The Acolyte
Copyright 2007 by Mary Harris [aka redplanetes]
Chapter 7
Helen watched her niece out of the corner of her eye, alert for any sign that might tell her for sure one way or the other. Is she nuts? Crashing your car - your classic car - into a ravine, that's not a very good sign. And she seems... changed. In itself not a bad thing, but if she can't keep her wits about her, it could be dangerous, for all of us.
They were on their way back to the schoolhouse, tearing up the empty asphalt in the blazing dawn light. As Mena had neared the truck to climb in, the monster had taken a couple of curious sniffs at her, then crowded her against the rusty hulk of the vehicle to smell her more closely. The girl hadn't resisted; closing her eyes slowly, she had leaned her head back, a look of distant rapture blushing her face. The creature had abruptly finished and stepped aside, turning to Helen with a peculiar smile, and indicated with its eyes that she should get in.
She was dying to ask it what it had smelled, but with Mena sitting between them in the bare cab, the timing was wrong. The girl sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, absently humming a tune over and over to herself. Mena spoke up suddenly. "You did something to the engine." Her head tilted a bit as she listened. "Show me what you did." The creature looked at her with a corner of its mouth drawn up, glanced at Helen and back to the girl.
Soon they pulled up behind the ugly school building, a ground-hugging tail of dust following meekly behind the dark truck. The monster went to lift the hood, but Mena turned towards the cellar door. "I do want to see what you did to it, but I'm so hungry I could eat my own fingers!" She grinned and trotted down into the darkness, leaving the creature laughing loudly.
Helen threw a baffled look at her dark friend; instead of writing an answer on the plank she held out, it pantomimed the explaination. The monster pressed close to her, took her waist in one powerful grip, and bucked against her; its eyes rolling wildly, the monster leaned its head back with half of the other hand shoved in its jaws. The mental image was worth a thousand words, and Helen understood instantly; at the same time her legs almost failed her from overflowing lust.
The monster picked up on her reaction, probably had done it that way on purpose, but she swallowed hard, ordered her body to calm itself. "We better feed that girl first. I hope you grabbed something earlier." She glanced at the back of the truck. One last lingering inhale, and the creature gave her a gloating wink, stalked around and threw open the back doors; sure enough, it began unloading bulky, bloody packages.
Mena and the monster spent over an hour under the hood of its truck, while she studied the bizarre hodgepodge of modifications. When the hood was first raised, the girl had stared dumbstruck at the tangle of homemade repairs. It looked like nothing else she'd ever seen; a racecar mechanic tripping on mushrooms for a month might have come up with a similar nest of soldered pipes and wires. The creature proudly pointed out the latest work, and after a moment she recognised a system of power boosters obviously inspired by her late Mustang. Mena was in awe; the monster had studied her car, learned the mechanics, and built its own version in one night.
Helen wandered out, stood next to the proud monster as it displayed its hidden treasure. The girl finished her inspection, turned to the two beside her. "I want to learn to make weapons." She glanced at one, then the other. "Now." Helen noticed something; not only were the girl's pupils unsually dilated, turning her eyes from the pale, sparkling brown of a peat river to a deep chestnut, she also avoided looking directly at the creature. She'd look at its coat, its hat, the tree over its shoulder, but not into its face.
Mena was also very direct and demanding today. Not rudely so, just no shy mumbling or giggling. As if she'd matured, cast off all the girl fluff. Her spartan demeanor clashed oddly with the bloodstained shirt knotted hillbilly-style at her midriff, and the hot pink shorts. Helen wondered if she even noticed what she was wearing, or cared. She had a feeling Mena was beyond fashion concerns any longer.
* * * * *
They labored in the monster's workshop all day, pounding and grinding and carving. The girl was an apt pupil, absorbing every technique eagerly. The creature had brought an armload of leaf springs in from its truck, dumping them on the floor with a deafening crash. Under its dark gaze, Helen had shown her niece what the monster had taught her; how to cut blades from the well-tempered steel, how to grind and polish them to razor-sharp perfection.
With her sleeves rolled up to her armpits, skin shiny with sweat, and greying hair tied back in a leather thong, Helen resembled some Valkyrie smith, forging magical weapons to slay the dragons of corruption.
The monster carved hilts for the new blades, unadorned but elegant in their savage austerity. As it slid the tang of a blade into its bone handle, a perfect fit, it raised its eyes to Helen's. A shadowy smile lifted the barest corner of its mouth. She closed her eyes and shuddered. A smirk crawled up her face. She raised an eyebrow, glanced at her niece. ...And her?
With a growling chuckle, the dark creature reached over the workbench, grabbed a large, cruel-looking axe cut from a single piece of steel. The weapon was all business, no nonsense. Flipping the axe in the air and catching the handle again, the monster laughed. Its dark mouthful of deadly teeth grimaced in answer.
Helen considered as she watched the creature pin the knife together. It still knows something I don't about that girl. When she had asked it about her niece, the monster had simply gestured for her to be patient. At least it doesn't think she's broken. Mena was polishing a curved knife long enough to be a short sword, the cold light in her welding goggles contrasting with the molten reflection of sparks. Her nostrils flared briefly as a tiny hot meteor landed on her arm.
* * * * *
In the heat of midafternoon the monster rushed out, chased by hunger. Helen sat with her niece at a table, finishing handles and assembling parts. The girl had made one of every different weapon she'd been instructed in; all basic and functional objects. She had excelled at metalwork, but the details such as sewing and soldering had frustrated her.
Mena had become suddenly enraged at one point, shrieking and hurling her project at hand - a caltrop - against the stone wall. "Son-of-A-BITCH! Fuck you and your little dog, too!" She grabbed a large hammer and ran over to the little spiked ball where it had fallen, began smashing the little cluster of bone and skin with vicious fury. Blue sparks flew as the hammer rang discordantly. It was over just as quickly; Helen watched with wide eyes as Mena walked nonchalant back to her seat, began working on another caltrop. She seemed to not even realize what she'd just done, even muttering, "...where did I put that hammer this time?"
Still, she had persevered and completed a small armory.
Some had come out slightly crude and awkward from her inexperienced hands, but a few were works of rare talent, as beautiful and well-crafted as they were lethal. Mena had made herself a pair of curved blades, one long and to be worn in a sheath that fit diagonally across her back; the other smaller and fitting into the strap of the larger one's sheath, where it crossed her ribs.
These definitely were not weapons of self-defence.
Mena had also made a hook to be thrown; like a grappling hook, it was tied at one end to a light rope. She had been pleased with the whole concept, mumbling excitedly to herself, "...what a great idea! More useful than sliced bread..."
Finally the heat and strain of their labors wore them down. "How about a break, Aunt Hel? The water...?" Helen felt refreshed even hearing the words, which washed over her skin, cleansed the strain from her mind. They abandoned the dark roots of the schoolhouse, taking their blistered hands and aching arms to the hidden pool.
* * * * *
"Aunt Hel, what am I?"
The question came out of nowhere, startling the woman from her cool green thoughts. She looked up from the wavering reflections on the water's surface. Mena's eyes were fixed on her with that chilling, hungry look she had acquired. Helen was disquieted by the words. Not all there...?
"In what sense, Menad?" she said softly after a few quiet seconds.
"I was a teenage city girl on summer vacation. Now... I'm not. Won't be ever again. But I don't know what I am now." Her voice was steady, strong, almost a monotone. She furrowed her brows slightly, concentrating for a moment.
"I'm a killer... but I don't feel..," she gestured in large circles, "...bad. A cannibal, too, ...but it just seems... right. I am -completely outside the anthill." Mena said wonderingly. She pursed her lips, tilted her head, thinking. "So... what am I?"
Helen blinked slowly. How to respond to a question like that? Metaphysical, moral, yet direct and practical. Possibly her mind's last clash with the values of society that she had been raised with; even though she'd never believed in those values, she'd had little else to compare them with. Or perhaps, she's asking what I am. Funny, I never thought about it much.
"I don't know the answer to that, Mena. You are what you were born to be, not what the world has tried to make you into." She gave a slight smile. "You'll have to follow your nature to find out." A sharp laugh escaped her throat, water sloshed and lapped gently in response. "Sounds corny, doesn't it? It's the truth, though."
They shared the same open, serious gaze. Mena nodded once, slightly.
* * * * *
The monster had returned when they arrived back at the lair. It looked up sheepishly from the remains of its meal; the pair of corpses had already been picked clean. "What? Nothing for us?" Helen gaped in mock exasperation. Her stomach growled loudly, punctuating the irony. "Well, I guess we'll just have to eat each other...," she grinned at Mena.
The girl gave a feral smile, unsheathed one of her new blades, and looked down at her own body. "What'll it be, Aunt Hel, ...shoulder? Drumstick?" She patted her muscular calf, chuckling.
The creature ran up between them, throwing a worried glare back and forth.
"No, we were joking! We wouldn't really eat each other," Helen reassured it. The monster looked only half convinced as it let out a growling chuckle.
Mena's face became cold and calculating again. "Let's go hunting. All of us." It wasn't a request, more a statement of fact. Helen raised an eyebrow, tilted her head as she looked to her creature. The excited gleam in its eyes and growing leer was all the answer needed.
"So we shall, Menad."
End of Chapter 7
A/N: My beta reader pointed out a tiny problem with the previous chapter - you have to be 21 to buy a handgun, not 18. Oh well, this is now taking place in the alternate universe where the moon changes from full to quarter in four days, and you can buy a pistol when you're 18.
Next chapter will be gory and lewd, I promise.
The Acolyte and illustrations Copyright 2007 by Mary Harris [aka redplanetes]
~plagarists will be flayed alive~
redplanet@trinidadusa.net
