The Seventh Circle

By J.C. Paul

When Marcus woke in a cold sweat, he knew the best night of his life could only be followed by his worst and possibly last day. What lengths will he go to survive the consequenses of what he's done?
The Seventh Circle contains erotica, graphic violence and language. It is intended for mature readers only.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.C. Paul
• Release date: Aug 18, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465908568

J.C. Paul

J.C. Paul is an author of short fiction specializing in erotic horror. He lives in the American Midwest with his wife and children.

Book preview

Prologue

I love you, Marcus said, with all the sincerity he could muster. He held up his left hand and patted the air to suggest she should put the gun down, but all she saw was the empty paleness in the absence of his wedding band.

Say it again? The innocent supplication of the request contrasted with her tempestuous eyes. She tilted her head and pulled back the hammer. Her anger grew with each fervent heartbeat. The gun made a sharp click that dared Marcus to speak another word to her.

I love— he tried to repeat but the thunderous report drowned out his voice. The vicious copper clad slug tore through his throat and forced his words out the back of his neck. It sprayed a more candid message onto the wall behind him. Marcus clutched at his hemorrhaging neck with both hands as he fell to his knees and onto his back.

Capricious CHILD! Gina screamed, Do you even know what it means?

You can’t comprehend it! Don’t you ever say love again! She walked toward his suffering prostrate form. His right hand still clutched his steadily gushing throat while the left pawed uselessly at the floor. He couldn’t respond. He had little time left. Blood sputtered out of his mouth in place of pleas for mercy. It pooled around his head and dotted his face. If she was going to make her point, she had to move fast.

Gina knelt down beside him. For an instant when their eyes met again, her face softened. His eyes full of fear and doleful resignation, he brushed her arm with the tips of his blood-covered fingers. He really had loved her once, but she was right, every word. A tear rolled out of his eye. Her face became as stone.

Love isn’t a feeling, you worthless asshole! she yelled. Her writhen face contorted into an almost inhuman caricature as it shook with fury. Love doesn’t feel! It Does! THIS is love, she spat at him, as she shook the weapon. She pushed the barrel hard into his wound. He writhed and gurgled in agony as she continued her invective. Through bloody gnashed teeth, he tried to form a plea for mercy.

THIS is my love for you. Now she forced her words through her clenched jaw to fight off her own sobs, It is more kind and merciful than anything you’ve done for me. TAKE my love. Take it all and DIE! She squeezed the trigger again.

The second blast shook Marcus out of his sleep. He thrashed in the bed, struggling with the sheets until the quiet dimness of the bedroom came into focus. His chest heaved as he looked around the room. There was nothing threatening or spectacular to agitate him further. The crimson numerals blinked at him from the alarm clock. 5:28 AM. Cold drops of sweat fell from his pale unshaven face. His hands rushed to his throat and he was relieved that it was intact and his quivering hands absent of blood. Just as he began to regain his composure he looked down to see Gina’s eyes peeping up at him in quizzical aggravation. He could scarcely have reacted with more alarm if there was a rattlesnake coiled on the pillow next to him. He scrabbled away from her and fell out of the bed.

She knows! Oh God, save me. She knows!

The Seventh Circle

According to Dante, the seventh circle of Hell is peopled with the brutal, cruel, sadistic, vicious and violent. From shooting rampages to serial killings, some suicides but mostly murder, to rend a human soul from its body casts their own into such nightmarish chaos as to plunge themselves beyond hope and drown in the inescapable fury of a river of blood. Adulterers only go as far as the relative comfort of the second circle, where they’re caught up in the never-ending torrent of a whirlwind. The truth is to desecrate the sacred trust of a