tighten.
Another shuffle and pair of excited steps met my ears. A moment later a pressure settled across my belly making it even harder for me to breathe.
I began to beg. God wasn’t listening to my prayers, so I had no other choice.
As the mumbled words started tumbling from my mouth, a sharp sting lashed across my cheek, and a feminine voice, dripping with false sweetness drawled, “Wake up…”
I was jolted awake by the intense feeling that someone, or something, had just struck me hard in the face. My heart was pounding and my chest was tight. I felt as if a weight were resting on my stomach, causing me to labor for each breath. My head was throbbing with unnatural pain, and I was beginning to feel sick to my stomach.
The nightmare had returned, and this time the abject terror was fully intact. I started upward as I had done countless times before when awaking from this horrific vision, but got nowhere. In fact, not only did it feel as though something was pressing me back downward, an odd sensation bit into my wrists and arms. Confusion joined the pain in my grey matter as I fought to reason out what was happening. I was almost certain I was awake. I didn’t have the odd feeling of disconnection that so often came with channeling a spirit. And, I had the headache. That was a pain that always remained within the boundaries of my wakefulness. Light was streaming in through the thinness of my eyelids, blood red and far too bright for comfort. I found that I was still holding them tightly shut, an artifact of the nightmare I assumed, but one I didn’t mind. Since it appeared that light was now also invading my corporeal world, I knew its sudden influx would only serve to make the headache even worse.
Still, something was definitely off kilter, and I needed to know what it was. I was just about to take the plunge and open my eyes at least enough to get my bearings when another lacerating sting tore into my cheek.
This time I knew it was real.
“I said, time to wake up, little man.” The nightmare woman’s voice rolled into my ears, heavy with a sugary Southern drawl.
My eyes flickered open, and as I suspected, the glare of the overhead light acted as an accelerant on the ache in my skull. Blinking my way toward some semblance of focus, I looked upward toward the direction of the voice. Staring back at me was a visage that would have been comfortingly familiar had it not been for the frightening expression it wore.
My wife was straddling me in the bed, looking back down at me with an imperious gaze. No longer wearing her pajamas, she was now scantily clad in something black that appeared to be composed of tight-fitting leather and a touch of lace. It was something I didn’t recall ever having seen in her wardrobe before, and that told me that perhaps I was now getting a glimpse of the contents from the overnight bag, up close and personal.
Her face had obviously been in recent contact with more than just a touch of makeup and was accented in such a way to enhance the severe expression lining her features. She continued looking down at me, and I started trying to convince myself that I wasn’t really awake.
After a long pause she gave her head a toss then giggled and said, “That’s better.”
Even though the sentence was no more than two words, the uncharacteristic geographical drawl was obvious and intact.
Following the utterance, she placed a cigarette between glossy red lips and drew on it hard. The end grew bright, sizzling audibly as I watched the paper and tobacco slowly burn a full one-half inch down the length right before my eyes. In a fluid motion, she pulled the cigarette from her mouth, flicked the spent ash at my face, then pursed her lips and blew out a long stream of smoke.
Never once had she taken her eyes from mine, and now her mouth spread into a contented smile. I started upward again; knowing suddenly that telling myself this was a nightmare simply wasn’t going to make it so. Fear was definitely starting to work its way into my spine.
Again I found myself unable to go far and realized that my arms were outstretched to the sides and above my head. I cast a quick glance to the right and saw my wrist encompassed by a wide, leather-looking cuff that was securely fastened to the bedpost. I didn’t have to look to the left to know it too was similarly bound. I didn’t feel anything around my ankles so I tried to move my legs, only to find they were bound in some unseen way.
I instantly regretted being a heavy sleeper.
“What’s wrong, little man?” my wife asked.
Actually, it was the voice asking the question. It just happened to be coming out of my wife’s mouth.
“Felicity?” I questioned out of reflex.
I didn’t catch the blur of motion, but I definitely felt the sting of her palm against my cheek as she slapped me hard enough to crank my head to the side.
“And, who, pray tell, is Felicity, little man?” she asked.
“You are,” I replied with a groan as I turned my face back to her.
Judging from the force of yet another slap that immediately followed my reply, apparently, it was the wrong thing to say.
“You will call me, Mistress Miranda, little man,” she commanded.
What I had earlier thought to be fear was just a trial run of the emotion. In the grand scheme of things, it had been nothing more than a shot of anxiety with a confusion chaser just to get the ball rolling. Hearing the sentence just spoken by the evil inhabiting my wife’s body was the catalyst, and now true horror set in.
At this stage of the game, I wasn’t sure what this Lwa feasted on, but it was a good bet that pain played into that picture, and I suspected fear was at the very least an appetizer. If that was true, judging by her satisfied grin, I was apparently serving up the first course at this very moment.
“Oh, what’s wrong?” she asked, feigning concern. “Am I scaring you?”
“No,” I returned.
“Liar.”
“Guess it’s your word against mine,” I said, mustering whatever semblance of calm bravado I could.
She sat back and regarded me coolly. Felicity truly didn’t weigh much more than one hundred pounds, but with the panic starting to well in the pit of my stomach, even that amount of weight on top of me was making it hard to breathe.
After taking another long drag on the cigarette, she pulled it slowly from her mouth and smiled then let the smoke out in a thin stream.
There was no way I could read what was going on behind the still pretty, but frighteningly severe, mask her face had become. In retrospect, given what I knew from the crime scenes, I should have been able to at least predict what she was going to do. Unfortunately, a by-product of terror is that one doesn’t always think straight.
I suppose that’s why it came as such a complete shock to me when, without a word her smile grew even wider, and she began to slowly grind out the burning cigarette against my bare chest.
CHAPTER 26:
Something kept me from screaming out in response to the pain. I wanted to in the worst way, and in fact, I even tried. However, the yelp instantly caught in my throat and remained there, emitting little more sound than a soft groan. The only reason I could imagine for the abrupt stifling was that I knew the spirit was feeding on my pain and fear, and I supposed it was just my subconscious attempting to deny it the meal. Of course, whether or not I screamed probably was a moot point. It knew I was afraid, there was no doubt of that, and my body definitely betrayed me in the pain department.
I tensed in reflex even as the sound stuck in my windpipe, gurgling quietly through my clenched teeth. As she continued to grind the burning ember into my flesh, I sucked in a quick breath, steeling myself against whatever might be yet to come. I couldn’t help but notice the odor of singed hair and skin. If that wasn’t bad enough, it had joined the spicy scent of her perfume, mixing on the air to become a peculiar, sweet funk that did little for my already queasy stomach.
Even though I was fighting to deny anything to the evil that had invaded our home, the look on my wife’s face
