The Devil's Equinox

by John Everson

  Father Vernon bent down to pick up Ceili and held her to hoary white hair thatched across his chest.

  Regina stepped toward him once more.

  “Will you let your daughter be raised by this man?” she asked, pointing to the priest, whose hands were rubbing slowly up and down the baby’s legs. More of his penis was now becoming visible.

  “Or will you sacrifice her tonight and in doing so save her? Her blood will bring power to our circle, and her soul will go free. I love this child as my own, and I am telling you this is the best thing you can do for her. If you choose otherwise, you are selfish and as useless as your wife used to tell me you were.”

  At the mention of Angie, Austin’s throat constricted. Had she really said things like that to Regina?

  “So, which will it be, Austin? Will you give Ceili to a child molester? Or will you give her to us?”

  He shook his head. “I will not kill my baby. That takes away all of her chances.”

  “So, you’d rather sentence her to a childhood of daily abuse? Angie was right about you.”

  “You just want power,” he said.

  She lifted the clay doll. “I have power,” she said. “And after tonight, I may spend days…weeks perhaps…doing this every hour and watching the result.”

  She stabbed a long pin in the belly of the doll, and Austin instantly screamed and doubled over. The knife fell from his hand and clattered to the floor.

  She smiled. “It took me years to learn how to do that. But now, I can do it whenever I want.”

  She stabbed the needle into the doll’s thigh, and instantly Austin toppled over as a stabbing pain show up his leg.

  “I could do this all night,” she said. And with that, she stabbed a needle into the eye of the doll.

  Austin shrieked, and fell backward on the ground. His feet kicked and his brain felt as if a red-hot poker had gouged itself right through his left eye.

  Tears ran down his face, and all he could see was a haze of red.

  He realized after a minute that he was still screaming and tried to stop. He couldn’t breathe.

  When the pain subsided, and he blinked back his vision, Regina stood over him. Even now he admired her body. Her skin was flawless, her thighs lean. The delta of her sex was tightly cropped and dark. Glossy. He remembered the nights she’d drawn him beneath the sheets in his bed. He’d thought she was the answer to all of his prayers. Instead, here she was, standing above him naked with a voodoo doll designed to make him suffer. She was the worst nightmare a man could have. She was beautiful. Seductive.

  And utterly evil.

  “What do you decide?” she asked. “We are out of time and must begin. We will go forward with or without your consent. But it would be easier if you’d do the right thing for Ceili.”

  “You’ll have to kill me,” Austin said, and tensed, waiting for the next horrible bolt of pain.

  But it didn’t come.

  Instead, Regina only shook her head, and raised the doll upright in her hands.

  “I have a better idea,” she said.

  Without deciding to do so, Austin found himself getting to his feet. Regina reached down and retrieved the knife and held it out to him once more. He found his hand extending to accept it.

  “The ritual calls for a father or mother to knowingly sacrifice their child beneath the gaze of the Dark Eye. I would think a truly voluntary act would serve us better, but you will knowingly give Ceili’s life to us.” She shrugged. “It will work. We must begin.”

  She beckoned Austin forward. His feet answered her call, though in his head, he resisted with all of his might. His will did not slow the movement of his legs at all.

  “Sisters, choose your mount,” Regina said. “Observe the moon.” She pointed at a large television screen that had flickered to life on the wall. It was strangely out of place in this underground chamber of stone and altars and false religious costume. But Austin saw it served a purpose. The moon was captured in its frame, its aura deep and bloody in the night sky.

  There was a burst of motion among the nuns; it looked like a round of musical chairs. Each of the women moved quickly to try to put her hand on the shoulder of and claim one of the priests in the inner circle for her own. Austin saw that even the Irreverent Mother had joined the group; she had taken the man who had worn the black bishop’s hat. But there were far more women here than men, and some found themselves standing to the side. Meanwhile, the women who had scored a ‘mount’ were quickly fastening collars and leashes to the men. Once finished, they held the leashes in their hands and stepped behind the men who remained crouched on the floor. They straddled the men’s hips from the back and pulled on the leashes to raise the heads of the men to attention.

  Regina looked around the circle, nodding at the strange, erotic position of the couples. She beckoned to the women without partners. “You will be my Arrow for this ceremony, the Dark Eye will see through you. Join me now and be my echo and amplifiers.”

  The single women moved to form two lines in a V shape behind Regina. When she raised her arms toward the ceiling, the entire V followed her lead and did the same.

  “I call upon the Eye of Darkness to look through the clouds of space and the buildings of men to see us here, in our secret space. In the space that we dedicate to your deeds. Observe us now as we celebrate the body.”

  She brought her arms down and pointed at the sisters of the circle. “Mount your servants now. Let him hear you in your ecstasy.”

  The circle changed, as the nuns pushed all of the men to lie on their backs on the ground. The men’s feet all pointed to the center of the circle, where Father Vernon and Ceili and Austin remained. The women all faced the center of the circle as well, as they straddled the hips of the men, and began to move and shift in a slow erotic rhythm. Their flanks glowed in the reflections of the flames from the sconces on the walls, and their breasts and bellies shivered and shook, moving sinuously and with growing fervor.

  “Sing to him, my sisters,” Regina said, turning to the V of women and the altar behind her. “Let him hear the Song of Satan now to pique his interest in our tiny church. Let him hear us and come among us.”

  She began the song, raising her eyes and hands to the sky once again. Austin could not understand the words, but now and then he picked out a familiar phrase, like ‘Satanico’.

  “Auriele des Satanico

  Lauder ist vederno Sin

  Semen Sordo Sylib Santi

  Orgo mastic mondo ne….”

  Regina led the song, which was slow and dirgy, and the women who formed her Arrow all sang along with her. As they sang, they all swayed and followed the lead of Regina, who ran her hands slowly and suggestively across her breasts and waist and thighs. It was like a satanic burlesque show, with sex happening in a circle around the floor and women emphasizing their curves and singing no doubt sacrilegious lyrics above them.

  Austin tried to move, but remained frozen in place, his muscles locked against his will.

  “The Eye is open,” Regina called out suddenly. “Can you feel his gaze upon you? Can you feel him in your bones, driving you to darker ecstasy? Open your hearts and legs and let him in!”

  The moon on the screen beyond the altar looked blood red now, and the room glowed with its unnatural light. Its edges were now partially obscured in shadow and Austin realized that it truly resembled a blood-red eye.

  The sisters on the floor answered Regina’s call with moans and guttural growls of passion, increasing their rhythm.

  The women of the Arrow continued to writhe and sing the unintelligible syllables of the Song of Satan as screams of orgasm began to erupt from the floor.

  “Sisters,” she called. “The time is now. The Eye has opened and its gaze is upon us. Show him now that we are serious. Show him the demon in your passion. Show him that we will not stop short
of any abomination he asks. Show him the truth in blood.”

  Almost as one, the rutting women turned their backs to the center of the circle to face the men. They leaned forward, most of them still connected to the men in copulation. As they ground their backsides into the men’s thighs, they reached forward and felt along the collars of their willing slaves.

  Austin could see two couples clearly in front of him and watched as the eyes of the men rolled back in pleasure while the women kissed and kept their sex in slow, humping motion. He watched as a brunette with dark eyelashes and a witch’s star tattooed across her back pulled a small square piece of silver from a small sleeve attached to the collar.

  “Show us your intention,” Regina called. Behind her, the Arrow echoed her words. “Show us your intention.”

  The brunette raised one hand in the air behind her head as she balanced on her other one, still pounding her groin to the man beneath her. One by one, the rest of the circle followed suit, until the entire circle held a silver glimmer in the air while cries of pleasure groaned from the flesh beneath them.

  “Show him that you can be his brides,” Regina said. “Bathe in the blood until you reach your nadir and know that it is he who moves inside you now. Begin!”

  As she said the final word, the hands in the air all descended as one, and the moans of pleasure turned to screams of agony. The floor was suddenly painted in red and a mist of blood rose in the air above the women, who slashed and then struggled to keep the dying men down. Some of the men turned the tables, rolling the women over to their backs, but the women only held tight to their chains, and pulled them close for another slash of the razor. The bleeding out was fast. One by one, the women rose up on their knees as their mounts lay dying or already dead beneath them. Blood dripped from noses and chins and breasts as if they’d been sprayed by a hose of crimson. Some of the sisters had red raked and smeared across the light skin of their backs and the rounds of their asses. Regardless, they kept their hips in motion, still taking the remains of the men inside them. For some reason, whether biology or dark magic, the erections continued after the mounts were expired.

  Regina and her Arrow continued to sing, their voices rising ever louder to be heard above the screams and cries of orgasmic passion from the rest of the women.

  “There is no other lord than you,” she called finally, switching from song to English. “We beseech you come into us and live as our master. See through us with your Dark Eye and grant us your trust to use your dark magic. We will forever be your convent, your Sisters of Satan.”

  With that, Regina fell to her knees, as did the women behind her.

  “The time is now,” Regina called. “The Eye has opened but soon will close. Before it does, it must see the blood of the babe. Only in this can we hope to feel the touch of his hand on our breast.”

  Regina pointed at Father Vernon, who walked across the blood-slicked floor to place Ceili on the altar. The bloody moon looked thinner but its ‘eye’ was still open on the TV behind. Austin stared hopelessly at Ceili, whose arms shifted and grabbed at the air above her. For some reason she didn’t cry, only swatted at the ceiling as if she were playing with balls on a baby mobile. He looked above her hands and stared at the image of the strangely eclipsing moon.

  The moon blinked.

  For one horrible second, Austin could have sworn there truly was an eyeball in the heart of the moon, looking down at him in a hideous humor…. It grabbed his gaze and did not let go, and he felt the chill of evil suddenly slipping down the back of his neck and into his throat and into his heart. He shook with the cold of winter and at the same time, felt his body break out in sweat. The room suddenly felt electrified. Pregnant with a hideous power.

  “Bring him forward,” Regina demanded, and the Arrow moved from behind her to behind him. Austin felt the pricks of dozens of fingernails suddenly pressing into his back and arms and thighs as the women urged him step by step to the altar. Regina joined Father Vernon there, and as Austin stepped out of the circle of dead, abandoned men, their chains dropped to the floor near where their throats had been slit, he realized that he and Vernon were the only men left alive in this hidden chapel.

  Austin stared at the eye glaring out of the moon from over their bare shoulders and forced himself to look down and away. It was no longer the moon, but truly the Devil’s eye staring back at him. Ceili turned her head on the altar and looked at him with a smile.

  “It’s okay, baby,” he whispered. But no words escaped his mouth. Regina had completely locked his body up to her control. She did not control his mind, however. And in his head, he wished again and again for help. For something to stop this train he was trapped on.

  Nobody answered his silent cries.

  “Now is the moment when the father will give up his daughter to Satan. We are all Satan’s daughters and in this symbolic gift, we prove that we serve only the Dark Eye. His vision is ours, our sight is his. He may see the sacrifice of the father as he has seen our sacrifices of the husbands. And in the release of life and blood, we are all married to the dark. We are his forever, and he will live within us as we make our way unknown in the world. He will bring us his power and make our lives complete. No one shall stand in our way and live. Those who stand against us will find their hearts attack, their breasts filled with cancer, their brains hemorrhage with clots. They will lose their place on the corporate ladder and be run down by the senile on the road. Ours will be the power of nature, and we shall wield it with strength and sanguinity.”

  Regina held the clay doll out so that he could see it, and with one finger, she raised one of its arms. He felt one of his arms rise at the same time. And after a second of not getting it, he realized which arm it was.

  His knife arm.

  And right now, it was aimed at the altar. Aimed at Ceili.

  Silently he called once more for Angie. His attempt at a spell earlier had apparently done nothing. The ghost of his wife had not returned. I need you more than I ever have now, his mind cried. Angie, I invoke you, he silently called. And then the crushing blanket of defeat covered him. He’d been a fool to think that he could use magic against witches. He had no power. As Father Vernon had taunted him, he didn’t have a lifetime of training and belief to call upon.

  Regina touched the doll’s feet and his body took another step forward. All around him, the women now pressed close, a sea of warm flesh pulsing against him. They wanted to be touching him as he stabbed his daughter, he understood that now. They desperately jockeyed for positions closer to him, stifling him as they pressed and grabbed his flesh.

  Austin arrived at the altar regardless. The baleful eye of the Devil himself shivered on the screen ahead.

  “Oh Dark Lord, we pledge Ceili’s heart to you. Take it and magnify its innocence. Bring our coven into covenant with you, so that we may serve you better in the years ahead.”

  In his head he was screaming. No, you will not, will not move my arm again. No, No, No!

  He poured all of his mind and heart and power into denying Regina’s control over his limbs, but even as he felt there might be a chink in her armor, that he might have moved his hand just an inch in the opposite direction that she demanded, he suddenly felt a terrible heat overcome him. It was as if his entire body had stepped into a sauna on overload. He looked up to see Regina’s smile, and the moon eye behind her, and suddenly everything began to grow blurry. He was losing.

  Father Vernon held Ceili out over the center of the altar, presenting her for his knife. Austin looked down into her trusting blue eyes, and a tear dripped down to run across her cheek. “I would never hurt you,” he tried to say, but his mouth did not move, and Ceili’s face began to grow hazy.

  The twin lights of her eyes were the only things left that he could focus on. The curved tip of the knife came down slowly from the air until he could see his hand clenched around the haft, the blade just tw
o feet away from the baby’s tiny chest.

  “Tonight, on the Devil’s Equinox, we give to the Devil, a daughter,” Regina said from someplace far away.

  “To save her, you must kill her,” Father Vernon insisted.

  Austin gripped the skull in his pocket tighter as he silently tried to scream. The knife in his other hand began to move.

  A new scream came then, from another mouth. A horrible banshee shriek filled the room. At first Austin thought it came from the TV – that somehow the Dark Eye itself was screaming. But then, through the gray fog that remained of his vision, he saw her. She bulled through the circle of blood-spattered brides of Satan and the room suddenly filled with the stench of the grave. As Austin’s arm came down, the corpse of Angie bludgeoned the other women away and reached out with rotting hands to steal the baby away from the false priest. Instead of the blade burying itself in the heart of his child, Austin’s blade lodged deep in the gray curled hair of Father Vernon’s chest.

  The old man’s eyes shot wide with surprise. Screams of both fear and anger erupted through the room. Regina dropped the doll and grabbed for him. Suddenly the stranglehold on his body disappeared, and Austin felt his hand burning. He pulled it from his pocket and brought out the skull of the child.

  “This is the only baby I will give you,” he said, and thrust the skull between the breasts of Regina. “I call upon the Dark Eye to see the false ceremony this is. I call upon the ghost of Carolyn Jones to give back what she got.”