Our Lady of Virtue

The Warrior Monks had set out on a mission, to sack the holy lands and return the sacred texts to The Holy Roman Empire, but then they had seen the incursion of Heresy, the Christians who weren’t, the ones so like the Prophet Worshipers and the Christ Killers.

There was no room for the Orthodox Church or any other false church, it was a distorted thing and they had slain the population and taken the the treasures for the Pope.

Of course they kept a few of the texts for themselves, they needed them. To call the Mother forward, to see their blessing realised here on Earth, in the flesh. In order to be given the next job, the next fight. They bathed now in blood shed and one of them was now far older than their appearance would suggest.

The eastern magics were a wonder, and not for the people, not if Christendom was to survive and survive it must – if eternal life was to be known, but they could never know, the farmers and sheep herders, the merchant and smith. The Pope had his own magicians working on solutions but they had more than enough texts to work their way through.

Now the Monks bowed at the alter having lit the incense and quenched the cinders of the cross with virginal blood. The text had not asked for the blood but they had added that themselves, though they had taken the virginity out of it but blood took a while to circulate so probably it still counted. Sticky steam and smothering perfume filled the air, and it rose within the Byzantine Cathedral. It was not of their style and they had killed the brethren, their bodies littered the steps below them.

Feeling smug they began the chant, stilling their minds and calming the body, they sang a hum that stuck in the mind and ripped down the barriers. The smoke swirled in non-existent currents, spiralling upward, it appeared to glitter in the coloured light that barely glowed through the large windows.

It was the wings that formed first, great sprawled and heavily -feathered things, just a suggestion in the illumined wisps. Then a torso and head, a beautiful chiseled chin and plump cheeks, hair in riverlets, loose and drifting in the air currents.

‘Our Lady!’ cried one Monk, her eyes shifted to him and glowed a deep crimson and her mouth opened in a pointed smile.

‘You bring me forth,’ she rasped, ‘In blood!’ A scream seemed to blast them from beneath hearing, each thought they had imagined it.

‘Yes blessed virgin!’ they replied. A smell of warm urine washed over the room as a puddle formed on the stone beneath another of the gathered men, they all ignored it.

Her deep laugh echoed through the building, quivering the dust and the spiders from their hiding places. There was a strange after resonance, it seemed to be crying.

‘Bring me my new body!’

There was a pause, ‘we… we have none, H.holy Mother.’

Her roar was pain and rage, ‘find one before the dawn!’

‘We will!’ They cried and stood, one of them slipped on the puddle cracking his skull and adding his own blood to the formation of the sacred Mother he adored.

It did not take long to find a girl, their army had been amassing what they had left of the pretty women of the city, at their camp. The girl was small but healthy, she fought and struggled and bit all the way.

Her dark eyes accused them as they tied her to the alter.

‘How do you need her blood spilt My Lady?’ the eldest Monk asked.

‘Painfully,’ came the reply, the echo seemed to say no. They bled out the victim with a thousand small cuts and laughing the smoke effigy laced its way into the ragged body shortly before dawn.

The cuts miraculously healed and the large eyes opened, she smiled, little pointed teeth had grown in her mouth and her tongue tip touched them. She gestured for one of the men to kneel before her, this he did eager for his reward. She slipped her teeth in and sucked and sucked, he jerked and spasmed but could not draw back from the small child-woman who should have been nothing to cast aside.

The others watched and as the body tumbled from her arms, two fled, the remainder, the eldest bowed his head and feeling her shift towards him quickly asked, ‘how many sacrifices should I bring back with me?’

She licked her lips with hunger but paused, ‘three this morn, three I shall consume to grow to fullness and then we shall begin.’

The echo had gone from her voice but not from her eyes, the Monk however was already formulating plans on how to feed the creature he had summoned and did not notice.

Posted: Sunday, October 26th, 2014 @ 4:41 am
Categories: Flash Fiction.
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