Worlds of BBW Erotic Romance - Box Set (4 page)

Julia had never seen Edwin leave.

Mrs. Starks had escorted her abruptly to her bedroom as soon as the dinner was over, locking her in.

She’d run to the window, hoping to get a glimpse of the Constable… Would he look back up to her, would he care, or even remember her?

The rain had stopped and the moonlight was fairly bright now, so she had a clear view outside, to the faerie mound. If they were taking him through the passage from the basement, he would have to emerge there.

But she waited… and waited… and he never emerged. No one came out.

Her stomach churned with fear for the young Constable.

How silly she had been, casting him as some rescuing knight in her personal faerie tale… had she placed him in danger by anything she’d done, or said?

She didn’t think so, but… her father. He had been so careful to ask Edwin if anyone else knew he’d been coming out to the Manse.

Oh no.

Did the Master have him? Were they going to kill him, torture him… or worse, use him in some horrid experiment as they had Reverend Mott?

As she waited and the first flow of dawn feebly bloomed in the sky, she thought she heard screaming. A young, male voice. Screaming and screeching in pain and anger.

Edwin!

She had to do
something.

Damsel in distress or not… Her knight needed her, now, and it was time to take action. She’d waited too long, too afraid of her father and the Master to do anything. But this was wrong. To imagine what they might be doing to her handsome young man now…

She tried to think, wracking her brain… There had to be something she could do, some trick or intrigue she’d learned from the novels she’d read?

#

“Hate, hate, hate …Uhh …” Ed Bolt mumbled, lost in delirium.

Mister Starks watched as the dark-haired young man fastened to the wheel-like device shivered and sweated, moaning and ranting. Rector Powell had asked Starks to keep watch, and to let him know when there was a change in the youth’s condition.

Change,
Starks thought,
so he looks like a dead thing, like HIM …

He turned to watch the corpse-like Reverend Mott, who stood in the corner unmoving, making no sound other than his slow, raspy breathing.

Starks didn’t understand why the Rector was so loyal to his new Master who lived in the pit. The Rector often talked of a new era coming, all of mankind becoming one, and Starks just nodded and smiled and followed orders.

But the Rector was kind to all of his servants—Starks and his missus in particular—and so he could overlook the oddities of the last few years. He felt proud that he was trusted over most of the other servants, anyway. He’d even been taught to work a few of the new silver machines.

The contraption which held the young man was connected by a thin cord of woven silver wire to that thing in the pit. The way Starks understood it, the new Master wanted to take the lad’s soul. Or rather, replace it with a reflection of his own.

Starks really didn’t understand all the gibberish
about mind powers and whatnot
that the Rector was always going on about. But it definitely had to do with putting some of the Master’s soul-stuff into other bodies.

Poor Reverend Mott, a visiting young graduate from the seminary, had been the first test.

But that hadn’t worked well. Turned out the Master couldn’t see very well through Mott’s eyes, and then there was the problem with his flesh getting holes and all.

The Rector had been disappointed. This time was supposed to be different, but Starks had his doubts.

He looked to Bolt and shook his head. “Why are you fighting it so?”

The youth moaned and his lips curled back over his teeth.

Starks sighed. “Nothing personal, lad, but it’d be better for all of us if we could just get this over with… eh?”

#

HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE.

They betrayed me!

The voice hissed in Ed’s mind, the force of its hatred threatening to twist the center of his consciousness into something that was no longer Ed Bolt, no longer even human.

Alone alone alone.

I hate them!

Ed saw the red-eyed demons, thousands of them, all mocking him!

But no—they weren’t mocking Ed, they were mocking the demon called Croatoan.

This rutting Croatoan was trying to get into his head, force his way into his soul! Croatoan’s hatred was so very strong, the monster wielded it like a hammer, breaking down Ed’s barriers …

“Betrayed!”
hissed the Croatoan-demon voice.

More thought-images assailed Ed’s mind, more scenes from the demon’s centuries of mad hatred, the emotion so terribly strong.

But Ed had felt emotion that strong before. Hate just as strong.

My OWN hate, damn you!

Hate, anger, jealously, embarrassment… all those painful emotions that churned in his mind day and night…

Maybe Ed could use those emotions to fight back!

He knew the taste of betrayal from his own life. He could remember his torments as well as Croatoan could, he could feel the pain as sharply. He dug down deep into the sorest, most painfully tender parts of his memory …

And the demon in his head would have to watch as—

Ed is five years old. He sits in the front row of the church with his mother and his two brothers, looking up at the pulpit from which his father, Reverend Daniel Bolt, preaches.

His f
ather reads from the Holy Book: “For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame-- He hath a blemish: he shall not come nigh to offer the bread of his God.”

Leaning forward and smiling at the congregation, he explains: “The pains in our bodies, the diseases which rack these fleshy shells of ours—all are manifestations of sin
, of shame. And some show more sin than others.”

Then, he glares at Ed’s mother, motions with his hand. She looks a little frightened, but she guides Ed up to the pulpit and gives him to his father, who stands the boy up on the pulpit for all to see.

Reverend Bolt pulls the layered stockings from his son’s foot and reveals the boy’s deformity to the congregation.

“Behold!”
he declares. “Here is the sin of the flesh, a father’s burden--and I must bear it!”

The people all stare and Ed and his bad foot, nodding somberly.

Young Ed doesn’t quite understand what is going on. But he knows that this “burden” is a word that somehow means he is bad and ugly, and he starts to cry.

His father cuffs his ear, and the people nod their approval, watching him as he cries, they stare and stare and stare
…

Staring at me
!, Ed thought.
Mocking ME! Ed Bolt, cripple! Cripple cripple cripple!

Hate, you want HATE, you want to feel ALONE
—

Ed
sits in shadows. He is sixteen years old, and he has grown accustomed to skulking in hidden places.

This particular place is a
thick stand of pines at the corner of the village green. The trees here grow so close together that there is a space under and between them, making a sort of shaded hollow carpeted with pine needles.

Sometimes, in the evenings, lovers will sneak under here together.

During the day, however, Ed often likes to sit here, hidden from view and out of everyone’s way. It gives him someplace to go on warm days—at least, on those days when he isn’t able to find some employment chopping wood or doing sundry tasks from those who would take pity on a cripple like himself. Since his schooling is done, his father doesn’t want him about the house until after sundown.

Now, Ed sits there staring at the street, watching carriages wheel by, thinking of nothing in particular. Brooding.

And then he sees her, walking jauntily by in a green cotton dress: Constance Clement, a young girl a year older then himself, who used to be in his class at school.

She has a pert upturned nose, big green eyes, and freckled
, pink cheeks. Her chestnut curls bounce as she walks, glowing in the afternoon sunlight. She is slightly plump, but curvy… and very pretty.

Two months
ago she smiled at him, a glorious event which Ed has never forgotten. No other pretty girl has ever done that. He’s wanted to talk to her for so long, has been aching to see if she would smile for him again. But she is never alone, always with her brothers or her parents or her friends.

This time, however, as she steps briskly down the street on some errand, basket in her hands, she is by herself. Unescorted.

Taking a deep breath, he stands and leaves his hiding place, approaching her, trying to form his numb and nervous mouth into a smile, trying desperately not to limp on his bad leg.

Her pretty little nose scrunches up in distaste when she sees
him. The first few words of his stuttered greeting are barely out of his mouth before she starts laughing.

The sound sends chill tremors through his heart.

Later, as Ed slumps home, two large boys block his way.

It’s Tom and Cyrus Clement
, Constance’s brothers.

“Don’t you ever even look at our sister again, cripple. Don’t you even!”

They shove him hard, push him, punch him.

Ed fights, lashing out with fury, smashing his fist into Cyrus Clement’s jaw…

But then Tom Clement manages to trip him down, taking advantage of Ed’s bad foot.

They’re laughing then as they punch and kick and press his face into the dirt
…

Pain, pain running hot and cold, all sorts of pain.

Betrayal, humiliation … Ed has tasted these flavors of agony and knows them well.

And yes, it has made him hate.

But it is HIS hate, his pain. How he hates his father, his brothers, the Clements and all his tormentors. Hates them for making him hate himself. Hates them but he will turn the hate around, use it, someday show them, prove to them, and then—

Ed is twenty-one. One evening, when he sits down for the evening meal, his father places an

envelope before him.

“There’s been a minor miracle,” he says. “I’ve gotten you an appointment.” He wears a look of sinister smugness.

Ed opens the letter and reads it.
“Constable in the town of Bramble Gorge?Where is that”

His father shrugs. “A young man
with your flaws cannot be picky, can he? As the great book says: “In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.’”

Two days later, his things packed, he stands by the door.

His mother is crying but his father is in a joyous mood.

“You’re a boil on the skin of this family,” he says. “We’re glad to get rid of you.”

Ed shouts over his father’s shoulder, hoping that his mother will hear: “I’ll write soon.”

His father leans close, his eyes wide with a sudden fury. “Do not ever taint this house with your words or your presence again, do you hear me? We are through with you, you crippled parasite!”

Ed’s own temper flares up hot. “Someday you’ll regret this!” he shouts. “You rutting bastard, I’ll make you take that back!”

His father laughs. “You would need a commendation from the Governor himself before I would admit to having any pride in you, boy!”

And then he spits at Ed’s feet, and turns away.

Regret this, regret!

Hate wells up inside Ed, hot and strong.

I’ll show you all, call me cripple I’ll show you show you rutting bastards all of you!

ESPECIALLY YOU, CROATOAN, YOU RED-EYED CROTCH-SUCKING CRINGING LITTLE PIECE OF DEMON SHITE!

And suddenly the force in his mind is gone. The hissing voice is silent.

Ed’s head pounds, he can feel his body shaking, but he does not want to open his eyes.

Someone is screaming and it is the shriek of something dry and dead … and yet very, very angry.

             
                                                        #

“He won’t stop screaming, Sir! You see?”

Mister Starks was shaking now, his nerves rattled nearly to pieces.

First the boy had begun convulsing, then he had stopped moving and slumped down, then the God-forsaken creature Reverend Mott had started shrieking from the corner, emitting an unending wail like a howling wind from a miles-deep cave.

Starks had summoned the Rector immediately, of course. His employer did not seem pleased.             

“The Reverend’s screaming because the Master is connected to him and the Master is hurt. Hurt and … angry,” the Rector explained, his hand cupped to Starks’ ear so that his servant could hear him over Mott’s screeching.