Salome: Episode 20.
He wrapped more dressings around her wrists, and cut the fabric away from her shoulder. I covered my hand with my mouth. A bite mark.
Welcome to episode 20 of Salome.
Salome is a Gothic horror novel set in 1880s Liverpool. When a novice murders a sister at her own convent in Turin, she expects the gallows. Instead she is brought to a clandestine convent on the banks of the River Mersey. Her name is Salome, and she has a gift, but she must choose a side.
Salome is a prequel novel to support the Muldoon supernatural thriller series (Book 3 is coming soon!) and will be released in ebook/paperback in October 2026.
It was still there, but I did not even consider defeat.
“You have no dominion over her,” I said, watching the light make the flesh beneath its thin skin bubble and crack. It folded its wings over itself, but holes burned their way through the flimsy cocoon. It writhed and shrank away further into the wall. I moved closer. A final cry, and it fled.
I gagged, the acrid waft of ammonia rising through my nostrils.
“There she is,” Muldoon said, removing the bottle from beneath my nose. I opened my mouth and drew in a deep breath, as though I’d been underwater for too long. The men stepped back and let me get onto my hands and knees, fighting for breath.
I turned to look at him. I wanted to see his arm.
Our eyes met. He pulled his sleeve back down.
The two men carried Catherine back to the convent. When I had banished the creature and returned to consciousness, we entered the catacombs, retrieving her. She was curled up on the floor, her nightdress torn and blood-stained. Father John felt for her pulse, turning to look at me gravely. “She could still die,” he said, sighing. Her wounds were atrocious, but she wasn’t bleeding any more.
The cold silence of the place unsettled me more than the dream. It was as though I wanted to confront it in the flesh. Get it over with. But that was not the way it was done, Father John said. I did not yet fully understand why it always had to happen this way, but I accepted it.
As weakened as I was, I walked ahead to open the door for them, my ears still ringing from the shrieks. From the corner of the street, I could see the light in Mother Hildegard’s office. I looked up at it. Her silhouette stood at the window.
She did not come downstairs to see us, and when we came to the first-floor landing, her door remained closed.
Muldoon laid Catherine on the bed and went back downstairs to get some supplies for her.
“Do you need alcohol?” I asked Father John.
“No. These wounds are not from this world,” he said, turning to look at me. “These wounds are from Hell.”
He bit off a cork lid, spitting it to one side and soaked a rag with holy water from a glass bottle. I watched him clean Catherine’s wound, and to my amazement, the edges of the torn skin hissed and smoked when the water came into contact with it. He continued his work, applying a dressing from the bag Muldoon had brought. I looked down at my own scratches and then back at Catherine. She did not stir. He wrapped more dressings around her wrists, and cut the fabric away from her shoulder. I covered my hand with my mouth. A bite mark. He dabbed it with more holy water and a clean cloth, the acrid smell fading with each application.
When he was finished tending to her injuries, he blessed her and made the sign of the cross, kneeling at her bedside. He finished his prayer and opened another vial of holy water, sprinkling it on the walls, the windows and the door. I put her stockings back onto her feet and covered her with the bedclothes. We remained for some time, praying for her.
Some times after we finished the final prayer of the rosary, I dared to ask a question. “Father…” I said into the silence. My throat caught, my heart overwhelmed with the fear of what was happening, and what could still happen. My eyes filled, stinging. Had I done enough to bring her back? I felt I was not strong enough to quell her doubts when I’d had so many myself.
He patted my hand. “We will know when the sun comes up.” He stood up. “Go and rest now. I will stay with her.”
I left as he suggested, but once the door was closed behind me, I realised that I could not rest. Not now.
I did not see Muldoon leave us again after bringing the supplies. I went to look for him, but I stopped on the landing, hesitating. I could report back to Mother Hildegard, or I could go downstairs and find him.
I walked the same path to the kitchen at the end of the corridor, this time assured that there was nothing behind me, trying to get in. I brushed past a line of drying shirts, the eerie familiarity with the dream making my chest as I heard splashing water.
Muldoon was at the sink, washing the blood out of his shirt, the naked flesh of his back exposed. I stopped. He hadn’t seen me. I quickly turned and hid on the other side of the alcove, but I didn’t have to look again to understand what I’d just seen.
Long raised welts along his back. White from years of fading, but the scars remained.
Next Chapter⇾
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