A Terrible Beauty

Siobhan was woken by a blinding flashlight shining in her eyes. She whimpered in protest and tried to turn her face away. She was half covered by a grubby cellular wool blanket but she was still so cold that she could hardly feel her feet.

'What time is it?' she asked. Her mouth was so dry that she could barely speak.

'It's almost time for you to start on your journey, Siobhan,' the man told her. 'You've managed to get some shut-eye, that's good. You're going to need all the strength that your soft little body can muster.'

'Please,' she croaked.

He sat down next to her, balancing the flashlight on the arm of his chair. She could only see him as a dark outline. 'It's strange, that,' he said. 'How people who are being mistreated are always sopolite. You'd think they'd get angry, wouldn't you? You'd think they'd rant and rage. You'd think they'd blaspheme, and rail against God. But they never do. They always say 'please' and 'thank you.' On the other hand, maybe I'm just lucky. Maybe I only ever abduct the meek and the courteous.'

'I just want to go home,' sobbed Siobhan.

The man put his hand out and caressed her prickly scalp. 'Of course you want to go home. But the sad thing is that you can't. You have another destiny to fulfill. I've arranged a meeting for you-a rendezvous with Auntie Agony. She's going to take you into her arms and give you the most exquisite pain you've ever known.'

'Please don't hurt me. I'll do anything.'

'I know, I know. But that's not why you're here. You're here to open up the door for me-the door that was sealed so many hundreds of years ago. You're the one, Siobhan. The last of the thirteen, a seamstress with hair as red as any fire. Iamgoing to hurt you, I'm afraid. I'm going to hurt you very much. But it's part of the ritual. It's thepointof the ritual. And it will give you an experience that hardly anybody is privileged to enjoy. It will take you beyond yourself, to a place where you will understand that pain can be an end in itself, even more glorious than death.'

'I just want to go home,' wept Siobhan. 'Please, please, I just want to go home.'

'Would you like a painkiller, to begin with?' He sniffed, and stood up. 'I think I've got some Disprin in the bathroom.'

'I want to go home.'

Without warning, the man tilted her chair right back so that she was sitting with her head against the floor, looking upward. She let out a mewl of helplessness and fear. Her wrists were already lashed tightly to the arms of the chair. Now he produced a length of nylon washing line and tied her ankles, pulling the knots so tight that she felt as if he were cutting her feet off.

'You're cold, that's good. Cold will help to numb the pain a little. But as you warm up again?well, that's when you'll really start to feel it.'

'I don't-I can't-I can't bear it! I can't bear it! Please let me go! Please let me go!'

He caressed her bare knees. 'You're a fashion student, Siobhan. Did you ever dream of being famous? Well, believe me,thisis going to make you famous. Your name will forever be associated with one of the greatest mythic events of the millennium. Whenever people think of the reemergence of Mor-Rioghain, which they surely will, for centuries to come, they will immediately think of Siobhan Buckley, too.'

Siobhan lay on her back, her eyes blurred with tears, her nose clogged up with phlegm. The man was silent for a while, and she wondered if he'd gone away. But then she heard something like a case snapping shut, and a cough. Then-without any warning at all-she felt a terrible cold sliding sensation down the side of her right calf, all the way from her knee to her ankle. It happened again, exactly along the same line, much deeper, actually touching the bone, and this time she felt a flood of warmth and sticky wetness.

She tried to cry out 'Ahh,' but her throat was flooded with saliva. 'Ahhgghlllghhh.'

'Very good, Siobhan,' he said, making a deep sideways incision directly below her right knee, so that she could feel him cutting through her tendons. In fact, she could actually feel the tendons shrivel, as their tension was released. 'Very restrained, under the circumstances.'

'AaaAAAAAAAAHHHH!' she screamed, as he continued the incision into her upper calf muscle.

'Do you want me to stop for a while?' he asked her. He coughed again, and said, 'Pardon me. It's really much better to get it over with, all at once.'

She was shaking with pain. 'Don't' was all she could manage to say. 'Don't.'

'I'll carry on, then. And do feel free to scream if you want to. It's supposed to be cathartic.'

Siobhan squeezed her eyes tight and said a prayer to the Sacred Mother to protect her, to take her away from this place, to ease the agonizing pain in her leg. The man sliced through the left side of her calf and she could feel her flesh opening up and the cold draft blowing against her naked muscle. She prayed to Jesus the Savior. She prayed to have her sins forgiven and her soul allowed into heaven.

But when she opened her eyes again she was still in hell. The man was still bent over her, cutting through her Achilles tendon and the extensor muscles around her ankles, and humming.

43

Katie called the Regional Hospital while her coffee was percolating. Paul's condition was stable and 'giving no immediate cause for concern.' He was breathing without the aid of a ventilator, but he was still deeply unconscious and so far he had shown no signs of response to any external stimuli. Outside the kitchen window it was raining hard, and water was gushing from the blocked guttering over the garage. The nurse said that Paul would be taken for a CAT scan later in the morning to see if he had suffered any physical brain damage.

As she hung up the phone, Katie said a silent prayer to St. Teresa of Avila, the patron saint of the sick and the afflicted. The same prayer she had said for her mother, before she died. 'God makes us suffer, and we worldlings do not understand why, but he chastises us for His own good purpose.'

At 8:47 there was a toot outside the house and she looked out to see an unmarked squad car waiting for her. She shut Sergeant in the kitchen, put on her navy-blue squall jacket, and hurried outside.