Chapter Twenty-Two

He had almost forgotten the ecstasy created when entering someone else’s dreams. He could smell the light scent of strawberry shampoo whenever he came into view of the blonde woman whom he claimed as his first. No, this was not the chase; there would be no need for a chase. Here, he followed the woman wherever she went. And within two hours of senseless wandering, she came to a park and sat down on a bench and opened a paperback book.

She was beautiful, the way she flicked her hair over to the side as she flipped the page. He leaned closer and saw that she was reading The Mists of Avalon.

Interesting, he thought.

Was there a way to incorporate King Arthur into this woman’s fears? He watched her for some time thinking how alike she and Tracy Kingston were. Their primal fear was being alone. Arthurian aloneness?

Sure he could lock her in a dungeon but that was so boring. He had done it too many times when he was younger and those women almost never cracked. He lowered his head and formed an evil grin as he stared lovingly at the woman.

Orion stood erect and made his appearance known to her as he walked around the bench and knelt in front of her. “M’Lady, I am in need of your help,” he said, fighting back the urge to laugh out loud.

She stared down at him for a moment and then placed her book on the bench next to her and took Orion’s cold hand. “What is it you need, Sir?” She could play along with this dream just like the best of them.

Orion coughed, stifling back another laugh. “It is my King. He has begun torturing and killing his own people. I managed to have escaped; only to have found you alone. Will you help me in overthrowing my King?”

She stood up and, with her hands, gestured to him to do so as well. “Tell me, good Sir: who is your king?”

Orion inched closer to the woman. He could smell her breath and, if he tried, her perspiration. “Arthur of Camelot.”

She stepped back and almost fell over the bench. There was a new fear coming from her eyes as she looked at him and shook her head. “King Arthur? No, there is no way I can possibly help you. No one can kill Arthur. He’s immortal.”

He reached out and snatched her wrists. “Then you will be the first to battle an immortal.” He pulled the woman to him. He caused his face to change.

No words could describe the fear she felt when she looked into the face of King Arthur himself. She knew this was the man because this was the same one she conjured night after night to save her from the real world. But now the man was looking down at her with contempt in his eyes. She pleaded with him to let her go.

“Why would I let you go? You had been conspiring to assassinate the King of Camelot!” Orion smiled and picked the woman up and hoisted her over his shoulder and began walking with her over his shoulder for a short time. Several moments later (he put it in her mind that they had traveled for a long time) he opened the door to his most loving of places and carried her over to the fireplace.

She had been weeping by the time he shackled her wrists to the wall but she had not broken like he had expected. He went over and placed the old chair over to the stone altar and sat down and propped his feet up on the slab of an altar and just watched her.

This woman was a lot stronger than he had expected. Have women changed that much in twenty years? He remembered that Tracy was just a child herself when he began tormenting her (and to think, the bitch never did have that book anyway) and her sister and friends died just to show Tracy his power.

Orion stood and went over to the woman. He leaned close to her and smiled as he tore off her clothes. That done he went back to his chair, sat down, and continued watching her. Having his way with her now would not break her; it would make her stronger and want to fight back.

“There’s no one close to here. Scream if you want. You’re all alone down here.” He paid close attention when he saw a slight twitch in her eyebrow.

It took another two hours for the young woman to break. During the time she had been trying to tell herself that this was only a dream. For two hours she kept telling herself that. Completely drained, she dropped her weight and dangled from her shackles, head drooping.

Orion smiled and went over to the shell of a woman. He looked down and saw that she had emptied her bladder onto his boots and he laughed to himself at her last bit of retaliation. He reached out and placed his hand upon her cheek. “My child, I have the power to save you.”

“No,” she murmured in a daze. “Only my God.”

He leaned down to her and brushed the hair out of her eyes. “I am your God.” Maybe she will resist in the end. He reached into the fireplace and pulled out a spike. “Do as I ask and I shall free you.” He tightened his hand around the steel.

She surrendered, not fully understanding what it was he wanted. He put a hand to the back of her head and brought her face to his chest and embraced the woman.

“I want you to recognize your fears and come to terms with them. Release these terrors you’ve been burdened with for however long. Only without these fears can you become a cleansed and free soul.”

He took a step back and watched as her stomach began rolling and convulsing. Here it comes, he thought, as he saw her double over as best she could and open her mouth as wide as it could.

First came the spittle and a foul odor. And then out it came; the black shadow fiend – very similar to the one he sent after Connor Barker – squeezed its way out of her mouth and fell to the floor with a wet thud. Once the fear had been removed from her, there was nothing left of the once-beautiful blonde woman from Pigeon Forge.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

All color of flesh and eyes dulled to an ash and she let herself dangle almost lifelessly from her shackles.

Orion watched the woman for a moment and laughed at the thought of her comatose real body and what will become of it once she is found. She’ll probably end her days in some mental institution. But that is of no care to Orion. His Dreamkiller is his new child and it must be looked after and trained.

He smiled and helped the poor creature to its new legs and saw that it had no balance yet. Orion saw Alexius when he looked at the new Dreamkiller. Alexius was his best friend, even if the bastard was a traitor in the end, and it pained him almost as much as it pained Alexius when the very first Dreamkiller was born.

“Rest easy.” He walked the creature over to the chair and helped her sit down. “Do you recall what your name is?” He didn’t want to go on calling it ‘it’.

The Dreamkiller paused for a moment and then looked up at Orion behind her blackened eyes (the Dreamkillers get their red eyes only when they are trained killers) and nodded. “Beth,” she said.

“Well, Beth,” Orion began and bowed his head. “Shall I say, happy birthday. We will go through many adventures together and don’t worry,” he looked down at Beth and smiled. “You will have brothers and sisters.”

Orion looked around and agreed that this would be as good a place as any to leave Beth hanging out until he could obtain more Dreamkillers. He was, after all, going to win over the painter. He didn’t think there was enough time to do it tonight, but by tomorrow there should be one more Dreamkiller.

And from there who knows how many he will make in this nice little place? He knew he needed to wake up and tail Vincent again but he was having way too much fun right now playing with his new baby.

“I need to go somewhere right now, Beth,” he said as he knelt in front of the Dreamkiller. “But I will be back very soon – I promise.” Once he had gained trust from his child, he went over to one of the doors, opened it, and vanished just as he stepped through.

With her black eyes, Beth sat there and looked around the room and had a strange taste coming into her mouth. Whatever the salty taste, she knew she had to quench it because it was beginning to create a nervous feeling inside her body.

She stood up, balancing herself, and headed for the same door her father went through. She opened the door and saw that it led up a flight of stairs outside. The taste was maddening. With one final look behind her, Beth turned and headed up the steps out into a new world.

It wasn’t long before she met someone at the base of a mountain trail. He was a large man wearing a larger jacket which made him look too bulky in the arms. He had a gray hat over his long-in-the-back-bald-on-top black hair. When he saw her coming closer to him he gave out a yelp and backed away, tripping over his camping gear.

“What…what the fuck are you?” There was nothing human which he saw in her. Whatever it was, it was coming closer to him and he didn’t like it one bit.

Beth studied the man without making any further movements. She watched the beads of sweat trickle down his forehead and she knew this was the smell of fear. She took a step closer to inspect the beads of sweat, but before she could, the man had found his shotgun and had pointed it in her direction.

He gave out a loud war cry and pulled the trigger and watched as the bullet flew from the barrel and into the creature’s chest. What he was not hoping for happened, and he watched the creature feel the hole where the bullet went in and continued with her advances.

Questions ran through her mind as she stared at the man. She wanted to know why she had not died when the bullet ran through her chest. She also wanted to know why this man was so afraid of her. She was angered that something about her made the man cower from her the moment he laid eyes upon her. He even drew a weapon and used it against her without knowing anything about her. Why?

She knelt down and grabbed the man’s throat with such force that it was nearly crushed inward. He stared at her and felt his pants get wet. She looked down and saw his soiled pants and inhaled the smell of urine. No, it wasn’t this smell she wanted so badly.

She looked back at his face and with her other hand had wiped the sweat from his brow. Bringing it to her mouth, she licked at her sweat-covered fingers. Yes, this had a salty taste, but it wasn’t the salt she had in her mouth earlier. She studied the man for a moment and then, using three fingers plunged them into his throat.

A geyser of the man’s life jutted into the air and she smiled and cupped her hands to fill them with his blood. Beth drank for the first time the life of a human and she suddenly became aware that this fount was not nearly enough.

Like a ravaging animal she clawed at the carcass with nails she didn’t know she had. She wouldn’t stop grating the body until nothing but red was all to be seen. She lay her body down, stomach-to-stomach, on the body and wrapped her arms around it and then brought her face down onto its chest and began licking and sucking at the various open wounds.

Orion went back to his loving torture room earlier than he had expected. When he left Beth he had forgotten what young people of the twenty-first century were like. The airbrush artist would have been asleep until noon at least which allowed him plenty of time to convert the man.

“Easy, my child.”

Beth turned her head and saw her father coming into the room with another being much like herself. Momentary joy came to her and she stood up and walked over to them just as they entered the room.

Orion turned to his youngest and then gestured to Beth. “Eric, this is Beth, your sister.”

He did a double-take and looked at his first brood again, this time with an inquisitive look in his eyes. There was a new appearance in her. She had more color to her flesh than the typical Dreamkiller. Her body had become a reddened pale and not gray-green. She had even managed to have grown hair on her head. And, although not pointed like all other Dreamkillers, her eyes glowed red.

Orion turned to Eric. “Please sit over there,” he said and gestured to the chair and watched as Eric made his way over to it. Before anyone could have taken another breath, Orion lashed out at her, grabbing her throat, and pinning her up against the wall. “You left this room, haven’t you? You have shed blood.”

She did not speak (and even if she wanted to, she wouldn’t have been able to; Orion’s hand had been cutting off her voice box), but stared at him behind puzzled eyes. She did not understand why her father was so upset.

He let her go after a minute and stared at her wondering what he should do with her. He could not destroy her – not his first child – and he could not let her go without knowing how dangerous it is out there without having your family with you for help. What should he do with her?

As if she read his mind, Beth reached up and wrapped her hands behind his head and brought her face to his. “What,” he could not complete his question for she had pushed her tongue deep into his mouth.

It was seduction more than passion that fueled this exchange. She may be his creation, he sure as hell wasn’t about to end this moment too soon. But he had to. For his sake or else go mad.

He shoved her back against the wall and smacked her across her face. “If you attempt that again, I shall enjoy cutting out your tongue. You are my child to serve me, not be my lover. You will become but a number once my army has risen and it will be my army that I will control with.” He glanced back at Eric who sat emotionless; he too had a blackened featureless form. “Keep the poor bastard company.”

He went to the door and turned back to look at Beth with a threatening look. “If you leave, you shall never make it back here alive,” he said and then left the two children to their own devices.