Worlds of BBW Erotic Romance - Box Set (9 page)

Ed had expected a white dress.

But the wedding gown Julia wore was a pale sky blue—matching her eyes--with a matching bonnet festooned with bows, and a gossamer veil. When she came out of the bedroom into the hallway where Ed stood, she lifted the veil and smiled at him.

“Is it pretty?” she asked. “Mrs. Starks didn’t get a chance to get it pressed before she was changed and … Well, you know. But is it nice?”

“Yes,” Ed said, “It is.”

The curvy girl was beautiful in the silk and lace of the blue dress… It was actually a bit tight on her, but in a very pleasing way. The plunging neckline highlighted her freckled décolletage, and the skirt hugged her splendid hips enticingly. When Ed looked to her girlish face and saw those big blue eyes through the haze of the veil, he smiled broadly at her, momentarily forgetting the stress of the moment…

Four of the ghoulish servant-things were clustered around him; they’d watched him in the hall while Julia had changed in her room.

Now that she was ready, they moved in, forcing both of them back into the bedroom and closing the door behind them.

Once more, they were locked in the room with the deathly Reverend Mott, who stood sentry in the corner.

“Thhhhennnnn sssaithhhh he too hissss sssservantssss, the
wwwedding isss rrready,” Mott hissed. “B-but they wwwhich att-tend-ded too himmm wwwere not wur-thee, soooo that the yune-yun wasss not inn the hole-lee waay.”

“Just shut up!” Ed sneered back.

He was beginning to get used to the well-roasted Reverend’s presence, and he no longer cared to be fearful of him.

He had other things to worry about …

Julia sighed and covered her eyes. “They say it’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding,” she said. “But I’m glad you’re here, Edwin.”

“It’s okay,” he replied. “Don’t think our luck could get any worse. Who knows, it might have the opposite effect.”

What did you say, you idiot?,
he thought, hearing the reassuring words come out of his mouth as if they’d been spoken by someone else.

Put me in the worst situation possible and I sudd
enly become a rutting optimist!

“Is that suit of clothes all right?” Julia asked. “I think you look very handsome.”

He nodded. The old mud-brown coat and knee breeches were about twenty years out of style and fit awkwardly, but he was hardly concerned with fashion at the moment. He still wore his own mismatched boots, and he’d tucked the breeches into them so that he didn’t have to put on stockings.

“I need one more thing,” he said.

“What?” she asked, tilting her head up, her big eyes anxiously studying his face.

“The knife you hid,” he whispered.

She flinched at the words. “Now?”

“I need it for when we go down to the cavern, where
he
is,” he whispered. “Like I told you before. When you run for the door to get outside, I’m going to go down into that pit and stab him.”

“I was hoping we’d get married first. And … maybe have a little more time together,” she said. Her big blue eyes were quivering.

Ed stroked her chin and tried to sound reassuring. “Look, it’s not … I really
would
marry you, okay? Your being happy means everything to me. But I can’t just wait for that bastard Croatoan to turn us all into corpse things and take our souls and everything. I have to attack when they don’t expect it.”

“But Edwin … what if you can’t kill him?” she asked, shivering.

He shrugged. “Does the knight run away just because the dragon is too tough? Or the necromancer or whatever … He’s not going to let them kill all the townspeople, right? He has to try and stop them. Even if it means that he goes down fighting.”

It sounded like something that hero from one of her novels would say.

Maybe it really is love that’s doing this to me
, he thought.
Making me brave … or stupid, which is pretty much the same thing most of the time.

“But I don’t want a knight anymore,” she sobbed, her eyes pooling with tears. “I want
you,
Edwin.”

She turned her wet eyes up to him, and her trembling lips whispered: “I want my Edwin Bolt.”

Her words made his chest ache, and suddenly Ed couldn’t breathe.

He grabbed her slim shoulders and kissed her forehead, trying to stay in control, not wanting to start crying himself, cursing his weakness in the face of the emotional surge that was overwhelming him.

She
meant
it, didn’t she?

She wanted
him
—not just as a stand-in for a storybook hero, not just because he had a dark and stormy countenance—but she wanted HIM, Edwin Bolt?

No one had ever really wanted him. It was an odd thing to hear, and it made him feel vulnerable at a time when that was the last thing he needed.

Because he still had no choice. He still had to try and kill the thing in the pit.

He pulled back from her, looked her in the eyes.

“Listen, Julia,” he said. He’d rarely used her name with her before, and now she jerked when he did so, as if frightened by his commanding tone.

“LISTEN,” he repeated. “Even if the knight’s reasons for fighting are all a crock of tripe, there are good, strong, Edwin Bolt reasons to do this, okay? My reasons. Like that bastard Croatoan tried to tear my mind open, and I hate him. Like he’s going to turn everyone into these corpse-things, and then I’ll never get a chance to make people respect me, and I’ll have lived my whole life as someone who got spat on.”

“And,” he continued, leaning close to her, “he’s going to turn
you
into one of those things if I don’t stop him, and that makes me so rutting angry that I want to rip out his guts and smother him with them!”

Julia’s face was now slick with tears. “I love you Edwin,” she sobbed. “I don’t want you to die.”

“Give me the knife,” he whispered. “Please. You know I’m going to need it.”

Nodding slowly, she reached forward, wriggled her hand into the deep inner pocket of his coat. He felt something solid and heavy slide down into it from the sleeve of her dress. She wriggled some more, and a second something dropped down before she pulled her hand away.

He turned to see if their overseer, Mott, had reacted to this clandestine exchange of cutlery.

As far as Ed could tell from his blank skeletal expression, Mott hadn’t noticed a thing.

Good.

Ed patted his jacket to feel the items she’d given him.

“What’s this?” he whispered. “There’s a knife and—“

“A fork,” she said. “I found it on the floor under the dinner table at the same time that I got the knife. I thought it might help … Well, just in case.”

A fork?

But she had given it to him, his faithful Julia … that made it feel like a holy talisman to him.

Thanks,” he said. “I’m glad I have it. That and the knife, I mean.”

Now, Mott slowly turned his head, his neck creaking as his burnt, shriveled eyes came to rest upon them.

He was hissing softly as his jaw worked, his remaining teeth tapping together with a
clack-clack-clack.

Did he know what they’d been doing
after all?

“What are you staring at?” Ed asked.

He was so sick of this! He stepped forward and shoved Mott hard, his hand pressing on the thing’s desiccated chest, feeling the sharp, cold ribs under the papery skin.

“Edwin, no!” Julia warned.

Mott’s arms flashed up and he grabbed Ed’s wrists, his bony hands clamping down in a grip like iron—impossibly strong.

Ed twisted in his unholy grasp, growling in pain and rage as he felt his fingers tingling from the loss of blood flow.

“Let me go, you burned-up piece of God-hated stinking—“

The door to the room suddenly flew open with a loud creak, interrupting his cursing.

The Rector stood there, red eyes wide, glaring at the struggle.

“Reverend Mott!” he exclaimed.

The corpse-thing abruptly released Ed’s arms and turned towards Rector Powell.

The Rector relaxed, once again giving them a nervous, giddy smile. “I require the Reverend’s presence,” he explained, ignoring Ed’s obvious discomfort as he rubbed his aching wrists. “I must instruct him so that he can perform the ceremony.”

“He’s
going to marry us?” Julia asked, her face slack in shock.

Her father nodded. “Of course. I cannot give my daughter away and preside over her union at the same time, can I? Is this a problem? He is ordained, after all.”

Ed forced a smile. “I’m sure it will be fine. We have come to know the Reverend so very well—haven’t we Julia?”

She nodded meekly.

The Rector smiled. “Soon now, children. Such a momentous day for you, and for all of America—all of mankind!” He waved Mott forward and they exited, the door thudding shut behind them.

While the heavy locks clicked into place, Julia grabbed Ed’s arms and pulled him close, rubbing her forehead on his chest. “I wanted it to be a pretty wedding,” she whispered. “But now Mott’s going to be right there with us.”

Ed stroked her hair and hushed her. “That’s okay,” he said. “Better sooner than later, right? He’s going to be right there in front of us?
Fine.
That mother-rutting bastard is the first one I stab …”

The walking corpses were wearing dried flowers.

They stood now in two lines along the center of the glassy-walled cavern under the faerie mound. The lines of ghoulish ones made a path leading from the door to the basement tunnel at one end, to Croatoan’s pit near the center of the cavern at the other.

The men had purple geraniums pinned to their stained shirts, and the female servant-things had little white blooms in their stringy hair. They were still as statues, forming an obscene honor guard, all staring towards Ed and Reverend Mott, who stood by the “Master’s” pit.

The dark crystal cavern itself had also been decorated. There were white candles burning around the perimeter, and pink ribbons festooned the pillars which supported the roof.

Beyond the pit, the glass sphere on its pedestal had been left untouched.

There was still a silver cord running from the pit into the tunnel to the basement … the conduit through which Croatoan would use the machinery in the basement, no doubt. The same machinery with which Ed had been tortured, and with which Croatoan was going to turn all of the residents of the colonies into a mass of mindless horrors—if Ed didn’t stop him.

Ed poked at the cord with his foot, but he could barely budge the heavy metallic rope. He had no doubt that it was fastened to something down in the pit.

No matter. The important thing was to destroy the demon himself—and that was what he was set to do.

Truthfully, he’d been ready for hours. His every muscle felt sore from being tensed too long, and his back was so tight that he thought his spine might curl up.

But he had to wait a little longer.

He’d promised Julia that, at the very least, she could walk down the aisle as a bride.

He couldn’t say no to her. Without her, he’d never have found the determination to do any of this, anyway.

But he was very worried for her.

The crystal-stone door at the far end of the chamber, which led to outside, and which he’d thought might give her a chance to escape, was closed. Ed could just make out the slight
glistening of the seams that marked its location. It must slide open, somehow … Would she be able to open it?

He’d tried to get a closer look at the door, but as soon as he’d taken a few steps Mott had reached for him, hissing, and he’d decided against it.

Ed looked to his right, where Mott stood beside a small table upon which was set the music box from Julia’s bedroom, and also a marriage certificate.

The latter was already neatly dated and signed by both the Rector and Reverend Mott, he saw; Mott’s signature was a childish scribble. It only awaited Ed and Julia’s own names.

After a few minutes, the Rector appeared in the basement tunnel doorway behind them. He waved to them and loudly forced a dramatic cough.

Apparently this was a signal, because Mott immediately reached down and lifted the lid of the music box. Inside, porcelain figures of a bride and groom began to dance in endless circles as a tinkling tune played, its volume magnified as it echoed through the chamber. Now, Ed recognized the melody as a traditional wedding march.

The Rector appeared again, this time escorting Julia in her beautiful blue gown. Her eyes flashed Ed’s way as she marched forward on her father’s arm.

He somehow worked his mouth into a smile, and she smiled back.

Just a little longer
, he thought.
She knows our signal.

It was a simple word:
“Go.”

When he gave her this final command, she would run for the door, while he would descend into the demon’s pit—from which he knew he had little chance of ever emerging.

Julia and the Rector continued their approach, following the aisle of deathly servants as it slanted down into the bowl of the cavern.

She was still smiling at him, and he wondered if she wasn’t imagining that things were better, if in her mind’s eye she wasn’t seeing a lovely grand cathedral or a little country church or someplace much more pleasant than this.

In a moment, she had reached him and was at his side. The Rector stepped beside Mott, then waved for both of them to turn towards the rotting Reverend. The Rector whispered something into the ragged black hole that passed for Mott’s right ear.

Mott closed the lid of the music box; it came down with a thud and the music stopped.

Spreading his bony arms, he croaked: “Hummmm-bulll breath-er-renn … wwweeee arrrr heeeeer toooday tooo wit-a-nesh th-the youn-eee-yun offff these twooo young peee-ohh-pole, un-durrr theee eyesh offfff ourrr …” He paused here, turning for a moment to look at Croatoan’s pit … “Ourrrrr Godddd.”

Ed smiled, smoothing his coat in what he hoped looked like a reflexively nervous manner. While he did so, he patted the knife and fork in his pocket, reassuring himself that the utensils were still there.

Was it time to act? He had fulfilled his promise to Julia, after all. And Mott could barely speak anymore, his stuttering hissing words drawn out in agony, so that Ed had no idea how long the rutting mad ceremony would go on.

But he turned his head to look at Julia, and those big blue eyes were quivering and glistening wet, as if on the verge of tears.

Rutting hell!
What more did she want from him? The ceremony was important to her, yes, but she had to realize what they faced …

Well, perhaps just a few moments longer?

Now Mott turned to him and rasped: “Edd-wynnn Baawwwwwllt, sh-shall yooou take thishh whoa-mannn tooo beeee yoour wiiif, to leee-ifff toooo-gett-torr ack-ord-dinggg toooo Goddd’s deee-cree innn th-the whole-eeee eee-state offf mare-eeee-age?

Ed looked to Julia, who was still smiling at him, her lower lip trembling, those big eyes reflecting his own face.

He swallowed hard, and nodded. “I shall.”

Next, Mott addressed Julia, his neck bones popping as his charred face turned down to look at her. “Jewel-leee-aaahh Muuu-reee-aahhh Powww-ahhh-alll, sh-shall yoooou take thish mannn tooo beeee yoour hush-bandd, tooo leee-ifff toooo-get-torr ack-ord-dinggg toooo Goddd’s deee-cree innn th-the whole-eeee eee-state offf mare-eeee-age? Tooo oh-bayyy himmmm, serfff himmmm onn-orrr him?”

Tears running down her flushed cheeks, she nodded quickly several times. “I shall, I shall.”

Mott nodded. His withered hands crackled as he clasped them together. “Aye pro-nounce yoooou m-m-mannnn annnnd wiiif. Yooou maaaay … kissssh yooour boo-riiid.”

Ed grabbed Julia’s shoulder, lifted her veil.

She was already leaning close, and he turned his head, moved his lips over her perfect little mouth. It was soft and wonderful, but his heart was pounding with the knowledge of what he had to do …

Pulling away, he whispered, “I… I do love you, Julia. I want you to know that. I meant it when I vowed to love you as a wife.”

“I love you too--husband,” she said—and she reached out for his hand.

But he shook his head, reached into his coat for the knife, and, calmly as he could, told her “Go.”

And then, the fight of his life began …