Countess Cara
Chapter V
Ding—Ding—Ding—Di-
…
Sniff
Blood red tears land on the large piano before me, while my left hand claws danced across its black and white keys. A soft and sorrowful melody traveled through the halls of my dark Manor, each note a pang of sadness in my cold and icy heart.
Sniff
It was hard to now, but there had been a time when I struggled to play even the tambourine, now I could just barely focus at all, and my blades would effortlessly craft any depressive tune as if guided by my own pained sadness.
I let out a sigh as I close my eyes, hanging my head low. I don’t even have to look at the keys, my fingers just automatically know which note to kiss in order to spell out my heart’s aching.
My right hand gently cleans my face, before I rest it back in my lap, my mournful song coming to an abrupt stop when I drop my left.....
A few cries fill the air, and I can’t stop myself from sobbing into my lap, my arms cradling myself.
I didn’t think I’d ever be this...vulnerable again...
Ding—Ding
My eyes slowly flutter open, a trail of red sadness leaking down my face, and I look down to the enormous spider on the piano keys before me.
Her mandibles twitch, while her eyes look into my weeping expression. I watch through my tears as she extends two of her long legs outwards, the fuzzy fingers moving across the keys to mimic my own.
I give her a slight smirk, raising my left hand back to the piano to resume their dance, this time a slightly lighter melody filling my halls.
My smile begins to spread as she happily moves her legs along in unison with me, and it isn’t long until I’m playing with both hands, my song still pained, but now slightly hopeful.
I giggle once our playing comes to an end, the keys releasing a sharp Ding! as I rest my elbows on them, my vision clearing to ire the overgrown arachnid inches away from me.
With a teasing grin I present her with my open palm, letting her climb aboard and raising her to my face.
“Maybe I’ve just been playin’ for the wrong team...”
My smile widens with a purr, only to drop into a frown when a car sized black tentacle comes down onto the piano with a loud BANG!!
CRASH!
“FUCK!!” I cry, clutching Beatrice safely in my hands as I leap away from the exploding wood, string, and iron....
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh”
I land on my back, watching the explosion settle around me, before the slimy midnight appendage comes crashing into a nearby bookshelf, obliterating my alphabetized collection.
A twelve foot cog of writhing tendrils and unforming eyes dances before me, Beatrice fearfully scampering off as I set her to the wood floor.
“.....Maxwell?” I dust off my gown while the eldritch terror releases another screech into my face, saliva staining my cheek.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” Six of his unforming months cry to me.
“CARA-LI-LI-CARA-LI-LI—”
I give a soft sigh as I look down to a framed picture of myself at the beach, now smashed and destroyed in a pool of glass.
“Shit! Maxwell! No no no...Fuck!!” My hands rise up defensively as I come closer to my overgrown pet.
I yell as the shuddering appendages and eyes
topples over into another bookshelf, this time destroying a priceless vase and rose, along with countless centuries old literature.
“Fuck! Fuck! No no not mommy’s Anne Rice nove-Aaa damn it!!”
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
His long black tentacles wrap around my shoulders and caress my face as if to apologize.
Damn, the last time I saw him he was no bigger than a bread box...I was gonna have to get him outside before he destroyed anything else.
“Sigh...I guess this is my fault for goin’ out with the TV off.”
My hands creep inside my bosom, feeling around for one of the many toys I’d gotten for him.
“Shit..Where’d I put that dick with wings again...?” I whisper, touching nothing but my own soft flesh.
Suddenly I can feel something slightly fuzzy, and at first I think Beatrice may have climbed in there for safety. I’m expecting to see her fuzzy tarantula face, only to feel a wave of confusion when I instead retrieve a copy of a velvet red spellbook, etched with the unholy words ‘Demonivm Maleficarvm’...
Oh....Right, this was the new Sparks that Earthworm Jim creep in the bar was trying to sell me on. And the last thing I needed was to follow the advice of a guy who couldn’t tell where his own face ended and began.
“Pff...Won’t need a towel where you’re going.”
I taunt the book with a laugh before tossing it dismissively into the fireplace, the pages beginning to crackle and scream as they’re consumed by fiery embers.
Ahhhhh!!!
The screaming doorbell snaps me out of the light trance I’d fallen under, while watching the decrepit spellbook burn to ashes. It had almost a slight hypnotic effect over me, seemingly beckoning me to reach my hand in and rescue the text.
If I don’t concentrate on my thoughts hard enough, I can feel myself almost starting to go along with the command, but a slight head shake sets me free.
“Now, I wonder who that could be..” I whisper aloud, glancing to the shoggoth in my bedroom and watching it continue to writhe around. Beatrice climbs up the wall to rest in the ceiling corner, her spiderweb home spelling out ‘Some Bitch’.
...
Ahhhhh!!!
“I’m coming, I’m coming!” I shout as I approach the front door. Wow, it feels like ages since I’ve yelled that in here. I clear my throat and give my chest a shove, lightly touching up my hair before tossing the entrance open.
My lips smile when I’m greeted by a girl in her late teens. She was dressed in a flowing white gown (pretty, but it didn’t have anything on my own), while her black hair was gelled and styled to look like Bride of Frankenstein.
I thought she actually looked really cute, despite the severe acne and intrusive headgear plaguing the poor girl.
“Uh, trick or treat..” She lisps to me through her heavy braces, extending an empty pillowcase.
Sigh, it was impossible for me not to see myself in her just a tad.
I respond with a teasing “Hm~”, closing my eyes and snapping my fingers. Lightning crashes past the full moon, the night wind twisting into a small hurricane between us.
Autumn leaves run through our hair as the wind seems to repeatedly fall into itself, forming into a smokey black void that twists and turns above her like a small rain cloud.
A few tentacles and claws emerge from the vortex with a scream, before spitting out an assortment of snacks and treats. Full boxes of cookies, donuts, and cupcakes fall into her waiting pillowcase (along with a few individual baggies of Kaa Kush) all followed by a tidal wave of Snickers and Reese’s.
“Uhh..Wow, you’re really loaded, huh...?” The girl looks slightly bewildered and confused as the hellish portal closes, but I only respond by giving her a soft chuckle.
“Darling...Do you know who I am? Where you’ve just trick or treated?” I gesture my hands around me with a laughing grin.
“There’s no version of this story where you don’t walk away a legend~”
I flutter my lashes to her, but her expression remains lost and unimpressed.
“Um...Are you supposed to be like...Morticia or...the girl from Plan 9 or something...?”
My eyes scowl to her as my lips frown, quickly slamming the door closed.
“Ha ha...Hilarious little bitch...” I pout to myself, heading back deeper into the Phlegethon with crossed arms.
“Wait, I better not have given her my Twinkies..” I realize, reaching inside my chest as I begin up the stairs. I toss a few story notes, along with an empty bottle of Victoria, before finding myself annoyingly face to face with the blood red grimoire once more.
“Huh, you can’t take a hint, can you?” I dig my claws into the text, examining the bloody felt the dark yellow pages were bound inside.
“You’re the book that doesn’t quit. Just like every other King I’ve read...Seriously, wrap it up at page 400 buddy.”
I sigh out, taking the book with me to the upstairs patio, setting it down on the railing and flipping through its pages. My eyes look down to the ghastly depictions of torture and mutilation, covered by text in an ancient language.
“Great. Now I have to dust off my Latin again.”
My claws continue flipping, giving pause when I land on a page showing a sickly pale woman with multiple long and skinny arms, sunken in features and a ghastly smile.
The mangled creature was peeking around some trees surrounding another woman burning at the stake, and I give a slight snarl to the image, quickly losing the page as I toss half of them aside.
“So uncivilized.”
A black goblet appears in my hand following a puff of skull shaped smoke, and I raise the chalice to my lips, sipping the intoxicating blood into my mouth and savoring its embrace against my tongue.
“Alright Reader’s Digest, show me something useful if you don’t wanna end up as emergency TP.”
I tilt my chalice, letting my bloody refreshment trickle down onto the waiting pages. The text seems to smoke for a moment, the blood drying instantly as if the book were dying of thirst.
A mournful howl sounds, as a smokey pentagram slowly appears above the text, the pages turning on their own. I watch with slight curiosity as the Maleficarvm opens itself to a page displaying an inverted cross painted in blood, while a full moon burns with a pentagram, the text carved beneath instantly catching my attention.
“On Samhain night, those descended from Lucifer’s direct bloodline can be made corporeal into the physical realm following spiritual dismissal....via the dance of Satanico Summoning...”
My eyes glow with excitement, continuing to read the enticing text further as my smile grows impossibly wide...
Wait...Don’t tell me all I had to do was...
Yes...Ohhhh yesss...This would be…to die for...
Aahahahahahaha!!!!!!
I can’t stop myself from descending into evil laughter, my eyes forming into pentagrams...
“Cara! Hey! Wait up!”
My friend’s soft voice calls out to me as I march through the woods, witch hat in hand & tears in my eyes.
The twigs and leaves behind her house snap beneath my feet, whilst I gripped the rim of my hat tightly in my fingers, the skin under my left eye bruised and black.
“Come on! Hey! Wait for me!” She continues to cry out, sprinting up behind me and tapping my back.
“You are such a badass! Ha! I can’t believe she went down so fast! Haven’t seen that look in your eyes since you got kicked out of Sunday School!”
She laughs, but the truth was, I didn’t feel like a badass. Not at all. I felt shittier than I had in ages.
“And did you see Enrique’s face? He’s gonna fantasize about that for the rest of his li—”
“It’s not funny!” I shout, her face quickly becoming worried when she sees my distraught expression and running tears.
“That guy was someone I really liked, and now he thinks I’m a psycho! He’ll always think I’m a psycho! Just like everyone at that party does now!”
My voice trails off as I drop my head.
“Just like...Just like my own family...already does...”
I close my eyes, giving in to the flowing tears and letting them drip down my face with a sniff. My friend walks closer, taking my hands while gazing into my sad expression with sympathy.
“Cara…”
“Next year, don’t bother inviting me to this. I’ll just do my own thing at a bar or something.”
I release myself from her grasp, heading deeper into the woods. She has an expression of hurt at my words, tears starting to form in her own eyes.
“But you’re like a sister to me! I love you, I want you here!”
I clean my face with a few more sniffs, looking up into the full moon, seeing nothing but the cold and dry lunar surface.
“I just don’t think I’m meant for a family...or thìs holiday anymore.” I release my witch hat, letting the night wind carry it far and away. With my arms at my sides and my head held low, I continue my departure into the dark, mysterious woods…