Marker of Faith

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 40

Candy Kane locked the door to the Temple of Flesh Emporium with a contented sigh. It had been a good day at the porn store, a good day indeed, and a nightcap or two would finish the day to perfection. She chuckled to herself as she tucked the key into her pocket, already tasting the cocktails as she licked her lips and heaved her bulky frame down the front steps towards her car.

Candy's over-bleached, blond hair hung limply around her face, barely stirring in the summer evening breeze, and she swiped at it in annoyance, wishing she'd used more hairspray that morning. Not that it really mattered, Candy only worked the counter now; her days in the booths were long behind her. Candy made her way up from the dank little private screening rooms until she'd become a part owner in the enterprise, a Priestess of Perversion so to speak.

No one took her seriously before, especially with her name, Candy Kane -- syrupy sweet and at odds with the woman she was. Her mother thought it would be cute and had no idea that giving her daughter a stripper's name would lead to that kind of life. But it worked out all right; Candy actually liked her work, enjoyed the satisfaction of people coming to worship naked flesh. Life revolved around three things: money, sex and more sex, and she accepted devotions daily.

Pretty soon Candy would have enough money to get out of the trailer park, maybe even find her children's father so he could take them for a while; she didn't really see them that much any way. Life was tough and the kids pretty much took care of themselves once they could use a can opener and a microwave. Candy felt her free time should be her own; she worked hard enough, and at least the kids had a roof over their heads, a big screen TV that took up most of the room in the trailer, and she deserved to get away once in a while.

She was just putting the key into her car door when something grabbed her roughly from behind. In the window's reflection, Candy saw a mass of shadows rear up and she barely had time to scream as she was hauled backwards and dragged back up the steps towards the front door of her shop. Darkness pooled and writhed around her, twisted faces poking out of the obsidian mist and leering at her like something from a nightmare.

The air was alive with harsh whispers and a pulsing hum almost as painful as the invisible hands wrenching her limbs in the sockets. Candy clenched her eyes shut, hoping she could make the bad things go away if she didn't see them. She was levitated off the ground and rotated so that she hung upside down, her head two feet above the cracked and worn concrete steps. She shrieked in agony as something tore her leg from the hip, and blood poured out over the severed limb as it bounced down the walkway. She opened her eyes and saw shadows taking form in the periphery, becoming almost human.

Hope flared when she recognized one of the people. It was that cop who came around after his shift looking for freebies. What was his name? It didn't matter, he had to help her...he was a cop! Pain flared as her other leg was ripped away and tossed down the steps towards the cop's feet.

"Please help me!" Candy screamed at him, but he just smiled and stepped over the legs, the other people behind him closing ranks and chanting something she couldn't understand. Her hope faded into a haze of pain and terror.

"Hello, Candy," the cop rasped, his voice mixing with the hum. "Candy Kane, not so sweet, Candy Kane an Old Ones' treat!" The cop bent over and stared into her eyes. He didn't look right, not quite all there like mist and flesh gone feral. His name popped into her head and she groaned.

"C-coo-ooper...."

"How many people worship at your altar, Candy? Is your body truly a temple?" Cooper stood up and backed away as the beast took shape from the swirling shadows underneath her and grabbed her head.

"I guess we'll find out. You should be honored to be a Marker," Cooper said as the demon leaned in and licked one of Candy's tears off of her cheek, smiling and savoring the taste of the woman's terror.

Candy's last thought was not of her children, of her wasted life, but of the fact she wouldn't be meeting up with her friends later at the bar.

The Old One twisted Candy's head off effortlessly and kissed her on the lips as the rest of the woman's well-worn, bloated body exploded into chunks that splattered the sidewalk in front of the porn store.

"Another Marker of Faith has been opened," a multitude of voices cried from the creature's mouth as it dropped Candy's head on the ground, then dissolved into the darkness. Cooper faded back into the Shadow Army mist with a satisfied smile, his body flowing and melding with other shadow people as Candy's head rolled to a stop against her battered torso. Her limbs and body parts jerked and twisted together to form a half-moon design around it.

Candy's eyes blinked a few times, taking in the last vision of her own mangled offering towards the destruction of the Void Gate, and then stopped; stuck wide open in a glassy stare that reflected the neon light of the blinking Temple of Flesh Emporium sign.