Read Online Red Right Hand by Levi Black - Free Book Online

of her mouth and swirling around her face. A sticky-sweet smell crawled through the air, rippling the back of my throat.
    I had to ask. I couldn’t help myself. “What are you?”
    She laughed, more smoke streaming out of her mouth. “Child, I am everything you desire. I am Ashtoreth.” She sucked on the end of the crack pipe, the rock inside flaring the dark orange of a dying sun. Her mouth on the pipe made a wet hissing noise as lip skin sizzled on butane-heated glass, and her right eye shuttered up and down and up and down in a mad twitch as the noxious smoke did its work. She exhaled her next words in a cloud of poison.
    â€œI am the reason men kill each other and women debase themselves. I am the flicker in the night, the moment of comfort. I am the reason to live or the excuse to die. Your kind have named me the Whore of Babylon, the Scarlet Harlot, Aphrodite, Ishtar, and Lilith.” She smiled a haughty, black-gummed smile. “I am everything woman. I am the Goddess of Love.”
    The arrogance of it struck me like a blow. Everything I desire? Everything woman ? I lashed out. “You look like a two-bit crack whore to me.”
    Ashtoreth turned to the Man in Black. “Oh, she has fire in her belly, this one does! There’s an anger inside her that will bite like a serpent if poked and prodded too much.” She wriggled, sitting up on the mattress. It squelched underneath her, and my stomach twisted. “You should give her to me. With her Sight, there are so many things I could show her.”
    â€œShe is mine . I will not share.”
    Anger flared inside me at the possessive tone used by the Man in Black. Before I could protest, Ashtoreth turned her eyes toward Daniel. The look on her face hit me like a splash of ice water: a look of raw desire, of naked lust.
    A look of hunger.
    â€œGive me the boy, then, he’s ready to partake of my gifts. Ripe for the plucking, that one is. Never known a woman, and he’s long overdue.” Her hand dipped low, slithering over jutting hipbones to move between her thighs. I kept my eyes pinned to the glowing crack pipe still hovering around Ashtoreth’s angular, pock-marked face. After what I had Seen, I did not want to watch what she did with her hand.
    The Man in Black shook his head. “He is also mine.”
    â€œHe’s a worshiper.” Ashtoreth’s voice was haughty, dismissive. “He can be easily replaced. You took one of mine and sent the others away. The use of yours would place us on even ground.”
    Nyarlathotep shook his head. “But we are not equals. I am the Crawling Chaos, and you are a filthy, worn-out receptacle.”
    Fury flashed across Ashtoreth’s face, spilling out in a snarl. “This is still my lair, still my place of power!”
    â€œFear drives people further than lust does.”
    The Whore Goddess rose to her knees. The mattress suctioned off her back, wet linen peeling slowly from her skin. Bedsores the size of my palm were slapped across her back and buttocks. Heavy breasts swung left and right, fwap ping every time they impacted against her waist, punctuating her shrill and venomous voice.
    â€œLove drives humans to overcome fear!”
    The Man in Black was beside the bed in a blink, red right hand clamped around Ashtoreth’s throat. He pulled her close, lifting her, making her dangle in front of him. Her dark eyes bulged from the pressure of that skinless right hand.
    The Man in Black curled his lips into a sneer. “You have not inspired love for a very long time. You have fallen far, O mighty Ashtoreth.” He flung her on the bed. She bounced into her hollow with a wet slap. “And you would do well to remember your place.”
    Ashtoreth crumpled on the soiled mattress. Locks of greasy hair hung over her face. She didn’t brush them aside as she brought the broken stem of glass she still held up to her cracked, chapped lips. She stopped,