With a soft laugh Angelica raised her hand, then struck the bull upon the muzzle. It shook its head distractedly, as though she were no more than a fly. She struck it again, harder, and yet again, with such force that I could hear the blows, as though she had struck a drum. The bull snorted, then bellowed loudly.
“Come now!” cried Angelica. She struck at the bull again and darted away, beckoning at the shadows. “Children!—”
The chanting voices grew louder. From the darkness of the western transept figures came, a slow procession of men and women—boys and girls, really, scarcely more than children. A sandy-haired boy and one blond as the sun; a girl with shaven head and a frayed pigtail running down her back. Seven and seven; and I remembered then the old story of Theseus sent to slay the minotaur, the monster given tribute every one hundred moons, of Athens’s fairest children. Seven boys and seven girls, sacrificed to the bull…
But there was an older tale beneath that one: of a time when there were no gods, only men and children and bulls, and She who gave birth to all of them. She who must be worshiped and fed, She who must be appeased. The oldest tale of all, perhaps, and here it was now, before me.
Their voices intertwined, unpolished voices but sweetly poignant.
Gather your immortal sons, ready them for your wild dance
Harrow Circe’s children beneath the binding Moon
Bare to them your dreadful face, inviolable Goddess, your clashing teeth
They walked to the bull, unafraid, and I saw that in their hands they held vines still wrapped about with leaves, and slender ropes.
They chanted, lashing the bull with ivy and hemp, their voices rising and falling in a cadence that kept time with my blood until I could feel their words inside me, and the whicking sound of the vines was one with the beating of my heart. I felt enthralled, no more capable of flight or thought than a stone…
As one they turned from the bull, eyes raised to the sleeping moon overhead. I saw how deathly pale they were, their faces and bodies drained of blood and life. I knew then they were the chosen ones, those who had been given to Othiym—
“No!”
I flinched, turned to see Annie screaming.
“Joe! Baby Joe—”
She pointed to the last two in the line of the dead. Their skin faded to the color of oiled parchment, their hair bound with white fillet.
“Baby Joe!” Annie howled. “Hasel!—here—
I looked desperately among the others, trying to find Dylan among them, looking for his face, his beautiful eyes drained of all fire; but he was not there.
“Hasel!” Annie wailed. “Oh, no…”
They did not hear her. Instead they turned with the rest, and as slowly as they had entered they left the Shrine, arms hanging limply at their sides and ivy whips behind them.
“Oh god, get me out of here,” sobbed Annie. “Please, oh please, let’s go—”
I hugged her to me. I was alert now—seeing those walking corpses had made me feel the blood still pulsing in my own veins, made me taste rage like salt in my mouth.
“Angelica!” I shouted. I stepped away from Annie so that I stood in the center of the nave. “Angelica! Your son Dylan—where is he!”
She did not so much as glance at me. My voice echoed in the empty air; I might have been one of those basalt columns.
“Angelica!” I cried again. But this time there was desperation in my voice, and real fear.
On the altar Angelica stood beside the bull. She ran her hands across its back, soothing it. She tugged at the circlet of dried blossoms around its neck, breathed into its nostrils and stroked the hollow beneath its chin. Her bronzy hair spilled across its muzzle as she bent and kissed the smooth spot between its liquid eyes. With a gently lowing sound the bull knelt before her, its head moving back and forth, then rolled onto its side.
A soft echoing boom as it hit the floor and lay there, its sides heaving. For a moment Angelica stood above it. Her hair tumbled over her shoulders, her bare breasts gleamed with sweat. Above her the reflected face of Othiym stirred, mouth parting to show teeth like walls, the tip of a tongue red as blood.
Then, smoothing the layers of her flounced skirts, Angelica knelt beside the bull. She looked more beautiful than I had ever seen her, as serene as one of those faience images. Her eyes were brilliant, a flush spread from her breasts to her throat and cheeks. With sure hands she stroked the bull’s side, all the while whispering to it; then very slowly she let one hand slide to where its groin was hidden in a thick mat of black hair.
I held my breath. One of its hind legs twitched; I glimpsed the dark flash of its hoof, large enough to crush a man’s skull as though it were a bale of hay. Still Angelica kept murmuring. A shudder passed through the bull’s entire body.
Angelica let her other hand slip beneath its leg and gave a quick satisfied smile. I sucked in my breath: she held its erect phallus between her hands, a thick dark column so big it was like watching a child put her fingers around a tree.
“Ugh—I’m going to be sick—”
Annie buried her head in her hands. I looked back at the altar, repulsed but also fascinated. It wasn’t the idea of Angelica coupling with that huge creature—by now, I could imagine Angelica with anything. But she looked so frail and otherwordly, a woman spun of light and flowers; her glowing eyes green as elderflower, her lovely mouth mirroring the endless dreamy smile of the sleeping Othiym. If the bull were to move suddenly, it would crush her; its hooves would trample her carelessly as if she really were one of those scattered blossoms…
It would not harm her. I stared in disbelief as Angelica stood, her hands still firmly wrapped around the animal’s member. All about us the air grew warm and sweet, a cloying sweetness, like narcissus or a blood-soaked rag. The soft chanting and skirling that had been a constant undercurrent ceased. High, high above us the pale face of Othiym wavered, as if seen through smoke; then suddenly Her eyelids fluttered. I had a glimpse of a blackness so profound as to make the Shrine’s cavernous space seem daylit. Her mouth opened in a yawn, wider, wider, wider; and my head reeled, seeing the void that lay within Her, that ever-hungering maw poised to engulf us all.