Aria: Emanations of the Devil

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Peter Stübbe’s Residence; Salt Lake City, Utah
Saturday, February 19
5:03 PM

Gently he peeled the rest of her clothing away from the limp body. Her skin glistened with sweat; slowly drying as it cooled. She passed before he even finished feeding from her. Disappointing really, she was barely able to handle the effects of absinthe, let alone the consequences of his lust.

The pain in his head was subsiding as he ran his fingers across the curve of her form. “There are so few things left in this world that bring me pleasure.” He spoke as he pulled his body close to hers. “The taste of a good wine. The strange dreams brought on by the wormwood. Making love to a beautiful woman.

“I’ve bartered my soul for the power that infernal spirits offered. I have spent restless nights hearing the voice of my grandmother as she begged me to help her escape hell. I once tasted the blood of my enemy as I sucked his eyes from their sockets. I took such pleasure and delight in the shedding of blood, that I would night and day work such extreme cruelties . . .. The damnable things they said I did, though. To children no less.” He sighed, “I wonder sometimes if the world is mad, or if it is I.”

He wrapped his arm around her naked body and nuzzled his face in the crook of her neck. They lay, spooned together like two lovers, as he spoke.

“I was in love once. It’s so long ago now that I can barely remember her face. Ah, but the way she smelt. Do you know that scent the air has just before a summer rain? Wet with anticipation, a charge of electricity flowing through the breeze? It seeps into your skin and fills your lungs in an ecstasy of calm. Its flavor is more fresh than a newly blossomed bud, but you know that it is only the beginning of something violent. Katharine smelled like that.

“No one else smells quite that way.” He drew his lips close to her ear, speaking softly to her absent soul, “But you know, when I found her that day… they raped her. I don’t know how many.

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