A short story based on a character created by William J. Egbert, written by E. E. Smith

“The ace of hearts is Black as spades.” -Madam Maudlin

Madeline sat back in her bed in some dilapidated hotel in the middle of California nowhere. She sometimes liked languishing in places like this, far from the opulent spectacles and noble accouterments that came with being on of the more recognizable pop stars in this day and age. Seedy, disheveled and devoid of any form of hope; it was places like this where she could fathom new song ideas in which to unleash upon an expecting populace.

She was naked. The moon glinting through the Venetian blinds gave her pallor an almost unearthly glow. The faintest of scars on her hips had an almost luminescent sheen. They were her pride and joy, despite being from times of utter insecurity and depressive madness. She did well to always hide them during her stage performances, but Madeline was always aware of them, and she thought on some level her deepest fans were intrinsically aware of them as well… the material and the spiritual.

Madeline smoked a cigarette and remembered the viciousness she endured the night she found the Void. Her managers constantly told her to quit such a disgusting practice. You’ll lose your voice, they said. Think about your health, your beauty, your skin, they said. All meaningless platitudes. She was eternal, and would always be. Thanks to the Black. One body could be sloughed off for another; the final moments of death were avenues to other states of being.

Her songs glossed over the glory one can accomplish in the throes of sexual violence, even when in the position of the subordinate learning from an established master. How in moments of weakness and abject cruelty, a spark of unLife can be found, seized, and allowed to transform the Self into something inhuman and starving for that which feeds from the narrative of life itself. Madeline received legions of criticism from individuals on the subject matter of her seemingly innocuous pop songs, but it was irrelevant… far too many faceless specters had made their affirmation of her Arte especially clear.

They knew what she knew: that the Black can heal all wounds sent forth by the mindless Archons of the world. They could understand on a deep, yet unspoken level, that in moments of the greatest submission, one can become a revenant of the Black, and cast forth enormous levels of Thanateros into this world. A necropolis mentality, of sorts, was being formed across the land. A charnel house of lust, violence and freedom; a nation of capitalist Aghori.

“I’d sell my soul for fame” she had said in her high school yearbook, what seems like eons ago. How apt that statement would turn out to be. Are agents of the music industry truly emissaries of the Devil? Are they even aware of it, if they are? Gary took her from behind constantly that night, never ceasing in his coke-fueled assault. When he was finally spent, Madeline shambled to the terribly-lit bathroom, and looked at herself in the broken mirror. Her mascara created striations on her face and around her long, Romanesque nose; they were akin to beautiful black veins from a victim of self-asphyxiation. In the past, she had struggled to find beauty inside and outside of herself. There was always this feeling of not being sweet enough… not being pretty enough.

In those moments between heartbeats, staring in that mirror, Mad Maudlin thought she was now one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen.

She become lost in her new Self, and then became lost in his entrails, his delicate organs, his crimson rubedo rolling down her pale visage like residue from aqueducts in Hell itself. The blood made her furious. And ecstatic. The fleeting essence of Madeline that was coming through in this current transmission of the Black was aware of the similarity to Kali, that once-frightening goddess she saw a photo of in the pages of some unknown book. What was once alien and repulsive was now eternal and liberating.

In death, Gary’s body danced for Madeline, that night, in front of her dilapidated, sex-stained hotel bed. He danced to the demo tape that he never heard; so direct and brutal were were his desires for her body, not her soul. Not for what made her continue to exist, and love. Just her flesh. He danced, because she Willed him to dance; the Black now her instrument of all desire that she once fought to keep in the depths.

Gary’s head was found in the mailroom of the record label he worked for, but Madam Maudlin left a note in his mouth expressing her interest to still be a part of their business, with an offer they would have been mad to refuse…