One Blood

Chapter Sixty-One

A slim man with a gaunt face and dark hair stared at her through black, passionless eyes. He sat at a modern desk underneath an inkblot mural that seemed to shift as Karen looked at it.

Karen turned to run back the way she came but the attendant blocked her way. The attendant carried her into the room against her will, and seated her in a high, straight back chair, built to put her eye level with Dr. Faustus.

He smiled. “So,” he spoke in a firm yet boyish voice. “What do you think of the place?” Karen shrugged.

“It’s the mural, isn’t it?  You saw something that scared you?”

She looked at the painting above his head. The inkblot now resembled a giant sea turtle.

“Tell me…what do you see, Karen?”

She was too confused to speak.

“This is a magic painting, Karen. You do like magic, don’t you?”

She nodded and thought of Kristopher’s obsession with magic. He had loved pulling tricks on people. Cold sweat accumulated in the cups of her underarms despite the robust air conditioning.

“Your brother wasn’t scared when he was here visiting me.”

She looked back at him in surprise.

“What? Daddy didn’t tell you that Kristopher and I were friends? For shame. He was a bit older than you are now when he came to see me. How old are you, Karen?”

“Sev…seven.” Her words came out in a low whisper.

“Ahhh…yes, seven. You’re too young to die, Karen. Just like your brother. He thought he was saving you. Yet here you are getting weaker by the moment. It’s the sending of the dead, you see. Oh, how I will enjoy seeing Kristopher again.” 

The vault burst open.

Karen looked into the vault’s black maul and saw hell.

Faustus was right next to her. He grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her chair toward the vault.

Karen struggled mightily while he chanted an oddly familiar song:

Say hey!

Seven stabs of the knife, seven stabs of the sword.

Hand me that basin, I’m going to vomit blood.

Seven stabs of the knife, seven stabs of the sword.