The Pentagram Child: Part 2 (Afterlife Saga Book 5) (34 page)

“Oh my God.” I whispered as chills wracked my body and I landed on my knees and turned the picture round before picking it up and seeing the real horror there in black and white.

“What? What is it?”

I was looking at my last dream, the one I had just before Draven had re-entered my life. It was the one I had just before going back to Afterlife at the end of June, so little over a week ago now. I woke up and did what it felt like I had been trained to do. I grabbed my pencils and a pad of paper and started to draw what happened that day back in school.

I had been like a woman possessed, trying to get out every detail before it faded away into that forbidden place in my memory bank, the one that stored stuff away until you were least expecting it. The one that lured you into a false sense of security until unleashing all its power of fear back on to you when your defences were down. But now I knew that it hadn’t been doing this that night just to be cruel, no, it had been trying to give me a warning…

One I ignored.

“Son of a Bitch!” I said running over to the bedside light and turning it on to check what I was seeing was real.

“What? Tell me?” Libby pleaded but instead of explaining the impossible I let my mind lead me back to the probable. I let it take me back to poor Benny Rodgers whose terrified face I had captured on the page. I let it take me back to the gruesome sight that was a sadistic chalk white face and black vertical lines cut through evil eyes, ones ready for torture. But it wasn’t the obvious horror that shook me to my core and had me struggling to keep hold of the page.

“Kaz! Kazzy! Christ, you’re pale as a ghost! Talk to me!”

“It’s her!” I said holding up the page and Libby winced at the sight of what I had drawn from my nightmares.

“Jesus, Keira, what on earth?” At this I laughed without humour as things like this weren’t produced on earth, no, they just lived here ready and waiting for the right moment to strike, and that moment was now!

“I have to go!” I said folding up the page and stuffing it into my jeans. I stuffed my feet into my converse and hopped around trying to put them on without sitting down. I looked around frantically for my keys and hated that I had no choice but to rush over to Draven and tell him this terrible news on what was going to be classed as our real wedding. But it couldn’t be helped. However I did wonder how nobody had noticed but then again with everything that had happened I was sure something like this was easy to hide.

Because the truth was that sometimes you could rarely see what is right in front of you.

“It had been smoke and mirrors this whole time” I said muttering to myself as I scanned the room for my jacket.   

“Wait, you’re not making any sense! Just tell me why...? What has you so freaked out?” Libby asked as I grabbed a light jacket from where it was hiding, knowing I would need it as there was summer rain outside. I looked at my sister and felt bad that I couldn’t tell her the truth. I don’t think I had ever wanted to tell someone my secret so badly before than I did right then looking into my sisters worried eyes…but I couldn’t.

Because what could I say…That it wasn’t the sight of a poor boy wetting himself that had me freaked. Or even the hideous demon that had terrorised him. No, it was none of those things.

Because it was not the obvious I was looking at, it was the unobvious…

It was the teacher.

And that teacher was none other than,

Celina.                    

Chapter 77

7 Is The Magic Number

All the way over to Afterlife all I could think about was how this had happened. How had I seen that face so many times before and not recognised it when being face to face with her for the first time?

Before I had left I’d had an idea and I had gathered all my drawings up in a pile and stuffed them into a canvas bag I used for college after dumping all the unwanted stuff on the bed. I had made up some story about the picture reminding me that someone might be stealing at the club and needed to tell Draven. It was a lame and farfetched excuse but what else would Libby think it could be?

I was now thankful I had brought a lot of my old sketches over with me from England when I moved, feeling that I couldn’t throw them away but not wanting to leave them at my parents’ house either. I had to hunt around for these and go into the desk in my old room to find them, as they had been stuffed under a drawer to hide them. I was just glad Libby hadn’t followed me up there to watch me acting crazy and like someone out of a lame detective show.

After I found them I added them to the bag and realised I was running late now as I had promised I would be back at Afterlife half an hour ago to get ready for the ‘Marriage Ritual’. I hadn’t allowed myself to think too much about tonight as it was easier that way. For me, personally I was just glad we were having a mortal version of a wedding which was the one I was looking forward to the most. This one for me was more like a technicality and Draven knew why. I was just thankful he didn’t blame me for thinking that way as he agreed he wasn’t looking forward to a certain aspect of it…and that was the one bit I was again trying not to think about.

Even though I was running late I still had to pull over and check for myself if I was going crazy or not. As soon as I stopped I flicked the overhead light on, undid my seatbelt and raised up my bum to dig the drawing out. I unfolded it and checked it again.

Yes it was now as clear as day that it was Celina.

I placed that one on the seat and dived right in to all the other sketches, hunting through everyone I had on me. There were ones from when I was a kid and my drawing skills weren’t as hot. But even in those, I still found some with a lady in the background that could have been her.

Some I had used crayons or coloured pencils to shade her hair red. Others, the ones more detailed as my skills developed, it was clear by her eyes or the shape of her face. Even her style of clothing changed throughout the years but there was no doubt, in the ones I found with a woman in, it was her every time.

There were 77 in total and I counted all of them as just over 140 sketches, which meant she was in just over half of them.

“How have I missed this?” I said out loud shaking my head in disbelief. I picked up one I remembered when I was about 13 and it was one of those times when it had eased off for a while, which made this one particularly bad.

It was whilst riding my bike around the block one day when I saw a guy delivering a package to some old man who lived on our estate. He walked to his door, knocked and as soon as the man answered the poor unsuspecting delivery driver dropped the parcel and was frozen in some kind of weird trance. Anybody else looking on wouldn’t have thought much about it, as for those passing by it just looked like the two were simply chatting.

But for me this was not the case. Because what I saw wasn’t the sweet old man that Ted across the road waved at or that Shelia who owned the newsagent said good morning to. No, to me he was the face of nightmares and became the first sketch ever to be drawn where I had to learn how to draw insects.

The skin on his jaw had been torn from the bone and gnawed away by thousands of crawling insects of all shapes, sizes and varieties. There was even what I now knew was a massive praying mantis coming out of his raw nose bone.

I had even drawn the energy as a mist that he had been sucking out of the mail guy and I screamed, dropped my bike and ran all the way home. But this wasn’t what I was looking at right now, not the demon or the victim. It was of the face of someone I now knew as Celina stood watching in the background and I didn’t even remember drawing her. In fact I never did. It was as if my subconscious took over and created the picture my brain projected without even thinking about it.

“Ah!” I jumped at the sound of my mobile phone going off and I fumbled with my jacket pocket forgetting it was in there.

“Hey?” I said when hearing it was Sophia on the other end.

“She’s fine…”
Sophia whispered to someone else once she heard my voice and then she came back to me and said,

“Uh, I hate to point out the obvious but you know you’re getting married in a few hours don’t you?” I closed my eyes and let my head fall back onto the headrest. Oh yeah, I knew alright! I had even considered how much weight you could lose in a day of crash dieting? Because there were things a naked body just couldn’t hide!

“Oh come on Kaz, it’s not going to be that bad and I know there is one part of it that you’re definitely going to enjoy.” This time I actually groaned.

“I heard that!” Pip shouted down the phone and burst out laughing. I was running late for the ‘pamper girl time’ they had planned for me, which I knew was code for ‘Mortal Doll play time’ But to be honest anything that took my mind off what was to come was never a bad thing, so I had said yes thinking it a good idea at the time. But now I wasn’t so sure.

The first thing I needed to do was find Draven and tell him what I had discovered. Maybe he would think it would be a better idea to call off the wedding for now until we knew more of what she was up to. Well whatever it was, this plan of hers had been set in motion a long time ago if these pictures were anything to go by.

“Are you on your way?” Sophia asked and I looked to the passenger seat and all my life’s demons spread out before me. It was a sobering sight to see along with a sickening one at that.

“Yeah, I will be there soon.” I said still not being able to take my eyes off those images. I heard her say she would see me soon then but just before she hung up she asked,

“Are you alright?” I thought for a moment and then answered in the only way I knew how and hearing those same words said from my own lips, that I had not long ago heard from Lucius’,

“Yeah… I will be.” 

Once I had hung up and stuffed all the images back in my bag I drove the rest of the way to Afterlife. I was on autopilot driving there and before I knew it the beautiful building was looming over me. Of course it wasn’t open for the public, not tonight, not for the important royal wedding.

“Oh god.” I said banging my head on the steering wheel. Now I was here I was torn. I knew what this meant to Draven which was the same as what a mortal version of a wedding would mean to me on the day. Could I really go in there and lay this all out right now, only hours before we were joined before the Gods and the eyes of his people?

Now I wasn’t so sure.

For a start I didn’t even know the importance of what I had discovered or what it could mean? But even so whatever it may be I was sure it could wait for a day at least. So with this in mind I got out of my truck and by the time I slammed my door I had decided it wasn’t more important than giving Draven this night. So I walked away from the car with the bag of haunting discoveries still on the passenger seat, leaving it for yet another day.

Once inside I was bombarded with the whirlwind that was Pip and Sophia. Before I knew what was happening I found myself being pushed through Sophia’s fabulous Gothic fairy princess room and swiftly into her bathroom.

“I am starting to feel like this is déjà vu” I said making Sophia laugh as I referred to the first time I let her play dress up with me.  But soon I was sinking into her amazing sunken bath and letting my mind relax in the tropical paradise that was Sophia’s bathroom, complete with the incredible scent of a rain forest filling my over worked senses. I let my head fall back on the cushioned rim and soon my limbs felt like dead weights. I was glad now I had already showered at Libby’s house and spent the time plucking and shaving and scrubbing every inch of skin, so now all I had to do was lie back and enjoy.    

I closed my eyes and let the scented bubbles caress my skin like a lover’s touch which brought me back to Draven. I let my mind wander back over time and I could almost feel his hands all over me. I took deep breaths and the more I did this the stronger the memories came crashing back to me. So much so I felt my hand dip under the water and snake down my belly until I found my core.

“Ahh.” I moaned as I touched myself intimately and my back bowed, pushing my breasts up higher and out of the water. My nipples stood erect thanks to the cool air licking at them and I cried out again.

“Draven?”
I whispered his name as a plea for him to come to me as desperation gripped me. I remembered how he had taken me in the bath and my body ached for him to do it again. I needed him with a fever of the likes I had never known. It felt like my skin was burning and it would only cool with his touch. The movement of my hand quickened but nothing would come to completion. I moaned again only this time more in frustration as nothing was happening. It wasn’t like I wasn’t turned on enough as it felt like my skin would soon split from needing to burst but it was like nothing was enough.

“Ahh!” I shouted opening my eyes in anger at not being able to come and then found myself screaming again for a different reason. Celina’s face was slowly coming out of the water with eyes of burning hatred. Slashed eyebrows were cut into her face and black cracks and infection crawled under the skin like ink injected in to her blood. Her eyes that had once been beautiful were now milky white with only a black ring around the iris and a tiny black dot at the centre.

Lips that split like they had been cut with a knife smiled at me as they emerged from the water. Fangs started to grow from all of her teeth until they became a deadly weapon. She was naked and it looked like her body had been ripped apart and then crudely sewn back together with black fish wire. Actually it looked like the Celina I knew had died in some horrible accident and I was now looking at her body after her autopsy.

She started to come closer and I held my hands out in front of me to protect myself when something happened. That power, the one I didn’t understand but knew I had buried deep within me, came out unexpectedly and it was like an invisible force that couldn’t be stopped. It hit her and forced her backwards, making her fight against it as it tore away the rest of her damaged flesh. She screamed as it ripped into her and started taking her away piece by piece.

“Go back!” I said in anger sitting up and instead of using my hands as protection I turned them so my palms faced her. Then I closed my eyes and felt the power of energy rising up through my legs and my stomach, spinning there round and round as if building up for greater strength before I knew it had hit its limit. My eyes snapped open and I saw the world differently. A shadowed room void of any colour met me and the writhing body of Celina fighting against my power in the water.

Everything slowed down to a point I could have reached out and held one of the droplets in between my thumb and forefinger. A droplet created by the struggling body of death sharing a bath with me. I raised my hand and saw the tiny streams of power coming from it and when I moved it around it created a wave of energy. It was the reverse of what I saw when Demons or Angels fed from humans. It was as though I was using that sucked up energy against them and as soon as the thought entered my mind everything clicked into place.

My eyes homed in on my victim and I felt the injustice of being spied on as a child fuel my rage.

“Leave me alone.”
I said calmly before releasing the rest of my power and in seconds Celina was no more. Her body evaporated after it imploded in on itself…

And then the screaming started.

“Oh dear, I think I put in too much.”

“You think?!” I heard Sophia saying in the distance. I felt myself moving but it almost felt like I was drunk.

“What are we gonna do, sister roo?” Pip asked sounding a bit panicked.

“What we always do…wing it!” Sophia said and I giggled.

“Well that’s got to be a good sign…right?” Pip asked and I was sure I heard Sophia growl.

“Get her legs.” I wanted to laugh at that as well, as it sounded like this comedy duo were trying to move a dead body and I guess that dead body was me!

“Am I dead?”
I asked as I felt myself sliding along a floor.

“Nope, not dead…getting married yes, but definitely not dead.” Pip answered and I opened my eyes to see the blurry green hair of Pip as she dragged me by my feet.

“Is this one of your games?”
I asked giggling again. Man what was wrong with me…was I drunk?

“Ha, if it is then the next level after getting your behind out the bath is trying to get you dressed!” Sophia answered before suggesting, 

“Come on, let’s try getting her up.”

“Is that wise…I mean don’t humans usually go all pukey after you know…?”

“Well she can’t get married lying down, I think Dom might notice!” Sophia snapped and Pip laughed,