Our Dark Prince (The Scottish Play)

LXXXIII. By The Blood Of A Brother, Beowulf

ᚺᚨᛁᛚ
Hail.

    The cry was a chorus. A demonic shriek so unholy to the ear that a nest of serpents would slither out in ghoulish recourse. When Angus awoke among church pews, teeth marks carved into his skin, he drank in the air with a fire in his lungs. There was a toxic, fiery rain, washing away all the dirt of the gothic church, but something was off. Angus clung to earth, feeling its wetness, a poisonous spittle. There was an undergrowth of a forest clawing at his feet, clawing at the rotting windows. The menacing spires that lingered dripping above him.

    Angus was no stranger to the souls of the damned.

    The church was desecrated.

    ᚺᚨᛁᛚ ᛫ ᛚᛟᚱᛞ ᛫ ᛟᚠ ᛫ ᚷᛚᚨᛗᛁᛊ ᛫ ᚺᚨᛁᛚ ᛫ ᛚᛟᚱᛞ ᛫ ᛟᚠ ᛫ ᚲᚨᚹᛞᛟᚱ
    Hail, lord of Glamis. Hail, lord of Cawdor.

    The Creole priestess stood at the head of the pews, filthy f*cked pews, her back to Angus and her front towards her shrine, a three-eyed woman with catʼs teeth and an appetite for blood. Fat brown candles burned in their sconces, the haunting echo of a babyʼs wails ricocheting against the walls, and the Creole priestessʼ laughter soon drowned it all. Above the shrine, the limbs of Louisianan babies were nailed to the wooden walls, forming the vigil of the Rebis, the conjoined female and conjoined male. At the center, was an animate baby head, still conscious.

    The baby, awakened from its deep slumber, screeched.

    Hell was breaking loose.

ᚺᚨᛁᛚ ᛫ ᛗᚨᚲᚦᛖᛏᚺ ᛫ ᚺᛖ ᛫ ᚹᚺᛟ ᛫ ᚹᛟᚢᛚᛞ ᛫ ᚺᚨᚠᛖ ᛫ ᛒᛖᛖᚾ ᛫ ᚲᛁᛜᚷ ᛫ ᚺᛖᚱᛖᚨᚠᛏᛖᚱ
Hail, Macbeth, he would have been king hereafter.

    Angus staggered as he rose, coughing up blood. The Creole priestess smiled at that, lathering her knife in childsblood.

    "Beowulf, the wolf of the night," the Creole priestess murmured in her syrupy accent, honeyed poison, speaking the human tongue.

    "Hellʼs in your eyes, mon petit garçon. Have you come to kill me at last?"

    Angus clung to the church pews, his ribs singing as the leeches began to gnaw at his insides.

    "Youʼve killed mʼ men. Youʼve butchered these babes. You wreak havoc with no remorse. Speak, witch. Who are you? What do you seek from my king?"

    The Creole priestess cackled, decapitating a baby head with a resounding hiss.

    "A king you deserted, thegn?" she challenged. "A king you helped kill? Whose death has cursed you to walk this earth, without the promise of death? I smell the anger in you, Beowulf. A suicideʼs breath. You crave death, mon petit garçon, crave a hunterʼs blade. So pray tell, why do you seek me out? To make your peace with Macbeth?"

    Angus grunted, doubling over against another pew.

    "Your name, witch."

     The Creole priestess turned to him, a dark womanʼs face with natureʼs own hand painted. Her eyes were bright with the blackness of a thousand suns, pricked by the devilish means of pleasure, a beguiled beauty eating at hellʼs fire. The voodoo queen of New Orleans, wrapped in lace and silk and Louisianan luxuries.

     "I go by many names. Marie Laveau in this world, Nicneven in the one below, but you, cher, know me as the mother of witchcraft, of monsters and moon."

      A beat.

     "Hecate," he whispered, breathless.

      In a flash of searing white light, saers began blessing the desecrated church by giving the blood of their backs. Purging themselves for a chance to be clean, to bury the casted stones of their sins in the rush of exhilarating, otherworldly pain. A higher calling. They flayed their backs, striking themselves with nails of Christ, caught in a trance. The elven servants of the Order of the Dragon, heading the calling of their lord and savor. A cult of Macbethian extremists willing to give anything to taste the morsels of the Mad King.