Каарон Уоррен - The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror 2018 Edition

From the sand where he had laid it with such care, Sir Henry lifted her shimmering folded dress. In the light of the blazing underworld oak, he shook it out.

Ah! His seamstresses had not disappointed him! Blue-green as velvet seahorn and trimmed with sand-gold braid, the gossamer-fine gown glistened in the light of the fire. Turning his back to the flame, he held it up to the sky and saw the Pearl of Diana shining through it. Such translucent delicacy! The great fan sleeves were like the wings of a butterfly and the dainty bodice like a sheath sewn from the overlapping petals of fragrant flowers.

With the care of a lady’s maid, Sir Henry dressed his doll. Over her head went the gown, and into the great fan sleeves he slid her arms. The bodice he loosened, since the color of her nipples was not yet complete, and though he pulled the gown to her hips, he left the join between her legs—as yet virginally unbroken—bared.

For this bit of work, Sir Henry would need more of his own fluids.

Uncorking the champagne, he poured some bubbly liquid into the chalice cut from his great-grandfather’s skull and drained it. Thinking of God, and of the creation of Eve from Adam’s rib, Sir Henry cupped the swell of his Galatea’s breasts, traced his fingers over her colorless nipples, then ran his hands along the base of her ribs and clasped the taper of her waist.

He was ready. Once more he brought himself to climax, spraying his jism into what remained of the flesh-clay mixture contained in his sack. Then he squeezed the cut on his arm, breaking the scabby clot so that it could bleed some more.

In his excitement, he’d been reckless with the initial incision, and the reopened wound was deeper than the original. The spray of blood that flooded the sand both fascinated and horrified him. As a wave of weak dizziness swept over him, he quickly bound his wound, fearing he would faint and bleed to death if he did not do so with alacrity. Blinking, he began to knead again. Blood spread through the mix, dyeing it the crimson of a newly opened rose. The mixture, already smooth, was now as soft and silky as petals.

First, Sir Henry gave color to her nipples, and the addition of this ruddy clay made him swollen and erect again. Her legs were—by necessity—already splayed, and so he formed the delicate folds of her labia, fine and slick and smooth. Her full skirt was still rucked high, and so he inserted his middle finger between those nether folds, creating her vagina. Though most of his jism had gone into the making of this, the smoothest and most delicate of flesh, a single pearl-like drop of his own fluid remained, and so he balanced it on the tip of his finger and reached into the recesses of her, where that tight tunnel met the neck of her womb, and deposited it there. After all, it was their wedding night. When this was accomplished and their marriage consummated, Sir Henry stepped back so that he could examine his creation.

Oh! His hands must have been guided by the gods, since not even DeMains at his most inspired could have created a lovelier or more perfect form. With her skirt pooled around her hips and her bodice undone, she looked like a ravished bride, though the porcelain calm of her expression bespoke a serenity rarely experienced by mere mortals.

Slopping more champagne into the bone chalice, Henry drank deeply. Drunk on bubbly and beauty and moonlight and fire, and giddy from loss of blood, he began to dance around his lady, singing and chanting in the guttural language of the dead which he’d memorized from the abbot’s treatise.

As the sea wind—until now unnaturally calm—picked up force, Sir Henry danced, reckless as a teenage boy drunk on his own lustiness. With a final rasp of spells, he picked up the silver conch shell and raised it to his lips. Then he blew.

The blast—clear as a silver horn—bounced off the cliffs and echoed over the beach. For a moment the wind calmed, and then, as if in answer to his call, it gusted in his face, carrying with it the smell of salt and the echo of some great droning instrument of the deep. The sound sent a chill down his spine and raised gooseflesh on his body.

The unearthly echoes died back, and for a moment there was silence. Sir Henry could feel the quickening of his pulse and the pounding of blood in his ears. Something was coming. A wave crashed upon the beach with a frill of white seafoam and then drew back again.

From the far end of the beach, where the sand curved and disappeared and the cliffs met the sea, came a woman’s high-pitched scream of terror. Almost immediately, it was followed by the angry howl of a pack of dogs.

Holding his breath, Sir Henry waited. His right arm was bloody and bandaged, his trousers sand-caked and rolled to the knee, his shirt unbuttoned, and both cravat and jacket had been abandoned. But for the first time in his life, he had forgotten about himself—so focused was he on the fate of another.

Straining his ears until he thought his head would burst with the tension that stretched from temple to temple, he tried to listen for any new sounds on the beach. At first there were none. But finally, he thought he discerned something other than the throbbing of his blood and the blowing of the wind and the crashing of the wavelets upon the sand.

Yes! Coming toward him now from the far end of the beach was the rapid, crunching sound of someone running. He squinted. In the light of the full moon he thought he saw movement, but the bright blaze of the tree behind his back obscured his vision. He waited, heart hammering in his chest.

Yes! Yes! There it was! Someone or something was most definitely running toward him. Though he could not see what it was, churning sand flew upward, as if sprayed by invisible toes and heels as they hit the beach, flying forward in a panicked fury. Sir Henry squinted again, trying to discern the exact form of the thing. But as it came closer, he realized with a terrible chill that what arrowed toward him was not a thing at all. It was a shadow.

From the far end of the beach, those unearthly dogs howled again. Henry thought of his own hounds at the chase, mad for the scent of blood, jaws lathering, eyes wild. But the beasts that barreled toward him sounded gargantuan. They howled with deep, brutish, unearthly yowls that echoed off the cliffs and rolled out to sea. The air was full of it!

The shadow-girl whimpered in terror. Henry felt the breeze of her movement as she swept past him, saw her footprints impress upon the sand, delicate as a deer’s tracks, toes splayed, balanced on the balls of her feet. And for a moment, he saw a wavering silhouette standing between himself and the light of the blazing tree. It was a darkness—a shadow cast by nothing—and then it dove into the vacant body he had made, as if for solace and for shelter. And Henry noticed for the first time that until now his sculpture had cast no shadow of its own.

But there was no more time for thought. The hounds were pounding along the beach, their howls thick with saliva and excitement. They, too, were shadows—great looming blots of muscular darkness. Henry could feel the vibration of their weightiness as their invisible paws struck the sand, sending sharp grains flying upward. He felt them leap and he ducked and rolled—uncertain of his safety if they fell upon him—but even as they leaped into the light to fall upon the girl, the blazing tree sparked and spat and blazed to twice its size, engulfing the shadow-hounds in its blue-green rage.

Screeches of animal pain—yowling and whimpering and squealing, both as pathetic and as terrible as their fearsome, hungry barking. Rising to his knees, Sir Henry covered his ears. He could not bear it! But even as he squeezed his eyes shut, the squealing dwindled and disappeared. Finally, he felt safe enough to open his eyes again.