This story is a sequel to my M rated fiction, "Halo of Madness." I don't know why I am prone to chapters lately. I am usually a one-shot kind of gal.
This fic is a WIP that will be finished.
I'd like to extend a hearty thank you to LJ1983 for her thoughts concerning this fic.
This fic is Kirsty/Pinhead and is pretty dark in places. I suspect you wouldn't be hanging around these parts if you weren't already a fan of the movie and thus know what it involves.
Please review! I crave reviews like drugs!
"I wish I wasn't flesh and blood. I would not be scared," ~ Garbage, "Metal Heart"
The church fills slowly with patrons. Kirsty Cotton has been sitting on the pew in the second row for twenty minutes already. Observing others kneeling and crossing themselves before they sat, she had done the same if only to blend in. It unnerved her that when her hand moved from her forehead to mid-sternum then right to left across her chest that she broke out into a sweat and felt suddenly nauseous.
It must be in her head, she figures, because for the first time in months she feels a sense of security though she knows deep down that there is nowhere safe for her. As time ticks by, the church becomes packed with people. The air turns hot in that way that any gathering does with too many people in too small of a space. It does not go unnoticed that whenever a person veers in her direction to sit beside her they change course as though directed by some unseen force. The place is packed but she sits utterly alone on an otherwise empty pew.
Kirsty sits in a zombie state, her mind not focusing on the prayers as much as the fact that the Priest can't stop staring at her. His words start to jumble as though he is nervous, but he resolutely continues the mass. The donation baskets make their way around the church, because Jesus needs money, and Kirsty dutifully places ten dollars in each time it makes its way to her.
Soon, the mass is over and people get up quickly, eager to get on with their regular Sunday. They want to go home and watch football and cook on a grill.
She is rooted to her spot, even when the place clears out. The stained glass windows are beautiful to look at, and Kirsty could get lost for hours just on the colors used alone. Without all the people, the church is near silent and the religious icons that were moments ago so warm and welcoming now seem to mock her, their eyes accusing and their lips slanted as though in a sneer of contempt.
The Priest makes his way to her rather cautiously, like a tiger trainer approaching a rogue big cat. "I'm Father Timothy O'Neill. And you are?" He offers her his hand, which she takes without hesitation.
"Kirsty Cotton," she replies, purposefully having dropped her married name as soon as legally possible lest it leave its lingering smell behind like a scared skunk.
The Father doesn't pull any punches. "You don't belong here," he says, not unkindly.
"Why?" she asks innocently.
The old man scrutinizes her, staring deep into her eyes. "You know why."
Frustrated and sad, she asks, "Can't I repent? Doesn't God forgive all his children?"
"I don't normally say this, Ms. Cotton, but your fate was written long ago. You are marked, cast out of paradise."
Immediately she thinks of the black, circular scar that makes up most of the flesh on her right shoulder. Never piss off a demon, she thinks. "So what … just accept it?" she asks, her voice wavering with fear for her eternal soul.
"Don't act innocent!" the Priest admonishes, the kindness leaving his voice entirely. "You are so far from innocent that if my flesh could crawl right off my bones it would do so to be away from the darkness that radiates from you," he says with conviction, his eyes flashing with disapproval.
Kirsty gasps at his tone, her eyes instantly welling with tears. This is not what she wanted out of life. She struggled for years to be normal, for things to be okay.
Things were supposed to get better!
The Priest isn't done, his face turning red with indignation and his breath hot on Kirsty's face, "You spread your legs for a demon you summoned. You carry his abomination in your cursed womb. You stink of rotten flesh and souls you reaped upon your own volition."
All the blood drains from Kirsty's face, leaving her skin ashen and sickly looking. "You're saying that I'm pregnant?" Her brown eyes are wide with shock as she asks the question, hoping not to hear an affirmation from between the Father's saintly lips. "How could you possibly know that? How could you know any of that?"
"God knows all, Ms. Cotton," the Priest says, inching away from her.
She grabs the Priest's wrist, her hold tight with concern. "Father, is this baby evil?"
The priest looks pointedly at her grip on his wrist. "You're hurting me."
Kirsty instantly lets go, her jaw dropping slightly with surprise at her own strength. "I'm … I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you." She averts her gaze from the Priest's probing hazel eyes, ashamed that he knows her secrets and knew them the moment he saw her. "I'll leave."
"You will have to go to term, Ms. Cotton. People will die if you don't accept the gift that evil has given to you," he warns.
Kirsty closes her eyes in an attempt to steady a world that seems to have tilted on its axis. "And when the baby is born, Father? What then?"
The Priest looks deep in thought before uttering, "Pray."
This has to be a dream, Kirsty thinks, as she opens her eyes to a hazy blue atmosphere, chains clinking against one another loudly.
The studded demon smiles, his hands reaching outward. "Ah," he says, looking strangely alive, black eyes meeting the baby boy's blue eyes.
The baby is content, swathed in a blanket, a small blue hat upon his head, snuggled in Kirsty's arms. Kirsty is trapped, held back by iron chains with deadly hooks that have yet to pierce her skin. She is held tight like a mouse in the unhinged jaw of a snake but her prison is made of chain link.
The paleness of the demon's face is startling against the silver of the pins driven into his flesh. He stares at the baby with all the joy of a new father, but it is all wrong. It is all totally wrong. She half expects to find him passing out, "It's a boy!" cigars to his cenobite brethren.
"Come to daddy," he says mocking her with her Uncle Frank's favorite line, using his chains to take the baby from her arms. The chains cradle the baby in metal chain link, gliding him across the air like a swing until the baby sits in the crook of his arm, surrounded by the scent of leather and vanilla.
Once the baby is in the demon's hands, no time is wasted.
The chains dance around Kirsty like trained cobras ready to strike. Then they do, their metal hooked tips piercing her flesh. She screams until a hook slices across her throat, blood gushing out of the wound like a fountain. The hot surge of life fluid runs over her mutilated form, pouring from wounds all over her body before pooling on the cement floor beneath her. The chains rip her to bits and pieces, for a moment giving the illusion that she is a broken marionette, wooden limbs about to fall from string.
All that is left where she once stood is meat. Bits of mangled flesh in various sizes and patterns merge with bone and viscera swaying from chains looking like a wind chime on Hell's front porch.
The worst part is that Kirsty is still there, still aware of everything around her, watching from her two eyes that were left whole but independent of one another. The right eye is swaying from a hook and the left eye is looking up from the ground. She is a prime example of a cubist painting, her flesh torn apart then reconstructed in a way that is not normal.
The pinned demon laughs, deep from his belly and shows the baby boy what is left of his mother. "Is she not the most beautiful sight you have ever seen?" He turns the baby to her, allowing her to see that the child's bright blue eyes have now turned coal black.
There is a flash and suddenly Kirsty is whole again and standing without the baby in front of her nightmare lover. He is close enough that she feels the frosty air of his breath against her face.
She is aware enough even in her dream state to know that this meeting has turned very real.
The demon says nothing, but invades her personal space and lifts her white t-shirt to just below her breasts. Kirsty's body tingles as it remembers his touch and she lets out a gasp that is half-anticipation half-disgust.
Slowly, he moves his pale hand to her stomach, the black lace around his index and pinkie finger strangely soft against her skin. He fans his hand out over her flesh and she suddenly hears the fast, healthy heart beat of her child that echoes her own slower beat.
The smile that graces Xipe Totec's face can only be described as wicked; his black eyes are alight with a sparkle that makes them look like polished obsidian. His expression is triumphant. He has known since conception that his seed had taken hold, further tangling the web of suffering he's spun around Kirsty Cotton for the last fifteen years.
"Are you afraid that you carry a harbinger of doom?" he asks, the chains around them clinking loudly against one another.
Kirsty swallows the lump forming in her throat, her dark brown eyes closing for a moment as if she is managing her fear. "Yes," she answers honestly.
He considers this, his head tilted slightly to the side. "The baby is human. You will nourish him in your womb then at your breast until you are no longer needed. Then you will open the box and join me."
"Is that some kind of twisted marriage proposal?" Kirsty's eyes dart back and forth, not trusting the situation she is in. It would be all too easy for one of his minions to show up beside her or behind her when she least expects it.
"I was not asking you, I was telling you! You will open the box and you will be mine!" he says, his voice booming through her like she is standing in front of speakers at a rock concert.
She jumps back, aroused and startled. "No!" she denies furiously. "I'm not and I never will be!"
"Poor Kirsty," he sneers, "men only hurt you then leave. Daddy was killed by his own brother for his flesh, in denial of it even as he lay choking on his last breath. Uncle Frank –"
"Don't say it!" Kirsty half warns, half sobs. She looks distraught. "Please, don't say it."
"—beat you, molested you," the demon cocks his head to the left as though appraising her, "raped you." His face moves even closer to hers and she can feel the cold metal of the studs that pierce his flesh digging against the flesh of her cheek. "Let us not forget your loving husband, so eager to rob you of your breath for the paltriest of human vices: money."
Kirsty can't control the flow of tears suddenly falling from her eyes. "I keep trying to forget him," she informs the demon with a small shrug of her shoulders.
"Of that, I am aware. Rest assured that he wishes that he could forget you as well." He modulates his voice to Elliot Spencer's gentle English accent, "Give in to your dark side, Kirsty. We will be here waiting until you do."
Kirsty wakes up drenched in sweat, grabbing the small trash bin beside her bed and vomits until there is nothing left inside her but the ache of muscles trying to force something from nothing.
The nightmare felt so real. She wants to make sure she's not hamburger, but she doesn't have the strength after throwing up to do anything other than cry.
The pregnancy was confirmed with store bought tests, and then later by her gynecologist. She is at thirteen weeks and now has a regular obstetrician. So far, everything is in range and normal. As normal as could be considering she was knocked up by a demon.
Why can't anything in her life be normal?
Why couldn't this baby be Trevor's?
Kirsty wants to lie to herself and imagine that it is Trevor's, but she knows better. Before the box was opened, their marriage was in jeopardy. They hadn't had sex in months. The constant arguing had worn them down. She was foolish enough to believe things would be different on the night of their wedding anniversary. She made up her mind that if he wanted to bang the slut next door, she didn't care. She wasn't going to keep him on a short leash. She would just ignore it, because he wouldn't leave her for any of them, she was still his Queen Bee and he still loved her.
Tears flow from Kirsty's eyes as she considers her thoughts. Trevor didn't love her enough. Had he ever loved her? He's in his own Hell now, because she loved him. She loved him so much that when he gift wrapped the puzzle box and gave it to her like the most precious of gifts knowing full well what evil lurked inside, he might as well have punched through her ribs and pried her still-beating heart from her body with his greedy, piggish hands like Julia did to Uncle Frank.
Kirsty hates that Trevor still has the power to hurt her even though he's dead.
End, Part I