Provenance Black

Sweet Annabelle

  He'd been in the basement of the kids home for longer than he'd intended. In fact, he wasn't sure how long he'd been in the basement, but long enough to be bored of it and want out. He'd been beaten, starved, verbally assaulted, burns, thumbscrews, but the hosts mummy and daddy didn't want their angel hurt badly.

  Halloween this year had not gone as planned. The moment the stars lit the night causing Provenance Black's barriers to fall, he'd been out like a shot, ready to find his host for the night. It was just his luck that the host was from a highly religious background, that they knew their son wouldn't do little harmless this like vandalise street walls, turning over trash can, taking pot, killing the neighbours' dog, taking sweets from costumed freaks, normal malicious stuff. His tormenter was away upstairs, angry that she hadn't broken him in the three weeks she'd been charged to him.

  Forgotten at the side of the wall was her latest invention; a wire mask with a tunnel where she put starving rats in- a small wire fence preventing them from actually tearing the face off. So far it had been the only reaction she's gotten out of him, a burst of shocked laughter that had lasted for hours.

  Crack. The slap took him off guard, echoing irritatingly around the room, "Give. Me. Your. NAME"

  The grin he produced had the desired effect of rising her ire. "Merrily the feast I make. today I'll brew, tomorrow I'll bake; Merrily I'll dance and sing, For the next day a stranger will bring, Little does my lady dream," he leered "Rumpelstiltskin is my name."

  The blow was not unexpected, the glob of blood he spat out was. Clearly the boy's body was waning. "Anti-social much?"

  The snarl she produced would put a wolf to shame. The exhaustion in her eyes was evident, but he gave her credit for not giving up. On the other hand, she was so furious at the thing that even if he told her that she'd probably kill the poor boy, even knowing it wasn't him. She paced the length of the room, pausing thoughtfully at a canister of gasoline. "Tell me your name." Through heaving breaths he saw her strained face and knew she was closer to breaking than him. He saw her jaw throb with anger, her eyes narrow and teeth grit when a tentative knock sounded. The door opened and the father came in, followed by the mother. The boy had had his father's eyes and mouth, the mother's nose and hair but his inhabiting the body for such a prolonged time had changed that; eyes like slates, hard and cold, the bones sharper than a humans should be and teeth cracked when her grinned. The man's hand instantly going to his wife's shoulders when she gasped in suppressed sorrow.

  "I thought you said it would be over by now Annabelle. You said that it would be no more than-"

   His tormentor had a cute name. He watched her hustle the parents out of the basement and the door swung closed, leaving him again to his thoughts. What was he going to do? Days and times meant little to him, but he'd also broken curfew. Halloween was the one the one constant time when the barrier surrounding the Black fell, nothing is durable and all living energy needs replenishing or reviving at points in its existence. So for one night a year, he could leave and do what he wanted with little fear of the repercussions and if he was back before dawn, he'd be allowed out again.

  In the past he'd been feared by many, the deeds he'd done had broken many a strong man, reduced them to little more than shells of themselves. The fires started, the people tortured, the animals killed... bliss. But now he was older and understood the need for discretion, did not wish to draw attention to the many that lived peacefully in the Black.

  Gah, he was getting soft.

  Once again the door opened and Sweet Annabelle walked in, eyes snapping lasers at him, a rope in her hand. She approached, stood over him then started swinging one end in a circle over her shoulder and eventually looped it through a support beam above them. The other end she tied tight around the host's ankles so that they dug into the skin. Annabelle walked away, producing a stick of chalk and drawing on the floor, the image obscure to him. But there was something off in what she was doing, she was practically brimming with a power she hadn't had before. This was not normal.

  His thoughts were interrupted by a sharp yank on his ankles, the world upended, head smashed against cold concrete as he was hanging from the ceiling. The hosts' body was weakening seriously and would shut down soon.

  His head was twisted at an awkward angle and the rush of blood to his head was distinctly uncomfortable. Through bleary eyes, he saw that he had been suspended in the centre of her drawing, with lines that were flat with triangles protruding off the flat edges, the tips touching a curve. A pentagram-how unoriginal.

  Annabelle lit two candles, red and white, then traced the melting wax over her outline. At the tip of each she placed a different object; a chalice, a dagger, a crystal, a metal bell and the white candle. He knew this as she had an annoying habit of wafting them around his face as if to bless them. The red she clutched in her hand, the wax staining her skin horribly, if it hurt she showed no sign that it did. She did a type of ritual in silence using only arm movements and there was a painful tightening on spirit. So maybe the girl did know what she was doing At each passing arm movement, his mind burned and squeezed, the body holding him seeming to shrink. He went to leave the host but something was around his neck, clenching tight and stopping him from leaving the host. From the way she was acting, you would think she wanted to kill him or something. She replaced the candle with the dagger, dipping the tip into the chalice before flicking the liquid inside at him. It stung.

  Her pretty mouth opened, "I demand you speak to me, to tell me what I wish to know."

"For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabelle Lee; and the stars never rise without, but I feel the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabelle Lee..." The dagger slashed across his cheek and his mind was crushed as she demanded a name. He laughed, this was fun. Like a child at Christmas or Disneyland, he revelled in the joy of bringing her nothing but irritation and anger. She wasn't powerful enough to do anything to him, she couldn't force him out. It was excellent, the time of his existence.

Or perhaps not. The host's body was breaking, malnourished and broken; it was struggling with the strain on the legs, the dormant mind of the child awake and weeping for relief of any kind. If the body went while he was trapped in it, he'd die too. Shit. A name was all she wanted, and she was getting sloppy with her demands. She didn't say whose name she wanted.

"Minder", he cried, "the name is Minder." Her smirk of triumph filed him with dark satisfaction as she completed the ritual with the wrong name. The person who would bring them both misery and pain arrived in the room. Palpable fear filled the room as Sweet Annabelle screams rang out.