Infernal

The door to her room was barricaded by every stick of furniture that furnished it. She had done that in the morning, after waking with refreshed hopes that all the vileness on the loose in Dame Agnes of the Hills would have been washed away by the dawning light. Buoyed in her spirits, light of heart, she had tripped happily downstairs to the dining hall and into the midst of an orgy.

All of the tables and benches had been shoved to the walls, to clear the way for a vast open space of floor marked all over with chalk symbols and sigils and pentagrams. It was more than just lewd acts of indecency, she saw in that instant. It was unholiness of the darkest sort.

They had been in every possible contortion, pairing, or grouping, her classmates. Girls with girls, wherever hands or mouths could reach, inserting the blunt ends of unlit candles into each other. Girls with Caleb, one astride his loins and another smothering his face while he mauled two others with his hands and yet another squirmed her way under and around the pile to do something mercifully unseen to his backside. Girls with Headmistress Elspeth, the latter wielding her hickory switch and striping bare skin with scarlet.

At the midst of it all was a gutted and blooded goat hung upside-down from a hook, and from time to time the revelers paused in their depraved acts to bow to it, or kiss its lips, or squeeze its dangling genitals. Abigail saw Isabella and Rose smearing and daubing each other with something from a clay pot, something dark and sticky and stinking of the slaughterhouse, and saw or fancied she saw that when they were anointed with this substance their feet seemed to leave the ground and float instead above it.

Overlaying all was a heavy and foreboding sense of dire dread. Abigail, although she only witnessed the scene for a few moments before terror spurred her into fleeing, nonetheless was sure she might live to be a great-grandmother and never be able to forget an instant in which she believed she had actually seen that ominous specter take on a smoky and unknowable form.

She had fled, oh, fled as though all the devils of Hell were on her heels. For all she knew, they might have been. Her first impulse had been to escape the academy altogether. Out the front door, off of the grounds, over the hills, to the village. But she skidded to a halt in the foyer at the spectacle that awaited her there – the corpse of the Latin teacher, Professor Armitage, flayed and beheaded and scored with wounds, his own head nailed into the palms of his hands and held before him so that he appeared to be fellating himself.

He was dead, she knew that, dead and could not harm her. But the door and its handle had been gruesome with his gore. And what she knew meant nothing to what she knew, which was that as soon as she was foolish enough to draw close, to reach for the door or step over him, he would reanimate. He would yank the nails from his skull with an awful scraping sound, and hold out his decapitated head to her for a kiss, or drive the nails that impaled his palms into her head and drag her down to complete the act.

So she ran for the stairs instead, ran to her room, and shut herself away. The thought of the window taunted her. She should be able to escape through it, perhaps using the bedclothes to serve as a makeshift rope. But if she fell … it was far to fall and she envisioned herself landing hard on the paving-stones of the courtyard, her bones cracking. How could she possibly get to the village then?

It might just be easier to give in, to surrender. Whatever was here had already claimed all of the other girls. And by the look of them, the sound of them, it wasn't so bad. Was, in fact, quite nice. They certainly seemed to be enjoying themselves. Didn't they beg for more? Didn't they move willingly from one partner to the next and throw themselves into each other's arms with an abandon that spoke of more freedom than Abigail had ever known?

And really … wouldn't another girl know more about what felt good? Her future husband would not, if Mother was to be believed. He would care only for himself and nothing for her pleasure. A woman, though, would know the precise spots, the precise way to touch.

A weakness swept Abigail. She trembled, and thought of them … so gloriously naked and free, no cares for what was proper or ladylike. Sighing and crying out in sheerest ecstasy. While here she was, untouched and alone, hiding in her room like a frightened mouse. She should be down there among them. She was as pretty as any of them, as desirable, surely. She'd seen the way some of them had looked at her. As if wondering what her nipples might feel like between their teeth, or how she'd taste down there.

Weakness and warmth, reddening her cheeks, making her breath come in quick little gasps.

Between her pressed-together hands, she felt the statuette change.

She squeaked a cry and dropped it. The angel tumbled through the air, taking forever to cross the few feet of distance from her hands to the floor, and as it went end over end she saw with fainting horror that it was blighted. The pure alabaster had gone dark where her hands had been touching it.

"Unclean," Abigail whispered, staring at her palms. They looked blameless but she stared as if they might begin to pustule and seethe with corruption.

Fervently, she began her prayers again. She avoided looking at the angel in hopes that when she finished, when she cleansed her soul, she would find it pristine and white once more.

"Abigail!"

The voice was that of the headmistress, muffled by the door and the furniture piled there but still the voice of authority. An angry, thunderous voice. "Open this door."

Abigail cowered. Disobedience … she had never been disobedient before.

"Now, girl!"

The tone of command was so strong that she involuntarily rose and took a step before catching herself. "No!" she cried back defiantly. "No, I won't!"

"You're the last one, Abigail. You should be honored. We've been saving you. Saving you for him."

"Leave me alone!"

"Caleb, break it down."

Abigail retreated to the far wall as the door shook beneath a terrific blow. The furniture jumped and squealed on the floorboards. He struck it again, again, a juggernaut. The walls puffed plaster dust and cracks raced across the ceiling.

A broken leg was the least of her worries now. Abigail spun to the window and flung up the sash, ready to jump if she had to and hope for the best.

Isabella was floating in mid-air outside the window, wearing nothing but a devil's sign painted on her belly in blood. Her hair flew about her in a hag's wig and her lips were clotted with unthinkable substances. A crescent moon, a devil-moon, was riding low in the sky behind her and crowned her head with its lambent, eerie horns.

She laughed and it was the high screech of nails on a slate. Even as Abigail tried to pull back from the window, Isabella's arm shot in and caught her by the throat.

Abigail's feet slid across boards that might as well have been greased. The power of Isabella's grip was unnatural. She tore at the fingers that clamped around her neck but they were as iron bands, impossible to dislodge.

The rest of the girls were waiting below, arms upraised to catch Abigail as she plunged into their circle. She was uninjured but knocked breathless, and had no time to get her bearings before they swarmed over her. Cords tied her, and hands lifted her, and she was borne into the building again and into the dining room that had been the scene of such obscenity.

"Ungrateful wretch," Headmistress Elspeth snarled as the girls placed Abigail's bound body in the center of a pentagram. "Clearly, you do not appreciate the honor you're being shown."

"Please don't," sobbed Abigail. "Please. I don't want to."

"You will and you'll like it." The switch whipped out and the headmistress only diverted it a hair's breadth before it would have struck Abigail.

Perhaps not wanting her marked, Abigail thought. Virginal and unmarked. For what?

Caleb was looming over her, massaging himself hungrily. He reached out, but the switch landed on the back of his hand and he yanked it back, sucking at the weal across his knuckles.

"Not you, you great oaf," Elspeth said. "She's not for you. Not yet. Not until he's done with her. Make her ready."

This last was directed at Catherine and Margaret. While they came forth, the others formed a circle and began a low, haunting chant.

"Margaret, Catherine, please," Abigail implored. "It's me. Don't do this. Please."

She might not have spoken at all. Catherine unfastened and removed her clothing, while Margaret produced a pot of incense-smelling oil.

"No, Margaret, no!"

Abigail was as naked as any of them, feeling their gazes like worm-tracks on her flesh, coating her in pallid slime. Margaret raised the pot and tipped it. Oil drizzled down to make streams and rivulets on Abigail's skin. It was warm. It permeated her with a heady, pleasant feeling.

"Please," she begged again, but it was little more than a sigh.

Elspeth took up and led the chant. It was in a language Abigail could not understand, and yet she could. As if some deep part of her recognized the ancient speech, recognized the chilling names that the headmistress invoked.

A wraith of smoke appeared in the room, the colors of blood and soot and pain and sin. As it drifted about the circle of girls, it paused here and there and twined around them. They turned and preened in its insubstantial embrace, grasped at it.

"Our wickedness opened the door to him," Elspeth said conversationally to Abigail. "Just a little bit, just the merest crack, that was all he needed to slip in, to insinuate himself in us. To inspire us. He found the girls cuddling and playing love games with each other and that was his invitation. He found Caleb watching, abusing himself, and the door opened yet further. He found my thoughts, the ones I dared never admit or even examine, and worked his will to bring them about. He showed me the delicious pleasure that could be had. All the more delicious when it was against morality. I took my brother, I fucked him, and the very forbiddenness of it made it better than anything another man might have given me. Now we have brought him here."

The smoky form took on a winged shape, crimson and black.

Silently, inwardly, Abigail beseeched for help. Surely her guardian angel had not abandoned her, surely the forces of good could not be so severe as to leave her to this fate when she was guilty of nothing more than sinful thought. If ever she'd had a guardian angel, now would be the time.

A white burst of light exploded in the dining hall. The girls cried out and covered their faces, dazzled by the brightness. Another form appeared just as the demon materialized.

"My angel!" Abigail was transported with joy. "My angel, I'm saved, I'm spared –"

The words died on her lips.

**

Chapter Twelve –

Celestian looked down at the girl. So young and so innocent, and at the same time so ripe, so lush, so enticing. He saw the brilliant hope in her eyes become puzzlement as the blinding light around him faded … and then apprehension. Apprehension mixed with something else.

"Do you know what she sees?" Varyk chuckled.

The devil had seized the headmistress and held her upside-down by the ankles, thrusting hard into her bottom so that she screamed and flailed and bled. The other girls and Caleb stood spellbound.

"What does she see?" Celestian asked.

"Look at yourself through her eyes," he suggested.

Abigail was so small and pale there on the floor, shining with oil in the middle of that scrawl of arcane symbols. Celestian blinked and was peering up at himself from her perspective, at the towering white form with its lazily-beating wings.

Except this was no creature of angelic perfection. He was chalk-white, his golden hair gone the color of pewter. His wings and the barbed tail descending from his hindquarters were draconian in aspect, and ivory claws sprouted from his fingers and toes. His face was as flawless and handsome as it had ever been, but his teeth were cannibal points and his eyes twin orbs of electric-blue fire.

He wore no robes, and his muscular chest tapered to a narrow waist and trim hips. And standing out as stiff and tall as the mast of a ship …

Celestian left Abigail's mind but saw her gaze dip, saw the pink blush bloom in her cheeks. Oiled and helpless … he swelled even larger.

"She's meant to be mine," Varyk said, withdrawing from Elspeth and spinning her around to force her to lick his member clean. "But I do not begrudge you the privilege, pretty angel."

"What have you done to me?" Celestian looked down at himself, trying to quell the urge that demanded he take Varyk up on the offer.

"After all, I have all these lovely toys to play with now," Varyk went on. His tail had ensnared Isabella, the coils of it around her waist while the tip plunged into her. "Take that one. Take the virgin. You know how. You know just what to do. After all, didn't I show you?"

He clenched his fists and Abigail's bonds broke. She rubbed her wrists tentatively, and huddled there as if unsure what to do. Slowly, she raised her eyes to Celestian's.

"Let her decide," the fallen angel said, stroking himself with one long smooth motion. "If she wants it, here it is. But it must be of her own choosing."

Abigail kept staring at him as if she did not understand, and then he saw it dawn on her. She whimpered and tried to cover herself.

"You fool, you stupid little fool," Catherine cried. She knelt and reached supplicatingly for Celestian. "I'll be yours, please, let me be yours!"

"No!" Abigail threw herself at Catherine and they rolled, pummeling and screaming at each other.

"They're fighting for you," observed Varyk with high good humor.

He cast Elspeth and Isabella aside and surveyed the remaining girls with a speculative air. They fell before him, offering their bodies, but he caught hold of Caleb instead. And, as the girls watched, did not use of the halfwit's mouth or backside but punched a hole in his gut with one claw and drove into the wound instead.

Caleb shrieked in agony and spewed a geyser of blood. His physical strength was no match for Varyk and he only twitched feebly as the devil raped the orifice he'd created.

Panic sparked and flared into a wildfire. Varyk's laughter rolled and boomed as the girls battered at the doors, found them sealed, and ran every which way in absolute terror.

Abigail and Catherine paid no attention. The larger Catherine had gotten atop Abigail and beaten her head into the floor, but a deft kick from the smaller girl sent Catherine sprawling. Quick as a flash, Abigail dashed to Celestian and, startling even him with the suddenness of it, fell to her knees and took as much of him in her sweet mouth as she could manage.

"I think she's made her choice."

Varyk let Caleb's lifeless husk thump to the floor and turned in search of a new victim. Rather than offer themselves now, the terrified girls scattered. He pursued, face alight with demonic glee. He caught one – Rose – and bore her down, and showed her a knobbed and thorned organ as long as her arm. She mewled pitifully, tried to crawl away. The devil rolled her onto her back, still laughing. He made her watch as he inch-by-inch pushed it into her, until the rending pain of it made her lose consciousness.

Celestian took hold of Abigail by the upper arms. He lifted her to eye level, waited to see if she would say anything more. When she did not, when she only regarded him with a glassy, submissive passion, he lowered her onto the waiting erect spear.

"How is she?" called Varyk, getting off Rose and catching yet another girl with his tail.

"Tight and tender," Celestian replied, barely able to speak from the sensation. The way her inner tissues clasped at him … the way her body quivered … the breathy little moans she made with each thrust … the resistance-then-give he had felt when he first entered her … the wondrous surge of power as he took her innocence … it was all more intoxicating than he had ever suspected.

He sank to the floor with Abigail trapped in his arms and enfolded in his wings. They were in the midst of the pentagram now, surrounded by the pleading and screaming victims of Varyk's bloody, lustful rampage. But all that mattered to Celestian was this one girl, this one fuck. The gathering knot in his loins told him he was close and he did not fight it. He went at her harder, vaguely conscious that he was hurting her but intent only on … ah … yes … and the volcanic spasm went on and on, overflowing Abigail's well-fucked body, spilling onto the signs sketched on the floor.

At last, both exhausted and exultant, Celestian stood up. Abigail lay where he left her, a still and broken thing. The room was an abattoir, with the dead and the dying and the dismembered and the savagely wounded strewn from one wall to the other.

Varyk, his eyes smoldering with sated lust, was waiting for him. The two stood looking at each other for a long moment, as girls wept and groaned and tried to drag themselves to safety.

"So it was you," Celestian said. "You were the one I was looking for."

The devil raised one shoulder in a shrug, grinned. "Me."

"And now all these girls are damned to Hell."

"I suppose they are."

"You suppose? Wasn't that your plan all along?"

"Hardly," Varyk said. He curled a lock of Celestian's tarnished hair around his claw. "You were. Leading mortals into damnation is easy, something even a lowly imp can do. But you, my pretty angel … catching and corrupting a seraphim … that's no mean feat. You're one of us now. An angel turned to a devil. That's how it happened to us all, even the highest power in Hell. Welcome to the ranks."

He offered his hand, smoothly changing his shape as he did so to the scarlet demoness that had proved Celestian's final undoing.

The fallen angel took it, and they descended together into the churning pits of Hell while the few survivors of Dame Agnes of the Hills cried out for a salvation that they would never find.

**

The End