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closed my
eyes against the sight, and when I opened them again, I was in a
completely different place.

Chapter 4
     
     
    The mulatto abruptly let me go and I
sank to the ground. I lay there for a few minutes before I dragged
myself to my knees and looked around me in confusion. I couldn’t be
sure if I had lost consciousness for a few minutes, or if the
mulatto had leapt from the clearing to an entirely different
location by some supernatural means, dragging me with her. We were
in some vast underground room that could have been some chamber in
the deepest depths of hell. Several sconces lining the walls lit
the room in a fiery light, making our shadows form large, grotesque
shapes that leered at me from the walls. At the farthest end of the
chamber was a gold altar that took up the entire wall. There were
pagan markings etched on the altar I could not make out. Clustered
around it were hundreds of skulls, human skulls, painted black. A
tall gold staff tapering to a sharp point lay against the
altar.
    A few feet away from me were four
black coffins inlaid with gold. They had been placed on stone slabs
about half a metre high. I shuddered at the thought of human
remains in those coffins, but the dirt floor was littered with
human bones. And it appeared as if some of the bones had been there
for decades, for they crumbled beneath me as I rose to my feet. My
head reeled with images of Julia lying beneath the trees, her head
at an odd angle. I closed my eyes, fighting the nausea that rose
unbidden, weakening me.
    When I opened them again, Auria was
gazing at me, a curious light in her eyes. She spoke to the mulatto
without taking her eyes off me.
    “ Onyx, help me take this
off.” She began pulling on the clasps of her gown. “I want to
experience him before I turn him.”
    Onyx moved to her and began undoing
the clasps of her gown.
    “ You intend to turn him?”
the male said, his voice dropping to a whisper, the subtlest hint
of anger riding behind his words. “You didn’t say anything about turning
him.”
    Auria stopped and faced him as she
pulled the gold gown away from her, letting it fall to her
feet.
    “ Do I have to ask your
permission, Emory?” she said.
    He was silent. She gave him an icy
smile and then moved toward him as if it was the most natural thing
to be dressed only in her undergarments whilst in the company of
others.
    She grasped Emory’s chin in a hard
grip and kissed him. “Don’t worry, my dear. No one will ever take
your place,” she purred.
    She released him and turned her gaze
to me again. My thoughts were still swirling with images of what
had taken place in the clearing.
    The savage twist of Onyx’s
hand.
    Julia falling lifeless to the
ground.
    Rage swelled within me along with
abject misery. I lunged at Auria and wrapped my fingers around her
neck.
    “ You killed her!” I cried.
“You killed her!”
    In my grief and rage, it did not
immediately register that her skin was cool and hard to the touch,
and that no matter how hard I squeezed, it did not scare the smile
away from her lips. The other two did nothing to stop me, but
seemed rather amused by my actions.
    Auria laughed and then did the
damnedest thing. She carefully placed her hands over mine and
pulled them away from her neck effortlessly as if I had the
strength of a sick child rather than that of an adult male. Her
hands felt like iron around my wrists. I stared at her in
astonishment and tried to back away. But she locked her gaze on
mine and I found I could not move.
    Malignant, alien images flooded my
brain, images of her without the flimsy undergarment she wore, her
ripe, naked flesh assaulting my senses.
    Knowing I was in the grip of some
unholy power, I again tried to step away, but could not. She
released my wrists at that moment, her smile ripening. As if I were
a puppet under her control, my hands moved to her
breasts.
    Horror burgeoned in my mind, but my
hands pawed at her as if I were a schoolboy who was seeing