Rituals (Simon, part 1)
Each footstep was a perfect echo of the ticking clock on Simon's bookshelf; his even pace to his work room was an exact cadence, one he practiced unconsciously.
Simon's obsession with neatness was born of his grinning power; all things must rest just so, and all things must be pure, and clean, or the power would smash through like dark water, and ravening, devour anything it could reach. Decades of meticulous care had become reflex, so that now, for Simon, every crease was placed carefully, every letter drawn with precision, every motion economical and full of purpose.
Reaching into his coat pocket, he produced a single dark key, an antique wand with flanges like the door-hinges it allowed motion to, and carefully turned it in the lock of his work room door. The faint and never-ending groan of the house he lived in changed pitch, as if suffering tension from the turning of the tumblers.
They shift like the bones in my wrist, he thought.
As usual before beginning such important work, he'd spent several days sharpening his concentration on diagrams of flesh and blood, running his fingers through mazes of bone, breathing in those places where the dying find release, where their last moments drifted about like a veil woven from cold lead.
These days, Simon ended this period of focus by having high tea with Jocelyn, with her silent presence a perfect reminder of how death served him, and served him in an inconsequential way; a humbling of the force he harnessed. No words were ever spoken between them at these somber events; she was there to serve and inspire, nothing more. Simon would let his mind glide upward on the dark joy that Jocelyn's imprisonment gave him as he sipped his poisoned tea, and let the trivial stabs at death bolster his will to control it further. The day had been uniquely satisfying, for Jocelyn had been depriving herself of blood again out of guilt. She made these sad attempts at atonement from time to time, and Simon thrived on her guilt. The thought of this control followed him like the faint scent of bergamot still clinging to his immaculate wardrobe, and he grinned at the work yet to come.
He opened the door, and stepped through, the air beyond was cool and still. His apprentice had already prepared the room; he let his eyes move through the aisle of thick dark candles, like burning hunched people, all lined up on a march from purgatory. The tomb lid he used as a work table was cleared except for the neatly arranged scalpels there, the shallow pan of linens and gauze, the skinned arm in a plastic bag. Shadows struggled between the curtains of low, amber light, making the walls into some sort of smoldering forest. The series of chains with their attendant hooks and the winch on the far side were newly oiled, gleaming like countless heavy-lidded eyes.
Pausing, he methodically removed his clothing, folding them and setting them on a small bench. Opening a wall cabinet, he removed a haphazardly stitched garment, a robe-like thing which looked to have been singed, riddled with wounds, torn and stitched together again many times. Ancient blood stains and the remnants of smoke had turned what was once white a scuffed maroon and grey color.
Slipping this on, he walked with precision around the aisle of candles, moving into the darkness behind the worktable, where a rather large and old claw-footed bathtub crouched. Within, almost completely submerged in offal and gore, was his apprentice Jennifer, her eyes weighted with meditation and her articulate lips moving slightly. He reached down, and touched her brow with one finger.
Immediately, her eyes blinked and focused, and he looked through the flesh of her face, noting in his cold way how her skull shaped the mats of tissue around it, how her eyes rolled in their sockets.
She looked a question at him, and he could read the emptiness clenched in the back of her gaze, like a coiled blind snake. He nodded once, mouthed carefully ‘it is time’, and placed his hand on her face, pushing her under the clinging surface of the charnel bath.
Simon's obsession with neatness was born of his grinning power; all things must rest just so, and all things must be pure, and clean, or the power would smash through like dark water, and ravening, devour anything it could reach. Decades of meticulous care had become reflex, so that now, for Simon, every crease was placed carefully, every letter drawn with precision, every motion economical and full of purpose.
Reaching into his coat pocket, he produced a single dark key, an antique wand with flanges like the door-hinges it allowed motion to, and carefully turned it in the lock of his work room door. The faint and never-ending groan of the house he lived in changed pitch, as if suffering tension from the turning of the tumblers.
They shift like the bones in my wrist, he thought.
As usual before beginning such important work, he'd spent several days sharpening his concentration on diagrams of flesh and blood, running his fingers through mazes of bone, breathing in those places where the dying find release, where their last moments drifted about like a veil woven from cold lead.
These days, Simon ended this period of focus by having high tea with Jocelyn, with her silent presence a perfect reminder of how death served him, and served him in an inconsequential way; a humbling of the force he harnessed. No words were ever spoken between them at these somber events; she was there to serve and inspire, nothing more. Simon would let his mind glide upward on the dark joy that Jocelyn's imprisonment gave him as he sipped his poisoned tea, and let the trivial stabs at death bolster his will to control it further. The day had been uniquely satisfying, for Jocelyn had been depriving herself of blood again out of guilt. She made these sad attempts at atonement from time to time, and Simon thrived on her guilt. The thought of this control followed him like the faint scent of bergamot still clinging to his immaculate wardrobe, and he grinned at the work yet to come.
He opened the door, and stepped through, the air beyond was cool and still. His apprentice had already prepared the room; he let his eyes move through the aisle of thick dark candles, like burning hunched people, all lined up on a march from purgatory. The tomb lid he used as a work table was cleared except for the neatly arranged scalpels there, the shallow pan of linens and gauze, the skinned arm in a plastic bag. Shadows struggled between the curtains of low, amber light, making the walls into some sort of smoldering forest. The series of chains with their attendant hooks and the winch on the far side were newly oiled, gleaming like countless heavy-lidded eyes.
Pausing, he methodically removed his clothing, folding them and setting them on a small bench. Opening a wall cabinet, he removed a haphazardly stitched garment, a robe-like thing which looked to have been singed, riddled with wounds, torn and stitched together again many times. Ancient blood stains and the remnants of smoke had turned what was once white a scuffed maroon and grey color.
Slipping this on, he walked with precision around the aisle of candles, moving into the darkness behind the worktable, where a rather large and old claw-footed bathtub crouched. Within, almost completely submerged in offal and gore, was his apprentice Jennifer, her eyes weighted with meditation and her articulate lips moving slightly. He reached down, and touched her brow with one finger.
Immediately, her eyes blinked and focused, and he looked through the flesh of her face, noting in his cold way how her skull shaped the mats of tissue around it, how her eyes rolled in their sockets.
She looked a question at him, and he could read the emptiness clenched in the back of her gaze, like a coiled blind snake. He nodded once, mouthed carefully ‘it is time’, and placed his hand on her face, pushing her under the clinging surface of the charnel bath.