Sarah England - Baba Lenka - Pure Occult Horror

Well, I wanted that kind of love, too. And even more than that, I wanted to give it.

After a few minutes I pulled away to look at him. His face, gazing down into mine, was a rapture of concern, his deep brown eyes glinting not with mischief this time but something else… love? He smoothed my hair back and tilted up my chin with one elegant finger. I had never been kissed before Luke came into my life. And I have a feeling few have ever been kissed the way he was about to kiss me at that moment. He did that thing, tilting his head, at first just grazing my lips, then looked directly into my eyes, waiting for the invitation. Should he go further? We were melting into each other. I nodded. And when he kissed me again, it was a hell of a lot harder. The pressure intensified rapidly. He groaned, and a hot surge rose inside me, blurring all other thoughts except the desire to have him. I’d marry him. I wanted him. His breathing became faster. Pressing me against the wall, he pushed his lean, muscular body into mine, and the fire in his eyes ignited to a blaze.

“I want you,” he said, his voice syrupy, kissing me all over my face, my neck, dipping down to the throat.

I want you…

He took hold of my hand. “Come on, let’s go for a walk in the park. It’s not dusk yet.”

I know, I was sixteen and traumatised, but I didn’t care. Besides, through Lenka I knew how beautiful loving someone physically could be, and I’d always wanted that for myself. This could be my happy ending. In time, after getting spiritual help, maybe with his strength and support I’d have a normal, happy life. After all, this was simply illusion, as my mother had said. Illusion and control…

Honestly? It was the most natural thing in the world to walk through those park gates with him towards the woods, with the amber sun dipping over the horizon. We fell into the long grass. I can still remember the desperation on his face when he entered me, the contortion of his features as he groaned in ecstasy, the pulsing of his arm muscles, the iron slenderness of his hips. And most of all, I remember the way he murmured my name, all the way through: ‘Eva… Eva… oh, Eva…’

Afterwards, we lay still, panting, the sweat on our skin cooling, until the fiery ball of the sun dropped over the playing fields, streaks of crimson and rose in its wake. I curled into the crook of his arm.

After a while he lit a cigarette and passed one to me. “So how did it go with your mum, then?”

“Good in a way, but it upset me in another way.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, she has to be sedated. They wouldn’t let me visit for years, so it’s been a bit of a shock.” I snuggled closer. “I’m glad I’ve seen her, though. Really glad.”

“What’s the matter with her, then?”

I hesitated. I didn’t want to put him off. “Okay, well do you know what the supernatural is?”

“You mean witches and ghosts and stuff?”

“Well, sort of. It’s to do with that, anyway. Demons. Does it scare you?”

He laughed and kissed my cheek. “Course not!”

So I told him. After he said his mum did tarot and he’d once seen a ghost, I opened up. Omitting details regarding the World Wars or how Lenka had joined an occult order, I related quite a bit about the family legacy and what had happened in Rabenwald. It was such a relief to tell him about my mum, too, about the human spirit and to trust in God.

“So, you see,” I said, “what a crazy family I have.”

“That doesn’t worry me. Most families have something to hide.”

“What about yours? Come on, your turn!”

He took a long drag of his cigarette. An owl hooted nearby, and we both jumped.

But it was as I was laughing that his mood altered. The aura around him clouded, his face set to stone, and he sat up so abruptly that my shoulder fell back against the ground.

“You’re a bit dumb, really, aren’t you, Eva?”

“Pardon?”

He looked over his shoulder as I lay there on the grass. All signs of flirtatiousness, desire, and caring concern were now erased from his handsome features. The eyes were dead, the mouth sneering.

“Your mother’s fed you a pile of crap, and you actually believed it. That’s what’s worrying. She’s insane, but you believed all the shit about human light and God’s creation. You must be really, seriously fucking thick.”

“Hey, I didn’t say I believed that or—”

“All there is, right, is what you can see and hear and touch. That’s it. When you’re dead, you’re dead – dust! So you might as well live life to the max – have fun, have sex with who you like when you like, make pots of money, have orgies, drive fast cars, get pissed or snort coke. Who cares what you do? There is no man on a throne in the fucking sky passing out judgement.”

“I never said there was a man on a throne.”

“Anyway, I’m thinking of going, taking a job in London. I was gonna tell you, but you’ve really busted my head in with all this talk of God and snuffing out human light. I thought you were the one! But you’re nuts.”

All I heard were the words ‘I’m thinking of going’.

Sitting up, sobered, I stared at the side of his stony-featured face. “I thought you had a job here. Oh, please don’t go! You can’t do this to me!”

He laughed. “Do what to you?”

“Make me…” Shit, I was going to cry. I thought, stupidly, that he was a friend and, even more stupidly, that we were in love.

“Fall in love?”

“No.”

He looked at me then and smirked. “Fuck, that’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it? ‘Make me fall in love with you’? Eva, you’re not old enough to even know what that means.”

Sixteen-year-old Lenka came to mind. Oh, we were old enough. Our feelings were every bit as powerful as a fully grown adult’s, if not more so because we leapt in with such abandon, such trust and such passion. I was really working hard at not crying. An eruption of grief was coming from the very core of my being, and I couldn’t stop it.

“After what we’ve just done, how can you—?”

“Eva, don’t be such a baby. It’s only sex.”

“I’m not being a baby, it’s just that you’ve changed – you’ve completely turned on me.”

My lower lip was weakening. Any second now, I was going to sob uncontrollably.

Those dark eyes of his were heartlessly fixed on mine. Then, just as swiftly as his rage arose, it drained away and he smiled.

“Of course, you could come with me?”

I swallowed repeatedly, confused, seesawing between hope and despair. “Really?”

“Yeah, why not? I mean, what is there for you here – a mother in a mental home, spouting religious bullshit, and a father who dumped you?”

Despite the harsh words, a glimmer of a more glamorous life flashed before me.

“Eva, can I ask you something?”

Relief was washing through me. He’d been angry because of what he didn’t understand. It was as Lenka’s mother had said – the Mundanes got angry. It was okay; I’d never bring it up again. “Of course.”

As he raked a hand through his hair, a gossamer thread of moonlight filtered through the sylvan canopy, illuminating his features in a silver sheen. He had to be the most dazzling of men. Was he really mine?

“Well, three murders and the most incredible thought-transference abilities, yet you still haven’t worked out who I am?”

That took a minute. A full minute. I stared at him openmouthed.

“You really don’t know?”

He didn’t seek you out, did he?

“What? I don’t—”

He lunged forwards and grabbed both my arms, his accent no longer northern but cut-glass home counties. “Come with me to London and you will have everything you want – your own flat overlooking the river, more money than you can ever spend, a chauffeur to anywhere you want to go, exotic holidays and beautiful clothes. You’ll have the best education money can buy so you’re comfortable in the highest of circles. Eva, you know who I am! You know!”