Heretics (10 page)

      Rip nodded as Madeline ran a hand across his stomach, her fingers playing in the traces of hair surrounding his navel.  She looked over her shoulder at Harry, eyes so full of pain and beauty both, her body nude and warm and bathed in candlelight, lips moist, glistening.  “Will you help me too, Harry?  Will you?  Will you help me?”

      He leaned closer, kissed her cheek.  “What do you want me to do?”

      Before she could answer Rip pulled her in close to him and hugged her tight against his chest.  She wrapped her arms around his waist, and as Harry’s hands moved up along her back and his head came to rest on her shoulder it still seemed like a dream, this night.  He was still convinced none of it could be real, none of it could really be happening.    

      Even moments later, when Madeline handed Rip the dagger, took the candle and together, the three of them left the bedroom.

***

They followed behind her, running through the dark hallway toward the balcony and staircase beyond, the flame from the candle flailing about and awakening ghosts along the walls and ceiling and floor.  Though Harry and Rip had dressed, Madeline remained nude, her white buttocks bouncing with each rapid step, her bare feet slapping the floor, hair loose and flailing behind her.

      At the balcony she stopped and leaned forward, the candle thrust out to illuminate a small portion of the first floor below.  Faint traces of metallic and stone gods stared back at them with disapproval.  She looked at her friends then, a gleam in her eye having replaced the tears, the remnants of her black makeup smudged and running in a narrow stain along one cheek.  “The idols,” she said.  “We have to destroy them first.”

      Rip ran on, taking the stairs two at a time.  Madeline laughed wildly and gave chase, Harry at her heels.  As they reached the landing she stayed back, held the candle for them and screamed encouragement as they moved through the anteroom smashing sculptures, tipping over the pedestals and stomping whatever they could find to pieces.  Rip gave a primitive wail as he ran about the room, and Harry, embracing the adrenaline rush of violent release, followed suit while tearing paintings from the walls and demolishing them.

      With debris littering the floor, the two finally stopped and struggled to regain their breath.  Madeline smiled with approval; candlelight lapping her face, then spun about and ran for the sunroom.  Again, they followed.

      Standing before a wall of glass, Madeline brought the candle to her lips and blew out the flame.  Darkness closed in around them in one rapid wave, and as their eyes adjusted the moonlight took over, revealing just enough of their immediate surroundings for them to gain their bearings, and enough of the backyard to discern elements of the fountain, bungalow and path to the boathouse.  Rip, still breathing heavily, turned to Madeline and pulled her to him roughly.  They kissed, but before they had finished Harry had her by the shoulders and was peeling her from him, taking her into his own arms.  Her breasts crushed against his shirt, her legs met his, and his lips were on hers, his hands grabbing at her ass and then around between her legs, fingers rubbing and groping and stabbing.  He kissed her violently, their teeth clicking together as their tongues met, entwined.  Her mouth tasted of wine, smoke, cock and sweat, but he kissed her deeply and felt the violence and lust rise in him again, only to wane when Rip tore her free, took her back and did the same.

      When Rip released her, his eyes were wild.  He and Harry stepped away, and together looked back through the glass at the moonlit silhouette of the bungalow.  Things were coming too fast, overcoming them then receding then overwhelming them again—rage and lust and fear and courage—all blending one into the next, nothing making sense and everything making sense, nothing real and everything real, the world—their world—little more than a blur of feral emotion.

      Together, they laid her back on the table.  Harry licked her breasts and belly, and as she opened wide her legs, he buried his face between them.  

      A place setting slid to the floor and shattered.      

      “I’m going to kill her,” Madeline said through a pant.  “And you’re going to help me.”

      “We’re eighteen, we won’t end up in juvenile,” Rip mumbled.  “We’ll go to prison.”

      Madeline held Harry’s head, ground him deeper and whispered, “We’ll be gone.”

      Rip slipped the dagger from his belt, held it up and turned the blade slowly, the moonlight highlighting its intricate carvings and ancient inscriptions.  Madeline laughed.  

      The powerless had been granted power after all.

13

It was late afternoon but the sun still dominated the cloudless indigo sky.  Its touch created a glare off the ocean, scorched the pale beach and blurred the air with rippling, oppressive waves of visible heat.  

      Harry mopped his brow with his handkerchief and watched the small stretch of road leading to what had once been Madeline’s property.  He slid the handkerchief around to the back of his neck and used his free hand to peel his shirt from his chest and underarms.  Soaked with perspiration from head to toe, he leaned against his car and waited at the side of the road for several minutes, but no visions materialized, leaving only the sun and the heat and the trees and the sounds of the nearby ocean.  He fished his cigarettes from his shirt pocket.  The wrinkled pack was empty.  He crushed it in his hand, fired it through the open window back into the car and walked across the street, the asphalt so hot he could feel it through the thin rubber soles of his canvas slip-ons.  He hurried to the shoulder where blacktop became dirt and followed it to the beginnings of the property, ignoring a pulsing ache in his jaw left behind by the policeman’s nightstick.

      The long driveway had been neglected and was overgrown with weeds, the occasional stretches of intact pavement cracked and severely damaged.  The once beautifully landscaped grounds were unkempt, and in those areas where such things could still flourish, it was overrun with weeds and grass.  The remainder of the yard was scarred with patches of fire-destroyed earth, where nothing would probably ever grow again.  Just as Rip had described, the house and bungalow beyond had been reduced to ashes in spots and to rubble and burned out ruins, charred skeletal remains in others.

      An iron gate covered in rust had been installed at the end of the driveway at some earlier point, and a weather-beaten sign mounted across it read: TRESSPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED.  KEEP OUT.  The gate was only a bit higher than his waist, so Harry climbed it easily, swung his legs over the top and dropped down onto the other side.  Through grass that reached his thighs, he waded to what remained of the driveway proper then removed his sunglasses, hung them on the lip of his shirt pocket and squinted through the glaring sun.  The ruins sat in the near distance, the entire area looking like buildings he had seen years before in old newsreel footage covering European villages that had been bombed during World War II.

      Whispers tickled his ears.  He spun around but saw only the tall grass and the gate behind him.  He’d have blamed it on the wind, had there been any.  He turned back to the ruins, felt sweat trickling from his palms to his fingertips.  Slowly, he moved along the driveway and into the front yard.  Through the open and blackened ruins of the main house, he saw what remained of the bungalow beyond.  Memories—mostly rapid blurs—ricocheted about like bullets deflected off pavement.  

   
With a single-minded ferocity they run through the sunroom, into the night and along the path to the bungalow.  Rip is the first one through.  Screeching like a madman, the dagger raised in one hand, at a full run he smashes into the door with his shoulder, breaks it free from the frame, splits the wood with a loud crack as it rains in splinters to the ground.  An odd scent—incense of some kind—burns nearby.  Everywhere they turn, demons carved from primordial clay and stone sit in silent judgment.  There are more here than decorate even the main house, positioned on shelves, on the floor, on the wall, displayed as pottery and sculpture and wall hangings—as if stockpiled—an endless procession of ancient eyes leer at them.

      The shriek of a seagull brought him back around.  It hopped along a stretch of dirt several yards away near the edge of the cliffs as if searching for the perfect takeoff point, and seemed frustrated in having not immediately found one.  In the distance, more gulls lazily circled a patch of sky above the ocean, watching the water for possible prey or perhaps sizing up garbage worth scavenging left behind by tourists on the nearby dunes.  

      “We’re not so different, you and I,” he said to the lone gull.  

      As if offended, the gull stopped, angled its head and sized him up with a tiny black eye.  After a moment it turned and launched itself effortlessly off the edge of the cliff.

      Harry walked along the base of the ruins of the house, followed them to what remained of the bungalow.  The fountain to his right was soiled with dirt; old leaves and an array of debris both natural and manmade, and was littered with hairline cracks that traversed it like a network of scars.  The path between it and the bungalow that led to the boathouse was still noticeable, but where it reached the sloped edge of the backyard the wild grass had taken over, masking the incline and all else beyond it.  

      He crouched down, touched the dirt, dry and damaged from the sun, and imagined himself a detective visiting an old crime scene—an unsolved crime scene—and wondered how many times over the years Dunham had wandered among these ruins, searching for even the slightest trace of evidence that might prove he and Rip had been here that night.

      A dark smudge slipped past the corner of his eye, disappeared beyond the scope of his peripheral vision.  He didn’t bother to turn and look.  He already knew who it was.

   
Blood flies, spatters the wall like paint flicked from the tip of a wet brush onto canvas.  She screams as Rip grabs her by the hair and drags her from the bed to the floor.  She lands with a dull thud, blood gushing from her nose, both nostrils draining, soaking the front of her nightgown in dark crimson.  Rip yanks her up onto her knees, hits her again.  Something beneath his fist—some part of her—breaks, Harry hears it snap.  He looks down, sees the dagger in his hand.  At some point Rip has given it to him, and he has accepted it.  Madeline is somewhere behind them, knocking things from shelves,
destroying everything in her path while offering gleeful encouragement.  This isn’t real, Harry tells himself, this–  

      “This isn’t real,” he muttered.  

      “Even then I didn’t think we were going to kill her.”

    Harry looked over his shoulder at the cliffs.  Rip was near the edge, tears from eyes not yet destroyed streaming his cheeks, a length of broken stick in each hand.  “I only thought we’d hurt her, I…I only wanted to hurt her, to punish her for what she’d done, for what she’d been a part of.”  He looked past Harry, at someone behind him.  “Even when you left Harry and me there with her and you went to the boathouse for the gasoline, I never planned to, I—I never wanted her to
die
, Madeline.”

      Harry refused to turn and look behind him because that’s what Madeline wanted, because that’s where Madeline was, whispering, her slow-moving lips grazing the back of his neck.  Instead, he rose to his feet and stepped into the ruins of the bungalow.

   
“You sick fucking bitch,” Rip screams, his face close to hers, his hands around her throat.  “Fucking child molesting piece of shit.”  Harry watches as Madeline returns with a large plastic container of gasoline.  He can smell it even before she opens the cap.  It is so large he’s surprised she can carry it on her own, but Madeline is stronger than she appears.  She kicks aside debris from the items smashed upon their arrival and swings the container, splashing gasoline about the room.  Fortunata is bleeding from her nose and mouth.  Her long hair is matted with blood, and the front of her nightgown is drenched in it and sticking to her like a gruesome second skin.  Yet her eyes remain oddly calm, unafraid.  “She lies,” she says with a heavy accent, her words slurred.

   
“No, we know all about you,” Rip tells her, his hands moist with her blood.  “We know what you two do to her, and none of your spells or bullshit idols and statues can help you now, asshole.”

      The woman smiles—actually smiles—her teeth stained and lips bruised and swollen. “Her father never brought me here—never brought the spirits here to hurt Madeline.”    

      Rip screams something unintelligible and raises his fist again.

      “I saw my old man every time he hit me or my mother that night,” Rip said.  “I saw every cop and every guard or older kid who ever fucked with me in juvenile.  I wanted to hurt her, I—I wanted to make her feel the pain, but…”

      Harry sighed and turned to the cliffs.  Rip still looked past him, still saw Madeline.  He held the sticks up, emphasizing them, and smiled just for a second—as if everything was somehow going to be all right—then plunged them into his eyes.  

    His tears turned to blood.

     
“Why then?”  Harry says suddenly.  “Why did he bring you here?  Why did he bring the spirits here?”

   
The gasoline fumes are growing worse.  “To protect him,” she says.

   
Harry remembers the dagger in his hand, feels his grip on it tighten.  “From what?”

   
“From her,” Fortunata answers.  “To protect himself from her.”

    Rip was gone, Madeline’s version of him swallowed by the sun, absorbed by the sea air.  But she was still there; he could feel her behind him.  He glanced at the rubble beneath his feet, kicked at it, at remnants of a life, of
lives
, of the people who had once existed within these dead walls.  He tried to gain his bearings in what remained of the bungalow.  There was where the door had been—there was where the front room led into the bedroom in back, where–  

   
The red container swings again, splashes Fortunata with gasoline.  It strikes her face, mixes with the blood and spittle and bubbles like acid as she gags, coughs and spits it from her mouth.  Madeline is laughing as Rip holds the woman, pins her arms behind her and puts his knee in her back, forcing her chest outward.  Her head dangles forward but is unable to avoid the waves of gasoline that spray her hair, face and neck.  She gags again and coughs, tries to speak but is unable.  She vomits gasoline, blood and bile.

   
“How’d you like it if we lit your ass on fire?” Rip says.  “Aren’t you supposed to burn witches?”

   
Laughter.  They’re laughing.  They’re laughing and Harry feels the anger boiling inside him, coming close to the surface, rising…rising…

      He stepped over a fallen beam, into an area where no structural evidence remained, just a patch of charred debris and dead earth.  The bedroom.  This was where her bedroom had been.  His eyes panned the ground to one corner of the area.  There.  The bed had been right there.

   
In the corner is a small stone altar above which is hung a metal sculpture of a sun god with feline-shaped eyes and a ring of flames encircling his face, his mouth a grim thin line.  The altar is slight, only a few feet high and designed to be knelt in front of.  Madeline smashes the nearly empty gasoline container into it and pushes it over.  Her bare feet slip and slide about on the wet floor, and her breasts shake, bounce as she stumbles, reaches for the sun god and tears it from the wall.  Harry remembers that she is still nude, has been throughout, and there is something absurd and disturbing about it all at once.  She and Rip howl with delight, their amusement the laughter of the insane, the diseased.

      Careful to avoid a particularly large pile of wreckage, Harry approached the far corner.  Once there, he crouched down again, looking for any trace of what had been destroyed.  Madeline had followed him, he was sure of it, but he continued to ignore her.

   
Rip seems to notice her nudity again as well, and turns to the beaten woman on her knees next to him.  He pulls down the front of her nightgown, rips it open with a single savage tug.  Heavy tan breasts fall free, and she begins to struggle, to plead with them.  “Leave me,” she says, “leave me, leave me.”

   
Rip slaps her, looks to Madeline.  “Hold her,” he says.

   
She runs to help, grips her by the throat and pushes her back so that her head hits the edge of the mattress.  Fortunata’s eyes slide to the side and find Harry.  “Don’t let them do this.”

   
Them.

   
Harry feels the dagger slip from his hand.  “Stop it!”  It bounces along the floor as he rushes between them, pushes Madeline out of the way and grabs Rip by the front of his shirt—a shirt wet with Fortunata’s blood—and slams him against the far wall.  “For Christ’s sake, stop it!”

      “Aldea del sol.”

      This time Harry took the bait.  Fortunata stood where the doorway to the bedroom had once been.  Her hair was long and full, her dark eyes clear and bright.  She looked much healthier than he remembered, much better than when he’d taken her in his arms and placed her on the gasoline soaked mattress that night, all those years before.  

      “Aldea del sol,” she said again.  “It means Village of the sun.  It’s where I was born, where I was raised and lived until I met Madeline and her father.  It is a place of light, of goodness and beauty, do you understand?  A place of healing, a place to find protection from evil.”

      Harry nodded, and just like that night could not find the words to express the conflicting thoughts and emotions surging through him.

   
He kneels next to the bed, looks into her swollen eyes and battered face then rises to his feet, fists at his side.  “We can’t do this, we—it’s wrong, it’s all wrong,” Harry says, and then, as if to himself.  “What…what the hell are we doing?”

   
Rip is still leaned against the wall that Harry slammed him into moments before.  Madeline watches from near the bedroom doorway.  “Punishing her,” she says.

   
Harry whirls around, notices that she has retrieved the dagger from the floor and now holds it in her hand, down against the side of her thigh.

   
“Think about what she did to Madeline,” Rip growls.  “Think about what she’s been doing to her for years.”

      Fortunata moved through the rubble with a long, carefree stride.  This version of her, Madeline’s version, the pristine version she was allowing him to see had a nightgown free of blood and gasoline and a nearly angelic aura about her.  Just one more lie in a string of many, Harry thought.