The Red Cross of Gold I:. The Knight of Death (10 page)

His temper flared suddenly and without
warning, he lost control of everything he was trying desperately to
hold sacred. He took her by the arm and flung her down on the floor
before she had time to utter a sound. He fell on her and put one
hand over her mouth. His prayer was forgotten.

His precarious position was forgotten. There
was nothing between his ears but a desire to have her with or
without her permission. A desire to make her pay for her ridiculous
statements and her abominable adoration of Cecile Valentino. He
reached down with his free hand, pulled her dress up above her
waist and unzipped his pants in one swift motion. She kicked and
struggled, but there was nothing she could do. It was too easy. He
had done it too many times. He pinned her against the carpet with
one hand over her mouth and slammed himself between her legs. To
hell with ceremonies! What ceremonies could possibly consecrate
such a brutal act? It was not love or affection or even lust, but
rather a terrible rage and a need for revenge that drove him on.
When he removed his hand from her mouth, he kissed her in the same
brutish manner, while looking directly into her eyes as if daring
her to like him, daring her to have any sort of normal feelings for
him. There was no excuse for what he was doing and even though one
part of his mind screamed at him to stop, he ignored it.

It was rape and nothing more or less. And
yet, even while he committed the heinous crime, he observed it from
a vantage point somewhere near the ceiling. He could see himself
and the thing that he did, but he had no control over it. It was as
if she had pressed a button, some unseen trigger and he had
exploded into two people. One a vile criminal and the other an
innocent bystander.

And if that weren’t strange enough, the
victim of this heinous crime was not reacting properly. She did not
scream or kick or fight. Instead, she looked at him in
astonishment. Her blue eyes were very wide with shock and surprise
when he rose up and looked down at her, frowning. Her lack of
disgust and terror infuriated him.

“Is this how you would take advantage of me?”
he asked her and wondered whose voice he was hearing.

“It is, or was,” she told him and then
smiled.

Her simple statement brought him back from
wherever he had been and the innocent bystander collapsed into the
devil he had become, causing him to collapse against her, breathing
raggedly. The desire to take what was not his by right or choice
was gone. What in the name of God was he doing? She pushed him over
on his back with very little effort and then climbed on top him.
Positioning herself in the proper position to finish what he had
started.

“It is exactly how I would do it, if I were a
man and a beautiful young woman offered me something I couldn’t
refuse,” she told him as she took complete charge of the
situation.

She had mistaken his brutality for passion
and the act of rape for some sort of kinky love-making. Something
was dreadfully amiss with the Pixie. It was quite obvious that she
had either been reading too much or was totally inexperienced in
what love should be. But who was he to know what love should be?
Had he ever been in love with a woman? Really in love? Or was he
simply a monster that she failed to recognize and he failed to
reconcile in his own conscience?

These questions and thoughts buzzed through
his head while she quickly brought him back from total disinterest
to similar state of mind as before. But this time, there was no
rage in him only resignation at first and then true lust. She was
very good at what she did, experience or no. She looked down at him
defiantly when it was over before leaning close to his ear. “You
cannot win, Sir Knight. The act of love comes in many forms and I
have studied them all. Even if I have had little practical
experience, I have a grand imagination and my fantasies are
endless. I do believe you could fulfill them all.”

He didn’t even bother to move when she got up
and straightened her dress. She left him lying on the floor a few
seconds later… in shock.

“I’ll send up lunch,” she told him and he
heard her close and lock the door.

He got up slowly, brushed himself off, made a
quick trip to tiny bathroom and then crawled under the quilt on the
bed. He was still there when the door opened again a short while
later. An unfathomable depression had settled over him and he felt
certain he was losing his mind. Even his appetite had failed him.
He had actually raped her and she hadn’t noticed. What kind of
people were these lunatics? He fit right in with them. Psychopathic
murderers, kidnappers, rapists. That was it! He was a psychopath.
He was a dead psychopath and this was his hell.

“Sir?” Valentino’s voice startled him. He had
expected worse.

He made no move to answer. The rattle of
dishes and the smell of food indicated that the good Sir Valentino
had brought him his lunch.

“Is this all you do? Lie in bed all day?” She
asked him sarcastically. “Are you ill?”

“Just leave it,” he told her brusquely as if
she were room service.

“Now, come on.” He felt her sit on the side
of the bed behind him.

“Sit up and eat. We need to talk. I know what
is wrong with you. You need someone to talk to. I know its strange
being here with us, but I assure you, it won’t be long and you’ll
be free to go. Besides, if you cooperate, there could be a very
pleasant surprise in it for you. Merry has taken a great interest
in you, but I’m sure you’ve noticed. She’s the blond girl with the
pretty blue eyes.”

He turned over and looked at her
incredulously. But she was joking of course.

He had read something once. A faerytale about
a girl who had gone into a mirror or a rabbit hole where she had
met a crew of very odd characters. He thought he knew how the girl
must have felt. He expected a huge rabbit to come through the door
at any moment carrying a pocket watch, babbling about being late
for tea.

He sat up and leaned against the
headboard.

“Tell me what’s bothering you besides being
here with us,” she said as she piled the pillows up for him to lean
against. “I brought you some of my favorite. Roast beef.” She
picked up the plate and set it in his lap.

He looked at her blankly.

“Go on. Try it,” she said and handed him a
fork. He wanted to stab her with the fork. Instead he picked up the
roast beef with his fingers and stuffed it in his mouth. ‘Meals
should be taken in silence’. The same voice rang in his head.

“Things could be worse,” she continued in
spite of his barbaric actions. He stared at her as he tore the
bread in half with his hands and stuffed it in his mouth as well.
He wanted to tear her in half.

“I cooked the pilaf myself.”

He scooped up some of the rice on his fingers
and pushed it in his mouth with the bread and beef. He wanted to
stuff his fist down her throat.

“I wish you would cooperate.”

He picked up the rest of the roast and chewed
it viciously. He wanted to chew off her head and put it on a pike
pole.

“I only want the Key.”

She had a key in her pocket. He could take it
from her. He ate the remainder of the bread in one bite.

“You could make all this very simple,” she
smiled at him. He finished the rice. Yes, it would be very simple.
Take the key. Break her neck.

“You eat like a horse.”

Horses eat grain. He could have eaten her for
breakfast. Surely she would have tasted better than a rat.

“This is my favorite dessert.” She picked up
a bowl of yellow pudding with bananas and whipped cream.

Whipped cream. He could have made whipped
cream of her in short order. Minced meat. Chopped suey. Smothered
chicken. Cooked goose.

“You like banana pudding, don’t you?”

He liked a lot of things. He would have liked
to make a pudding of her blood.

He took the bowl from her and frowned at the
stuff. She stuck a spoon in it.

“I like it with lots of cookies,” she
said.

He didn’t doubt it. Strange cookies. The
spoon was not very big. It took three spoonfuls to finish off the
pudding.

“Now, we feel better don’t we?” She asked in
her most patronizing tone, infuriating him even further.

He really wished Maxie would come back so he
could fist fight the man. It would have been preferable to this,
even if the man beat him to a pulp and shot him three or four times
with his cheap pistol.

“You really are nothing like I expected,” she
told him when he put the spoon in the empty bowl. “I have half a
mind to find out what my little darlin’ finds so irresistible about
you.”

He leaned forward suddenly and choked as the
meaning of her words sank into his brain. What did she think he
was? A whore?

She grabbed up the glass of tea from the tray
and handed it to him.

He took the glass and drank down the tea
without tasting it.

“I don’t understand any of this,” he said
when he had regained his voice. “Don’t you realize that keeping me
here is a crime? You can’t just hold me here against my will
indefinitely. Do you intend to murder me?”

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” she
laughed. “All you have to do is give me what I want and you can be
on your way. The sooner, the better. I don’t like what you stand
for, but like I said, I had expected some grizzled old bastard with
a stinky beard and a bald head.”

“I’m sorry I disappointed you,” he
shrugged.

“I’m not disappointed at all. I just expected
you to look older," she said. "But you're not really my type if I
was interested. I prefer men who are more intellectual, stylish, a
bit smaller and blond. I like blonds. Men and women. What does
d’Brouchart look like? I haven’t been able to get much information
about him personally.”

“If you didn’t even know what I looked like,
how do you know you got the right man?” He ignored her question.
The image of a large, middle-aged, balding, red-haired man sitting
in a high-backed chair loomed in his mind. Not the same man he had
visualized earlier when she had mentioned the title Grand
Master.

“We’ve been through this,” she sighed. “I
knew you were coming. Anthony told me. He said you would come from
the east in a black car. That you wear the red cross and the symbol
of the alchemist just like he said. And he said you would have his
head on a platter just like John the Baptist.”

Mark Andrew chuckled at these descriptions
which sounded like something one would hear from a Gypsy fortune
teller, but the mention of St. John caused him to cringe.
Blasphemy.

“You think it is funny? The poor boy was
scared to death of you. He called you the Knight of Death.
Chevalier du Morte. The Prince of the Grave. He said you would
bring the flaming sword and cut off his head.”

“Who the hell is Anthony?!” He continued to
laugh. Her descriptions were laughable, yet he wondered.

“I have your sword, Sir Ramsay,” she said
quietly and her face took on another, more sinister expression. “It
was in that your black car that you drove here from DFW. You came
here from the east.”

“I don’t believe you. My name is John,” he
said simply. “I don’t know what your game is, lady, but you’ve got
the wrong man.”

“I don’t think so,” she smiled knowingly.
“You were in a black car, you came from the east, you wear the
rings, you had the sword. You venerate the name of St. John. Your
denials are useless. There is only one point yet to prove out.” She
narrowed her eyes. “Poor Anthony. I thought he was immortal.”
Cecile toyed with the spoon in the empty pudding dish.

“What happened to poor Anthony?” Mark asked
with some reticence.

“Why? Do you still want his head? I’m afraid
you missed him. He’s gone.”

“Just like that? Gone?” He snapped his
fingers. “And I was so close.”

“Yes, you were,” she nodded slightly. “I
thought he was crazy at first and then he gave your name in a
trance.”

“He gave my name? In a trance?” Mark rolled
his eyes. “He said ‘Mark Andrew Ramsay, Prince of the Grave, is
coming to behead me’. Is that what he said?”

“Not exactly.”

She was becoming irritated with his flippant
attitude. He wanted to make her as angry as she made him. He wanted
to make her choke on her anger. He wanted to choke her himself. How
dare she keep him there?

“But that was the way it happened, basically.
You underestimate me, Sir Ramsay. Your holy order of the Poor
Knights of the Temple of Solomon are not the only possessors of the
Mystic Secrets. I have my resources and I am well versed in the
Ancient Mysteries or at least most of them. I’ve studied the Corpus
Hermeticum and the works of all the great alchemical masters. It
was very dark, very hard work, but I excelled without a penis.”

“What?” He was taken aback by her obscene
remark. “What has that got to do with anything?”

She got up from the bed and began to pace the
floor beside the bed. “Everything!” She raised her voice. “It was
probably easy for you.” She put her hands on her hips and swaggered
about the room. “Look, my brothers. I, too, possess the Mystical
Staff and the Magickal Jewels.” She grabbed herself in a most
profane manner. “Look what I can do. I can piss against the wall,
my brothers. Here, here, my brothers, would you like to measure it?
I can fuck a cow and make her beg for mercy.”

“Stop it!” Mark climbed out of bed and stood
looking at her aghast. “Above all things, whoever is a Knight of
Christ chooses only Holy conversation! I will not listen to this.
It is unholy. It is obscene and impure. It is a sin against
God!”

“A sin against God? Listen to you! A Knight
of Christ. You admit it yourself,” she stopped her antics and
raised both dark eyebrows at him in surprise. “And is it not as
great a sin to use your Mystical Staff at random on whomever you
please? Or is that some privilege a Knight of Christ retains from
some higher power? You are a murderer, an assassin and a rapist. I
have read about the heresies committed by your holy order, Sir
Ramsay. I don’t know how you escaped the Inquisition, but you can
rest assured that I know all about your secret rule and your
obscene rites of passage and your sacred sex. How many times did
you participate in the rituals of initiation with all those young
boys? How many of them did you personally ‘raise’ to a higher
degree?”