The man who said his name was John was finally beginning to figure out that
whatever plans Phaedra and the Contessa had for him, they were not sexual. At
least not as he understood the term. His initial indignation and anger turned to fear,
then panic. He tried to call out Phaedra's name, but the best he could manage was
a cry of animal-like pain. Phaedra was standing at the edge of the tub. Even though
he was disoriented from the blow and able to see out of only one eye, he was still
able to glimpse the knife she held in her hand. His mind was racing so fast it was
standing still, unable to gain the traction necessary to escape as Phaedra grabbed
his hair and yanked backwards, exposing his Adam's apple. He didn't have
enough spirituality to find comfort in faith; but he had watched enough TV to
delude himself into thinking that someone—Kojak, maybe, or Rockford—would
kick open the door, right in the nick of time.
He was still waiting on the cops when Phaedra slit his throat from ear to ear.
The last thing he saw before escaping, mercifully, into unconsciousness, then
death, was the sight of his life's blood jetting forth shot from his severed jugular
vein and carotid arteries, like wine from a newly tapped keg. His body involuntarily
jerked with the release, much as it had during his orgasm.
The rich red splashed against the smooth marble surface with a thick, wet
sound, like rain gushing from a choked gutter. The Contessa thrust herself under
the grisly downpour, eagerly massaging it into her thirsty flesh with obscene
abandon. The stolen blood did not smear or clot upon her skin, but was
absorbed, like rain falling on a sun-baked riverbed. The Contessa's withered flesh
grew firm and taut, smoothing out the creases and wrinkles that crosshatched her
face from within. Like ink dropped into a glass of milk, darkness reclaimed her
hair. Her eyes shed their clouds to burn as brightly as twin goblets of fine claret
held before a fire. She smiled up at her companion, who knelt on the lip of the tub,
watching her with the keen attention of a surgeon overseeing an operation.
"You shouldn't frown so, my dear," the Contessa said, clucking her tongue. "It
leaves wrinkles. Don't just stand there—help me out."
Phaedra leaned forward and gathered her mistress into her arms, lifting her free
of the gore-streaked tub. The Contessa's head lolled against her shoulder like that
of a newborn child. Rejuvenation always left her torpid. The languor would pass
after a few minutes, but until then she needed to be guarded and protected.
Phaedra carried the Contessa out of the bathroom and placed her on the
circular bed, carefully arranging the red velvet bolster and satin pillows against the
headboard.
"The night," the Contessa said with a breathy sigh. "I want to see the night."
Phaedra nodded and picked up a remote-control device from atop the bedside
table and pointed it at the heavy velvet drapes. She pressed a button and the
curtains parted, revealing a picture window that filled the wall. Phaedra assumed
that during the day the view was spectacular, but now it was dark as only night on
the water can be. The sky was clear, undimmed by the glare from city lights and
suburban development, and the millions of stars that filled the night sky were
twinned in the inky surface of the lake. The Contessa loved to stare out at the lake
for hours on end, although nothing moved except the twinkling of the stars and the
gentle motion of the lake's surface. At least nothing Phaedra's mortal eyes could
see.
"So beautiful," the Contessa said, slurring the words slightly. She patted the
coverlet beside her with her hand. "Come. Sit by me, child."
Phaedra sat beside her, her naked body pressed close to the Contessa's own.
The older woman looked at her for a long moment, then motioned to Phaedra's
hair.
"Take that dreadful thing off."
Phaedra nodded and tossed the blonde wig to the foot of the bed.
The Contessa stroked Phaedra's close-cropped, mousy hair as she would the
fur of a cat. "That's better," she said. "You must be tired after all that. Come,
child, rest your head."
With a grateful sigh, Phaedra pillowed her cheek against the smooth curve of
continued to play with her hair.
"Contessa—?" Phaedra's voice was high and sweet, like that of a little girl.
"Yes, my precious?"
"Tell me a story."
"Very well, my dear. Which story would you like to hear? How about the one
about the Secret Princess?"
"No. The other one."
The Contessa smiled and nodded her understanding. "Ah, yes. That one. Very
well. As you wish, my pet. Now, how does that one begin… ?"
" 'Once upon a time, long, long ago, there was a beautiful young girl named
Elizabeth'…" Phaedra prompted.
"Of course!" The Contessa chuckled. "Now I remember! Once upon a time,
long, long ago, there was a beautiful young girl named Elizabeth, who lived in a
land far, far away. This faraway land was very beautiful, and because it was so
beautiful, everyone wanted to own it. So there was constant war for control of the
land. Life was very hard for the peasants and commoners who lived in the battletorn land, as there was little money and rarely enough food.
"But since Elizabeth's family was very rich and very powerful, none of this
concerned her. As she grew to womanhood, she quickly learned that because one
cousin was the Prime Minister, another the ruler of an allied kingdom, and her
great-uncle a cardinal in the Church, there was nothing she could do that would
not be overlooked or forgiven.
"When Elizabeth was but fifteen, her family married her to the Black Count,
eleven years her senior. He was not as politically important, but he had a great deal
of money and possessed considerable property, and the marriage was deemed a
good one in the eyes of her family. So Elizabeth was sent away against her wishes
to live in her new husband's castle in the farthest reaches of the land.
"Things did not go well from the very start. Although the Black Count was not
unhandsome, he was always going off to some battle or another, leaving his young
bride alone with only his mother and castle retainers for company. The wicked
mother-in-law was a horrible woman with a shrewish tongue and a narrow mind.
All she did day in and day out was pray to God and berate poor Elizabeth for not
being perfect. There was nothing Elizabeth could do that the wicked mother-in-law
approved of. If Elizabeth had the servants put more logs on the fire, the wicked
mother-in-law accused her of being a spendthrift; if Elizabeth did not order the
servants to light a fire, the wicked mother-in-law accused her of stinginess. But
what the wicked mother-in-law complained the most about was how Elizabeth had
failed to provide an heir. She was most eager to have the marriage annulled, so that
the Black Count might take a more 'suitable' wife, one who could give him
children—and plenty of them. It did not matter that her son was rarely home long
enough to change his clothes, much less impregnate his wife. The fault, it was
clear, lay with Elizabeth.
"As much as she resented being married, Elizabeth knew that to be sent back
to her family as a failed wife would be her undoing. Determined to secure her
place as lady of the castle, she began to scheme how to bear a child. When folk
remedies and old wives' tales proved useless, she took as lovers men similar in
build and appearance to the Black Count, but nothing came of those liaisons.
"Despairing, she begged her old nurse to help her. The loyal servant introduced
her mistress to a witch, who claimed she could use her dark arts to place a child
within Elizabeth's womb. So, during the dark of the moon, the witch smuggled
Elizabeth out of the castle and into the surrounding forest, to a magic grove used
by her kind since the days of Rome. The witch had Elizabeth strip naked and
anoint her body with an unguent made from the fat of unbaptized babies. Then she
poured the blood of a black goat upon the ground and called upon her master—
" 'With this blood I summon thee, He Who Makes Shadows. With my will I
bring thee forth, He Who Makes War. With these words I beseech thee, He Who
Makes Dreams. Come forth from your world into this!' "
"A cold wind blew down from the mountaintops, and the shadows in the
darkness shaped themselves into the semblance of a tall, dark man with the legs of
a goat, eyes of flame, and six fingers on each hand.
" 'Who calls me forth upon this plane?' asked the dark man, his voice echoing
like thunder through the mountains. 'Who would summon He Who Makes?' "
"The very sound of the demon lord's voice was enough to make Elizabeth's
breath freeze in her mouth. But although she was frightened, she was even more
fearful of being sent back to her people in disgrace.
" 'I would make a child, lord.' "
"He Who Makes looked at Elizabeth's naked belly as if it was glass and shook
his head. 'Daughter of Eve, no seed sown by a human husband can ever take root
in such rocky soil as yours."
" 'Then I have no choice but to take an inhuman husband, lord,' she replied.
"The flames within the demon lord's eyes leapt like burning bonfires as
Elizabeth knelt before him. With a fearsome roar, he took her under the moonless
sky like a beast of the field, hard as horn and cold as ice. Elizabeth cried out as
her demon lover loosed his seed, which burned like that of oil of peppermint
poured upon an open wound. Once he was finished with her, the dark man
returned to the shadows, leaving Elizabeth collapsed on the ground, clutching her
belly as if she had been stabbed in the vitals. The witch quickly dressed her
mistress and hurried her back to the castle before any of the courtiers noticed she
was gone. For several days Elizabeth lay abed, wracked by fever; when she awoke
from her delirium, she could feel the seed He Who Makes had planted within her
womb.
"That night she crept into her husband's bedchamber and made herself
available to him, but as the Black Count placed his member inside her, he cried out
in alarm, for she was cold as ice. He Who Makes had placed his mark upon her.
In her own way, Elizabeth realized she was bound to her demon lover in unholy
chastity as surely as the Brides of Christ are wed to their resurrected lord.
"If the Black Count suspected the child she claimed he had placed within her
belonged to any but himself, he showed no sign. The impending arrival of an heir
appeased, somewhat, the wicked mother-in-law, and her scoldings grew less
frequent.
"Elizabeth's belly grew, and she took to lying in, attended by her loyal nurse,
the witch, and her majordomo. Then, seven months into her maternity, she fell into
heavy labor, her body struggling to bring forth the thing within her. What emerged
from Elizabeth's womb resembled something dragged from the bowels of the sea,
for it was without bones or limbs, its skin the color and consistency of fresh pitch
broken only by patches of hair, a lipless mouth ringed with tiny, razorlike teeth,
and a single red eye. The witch screeched and wailed and called it a name
unspoken in a thousand years. Then as the nurse and the majordomo whispered
whether or not to slay the wretched thing as it lay shivering on the counterpane, it
gave a solitary cry and surrendered its breath.
"Elizabeth gnashed her teeth and cursed herself for not having been more
specific when she bargained with the demon. She had asked for a child, but had
not said she wanted a human one or that it should be born alive and healthy. She
was ruined for childbirth, her womb rendered as icy as a tombstone in the dead of
winter.
"The thing that she delivered forth was not given a name, nor was it buried in
holy ground. The witch placed it in a bag and left with it hidden under her cloak,
no doubt with intentions of rendering it for its unbaptized fat. To allay suspicions,
Elizabeth's loyal nurse bought the corpse of a newborn from a midwife, who
specialized in the disposal of unwanted children, and presented it to the Black
Count as his stillborn son and heir. The Black Count, more interested in warfare
than posterity, seemed slightly grieved by the loss, while the wicked mother-in-law
was visibly relieved she no longer had to be civil to Elizabeth. With the
entombment of the infant impostor in the family vault, the subject of annulment
was no longer whispered in the castle.
"As the wicked mother-in-law grew older and more and more feeble,
Elizabeth's power within the castle strengthened. The years became decades, and
the wicked mother-in-law's sharp tongue became blunted for fear of Elizabeth and
her allies within the court. She kept more and more to her chambers, until she was
little more than a memory. Then, one day, a courtier came bearing news of the
Black Count's death on the field of battle.
"Upon her husband's passing, Elizabeth assumed the title and power of
Countess and lost no time in banishing the wicked mother-in-law to a small hunting
lodge atop a distant mountain; there the elderly woman was forced to chop her
own firewood, draw her own water, and subsist on nothing but black bread and
stone soup. She quickly joined her son in the grave. For the first time in her life,
Elizabeth was free from her husband and the control his family had exerted over
her.
"None could compare to her when it came to her riches, station, and
comeliness. But of these three attributes, it was her beauty that Elizabeth treasured
most. It pleased her that men would be moved by the sight of her to unthinking
lust. For, as she had long ago learned, men possessed by lust have their uses in
the political arena.
"Since she no longer enjoyed the embrace of men, she developed a taste for
the pleasure of others, and orchestrated orgies for her amusement. As the years
passed, they became more and more extreme in nature, involving erotic circuses
complete with acrobats, trained animal acts, and freak shows. Black Sabbaths
were held within the castle's chapel, where highborn guests ritually desecrated the
altar and baptismal font in honor of He Who Makes. There were whispers of the
goings-on amongst the villagers, but the rumors rarely made it to the royal court.
And even if they did, the Countess was a blood cousin of the vice chamberlain.
Who would dare to lift a hand against her?
"And so it went for several years. But as roses fade and silver tarnishes, as the
sun will one day lose its fire, Elizabeth's great beauty finally began to dim. Her
breasts were no longer firm like apples, but more like ripened plums. Her buttocks
and belly were starting to sag; silver threads were woven throughout her dark hair,
and her hands resembled more the claws of a crow than the wings of doves. For a
woman such as Elizabeth, the effects of aging were no more to be suffered than
the stare of an insolent peasant. She instructed the witch to find a rejuvenation
spell or she would put her to death.
"The witch pored through her collection of spells and incantations until she
came upon a ritual described within the pages of an ancient tome known as The
Aegrisomnia. It promised the restoration of youth and vigor and, eventually, the
gift of immortality, but only by bathing in the freshly shed blood of young virgins.
"Elizabeth decided that if Cleopatra became one of the great beauties of the
civilized world with the help of asses' milk, then she would have her bath of blood.
The majordomo, in collaboration with the witch, butchered one of the servant girls
and bled her into a large cauldron, in which Elizabeth steeped herself. From that
day on, the ravages of age held no sway over her.
"For ten years, Elizabeth's loyal inner circle scoured the countryside in search
of suitable young girls, free of sin and untainted by illness, which, in those days,
was not as easy as it sounds. Numerous peasant girls, born into ignorance and
poverty, were offered positions as chambermaids and scullery servants in the
comparative grandeur of the castle. But the moment the new 'serving girls' arrived,
they were drugged, bound, and butchered like sheep.
"Over the next ten years, more than forty young girls were fed to Elizabeth's
beauty, and it would have continued for another decade, possibly a third, if a fatal
case of mistaken identity had not been made. When the young daughter of the
archduke arrived at the castle for an unannounced visit after a particularly long and
arduous journey, she was mistaken for the most recent recruit and summarily
drugged and bled out before anyone realized who she was.