The Chosen

“Coercions, instigations, influences,” he defined. “Your dreams provide a sound example.”

Merely the word—dream—set her mind off yet again. What would Feldspar know of her dreams, her fantasies? The Hands, she grimly remembered. And the lewd nightmare that always followed. The faceless night-suitor violating her in ways she’d never imagined…

“It was me,” Feldspar said.

Her glare turned to stone.

“I’m very…fond of you, Ms. Abbot,” he confessed. “I’ve always been. Our lord purveys certain provisions—certain elixirs, emulsions, and ointments—which serve our needs well, which make people exceedingly desirous. We enhance things with it, our liquor, our food, massage oils, etc.”

This revelation unreeled in her head like a roll of ribbon tossed off a precipice. Drugs, she realized. Like the drugs that hideous redhead had spiked Paul’s drinks with. Feldspar put the same drugs in my drink. Drugs which made her confuse reality with fantasy, which made her want things she’d never really wanted: rape, sadism, masochism. And when she thought back further, it made even more sense. The only nights she hadn’t had the fantasy of The Hands were nights she hadn’t drunk any of the Grand Marnier Feldspar had given her, or taken a bath with the lavish bath oils. And the night Kyle had given her the back rub at the pool—He used massage oil…

So they’d drugged her, to be more responsive. None of it had been a dream at all. Every night Feldspar had been secreting into her room, to rape her…

“And I know what you may be thinking,” the squat, frocked man went on. “But it was all bound to one very important consideration.’’

“What!” she spat.

“I love you.”

Her rage roiled, but she knew she mustn’t show it. She must not let herself break. She needed to think, didn’t she? She needed to calculate—

The sick motherfucker…

—a way to destroy him.

And the cutlery rack wasn’t that far away.

She knew what she must do.…

Keep talking, keep distracting him.

“And The Inn itself,” she said. “I don’t understand. None of it makes sense. All the money you pumped into the place and it seemed from the start that you wanted it to fail.”

“Of course I did,” he answered. “We needed a sufficient cover.”

“A cover? What are you talking about?”

“We needed camouflage. A fine restaurant backed by a lucrative holding company provided that. But we couldn’t have it become too successful, could we? We couldn’t have too many people coming here. After all, they might take note of our real services. You do know, Ms. Abbot, why we’re really here, don’t you?”

Again she remembered the book. Magwyth. Servant of Demons. Banished to earth as penance, to provide gluttonies for Satan’s hirelings.

“Yes,” she said. “I do.”

“Then likewise you can see our need to do things the way we did. The Inn needed to provide a legitimate, expensive restaurant. Yet on the other hand it had to fail, to keep out an influx of local residents. No one makes