Devil on the Wind

Setting down the fine-honed razor, I rested elbows on knees over the drainage pipe of the Ascension Altar and watched the rest of my blood leave me. The pain was exquisite, a sweet sacrament of hot, liquid agony that always left flavors of copper and wine on my tongue.

A taste of glory.

The others of my line will find me here. They will suck their breath through fresh-bitten lips when they discover the newest trails blazed up and down the bluing flesh of my inner arms. My soul will have left me for an instant to unfold and lifted itself into the next world. But the invisible tethers insinuated by my wounds will stop my escape at the last.

Such is the way of the Killaster Witches. We trade the promise of future glory for present greatness. This night I would find new life again. With that new life came greater power.

This was my fifth suicide.

Foolish fat Rego, he of the missing finger and rank armpits, found me in that first sickening instant after my soul's return. The tethering wounds had snapped tight my essence and began their rapid, ropy journey into scarring. Rego's shift of trudging through the dry sand of Covent House had just begun as he came across my body, slumped against the hot metal of the Altar.

I was unable to move at first, helpless as Rego's moist, oily touch ran across the crisscrossing scars on the inside of my wrists, a sick tickling sensation that stopped when he reached the green and blue tattoos on my palms. He touched each of my hands, caressing the stubby three fingers and long thumb that marked me as part of the Redeviled line. His lust was more revolting than mere nakedness would have been.

As my soul accustomed itself once more to being home once more inside my body, I resolved that I would kill Rego for this.

Continued...