered a string of curses under her breath. "Damn. This complicates things a bit, not to mention the fact that it's just plain horrible." She shuddered, then shook her head. "But no matter. Things are complicated, but not changed." Her expression became pleading as she took Alyse's hands in hers. "Alyse, you have to listen to me, and you have to promise me that you'll stop them. This is going to sound insane, but it's true."

"What's true?" Alyse was clearly confused. "What are you talking about, Orina?"

Orina took a deep breath to steady herself. "Kezmet is not what you think he is. He's an evil, powerful demon Ithonie summoned to gain revenge on me. Because she told him to, he killed Decamerone.... and now he is planning to open a gateway to his dimension, so that it will swallow ours, and destroy this kingdom and everyone in it. He has also been tormenting and torturing her for some time now, and driven her insane. You must stop them, Alyse -- everything depends on it."

Alyse stared at her, stunned, an expression of shock and disbelief on her face. After a few moments, she regained her composure and spoke. "Are.... are you sure about this, Orina?" she asked carefully, well aware that Orina could be delirious from her ongoing grief and had invented the wild story she'd just told as a way to explain Decamerone's mysterious death and justify how she'd assaulted Ithonie.

"I know what you're thinking," Orina said. "You think that I made this up, that I'm so grief-stricken about...." Orina paused, her lower lip trembling as she attempted to hold back gathering tears. "That I'm so wrapped up in my grief and pain that I can't think straight, and I made up that crazy story to explain what happened, to justify my actions against Ithonie. But I'm not, and I didn't. I'm as lucid as you are, and every bit of that story is true. You have to believe me. Do you believe me?"

Alyse hesitated, but only for a second as she gazed into her sister's pleading, honest blue eyes. "Yes. Yes, I believe you, Orina."

"Good." Orina sighed deeply, relief showing on her face. "Then go. Get out of here and go stop them. You can't do any good from here in my cell." Nodding, Alyse hugged Orina, then stood and exited the cell.

After Alyse left, Orina let the tears that had formed in her eyes streak down her cheeks. She absently brushed her hair away from her face with one hand, the other reaching up to finger the locket that hung around her neck. Her stomach rumbled, and she pressed a hand to it, as if trying to quell the hunger pangs. Her appetite was growing along with the child within her, and they weren't giving her as much food as she and her baby needed. Deep down, she was terrified of what the effect on the child would eventually be. She didn't want to lose this baby, and she didn't want there to be anything wrong with it. This was all she had left of Decamerone, and she couldn't let anything happen to it. She had to do something soon; she had to be free, to be able to take care of herself.

"Soon," she murmured as she curled up into a ball, hot tears still slipping down her pale face. Her hair had long since come undone, and hung messy and dirty around her face; she hadn't been allowed to bathe since early yesterday. "Soon I'll be free, and things will be all right. Or, as all right as they can be now." She made a small, choked sound and closed her eyes, tears still steadily streaming from them.