by John Everson
“Helone is very angry,” Malachai said. Alex could hear the strain in his voice. A piece of adobe suddenly fell from the ceiling near them. And then stones erupted from the half-toppled wall just a few yards away.
“We must begin,” Alex said. “Hurry.”
A small stone hit Alex in the back of the head and she swore, rubbing the spot.
“What do we do?” Cheyenne asked.
“Drop your clothes now. Each of you hold her arms,” Alex said. “I will sit on her feet. When I begin, you must repeat the words, and do as I ask. Don’t break the focus. Do what I ask.”
Joe nodded and removed the robe that he’d worn since Helone’s house. He took hold of one of Ariana’s wrists, as Cheyenne scooted around to take the other. Alex settled with her butt on Ariana’s ankles. In one hand, she held the knife. The book lay next to her, opened to the page of the ritual.
More stones shook loose and fell all around them. A hail of loose adobe. But a hail that had purpose. Clearly there were Curburide in the room intent on putting an end to their ritual.
Alex took a deep breath, and looked at Ariana, who lay naked beneath her. The woman had removed the straps that bound her on her own. For the first time, it seemed that Alex had the upper hand over the other woman. But then again, the bitch had given her it, she hadn’t won it. But for once, Ariana’s haughty glamour, that icy beauty that had attracted all sorts of men to death at the end of her razors, was gone. Now she was just a body lying on a broken floor. And in a few minutes, she’d be dead at Alex’s hand. Damn, this better work.
Ariana grinned. “Got me where you want me?” she asked. “You know, when you’re done, you’ll belong to the Curburide. Just as I did.”
“Malachai?” Alex called. A part of her suddenly doubted.
“Nobody will belong to anybody,” Malachai said. “When you use her life to close the door… you will close a door. Nothing more.”
“And you will help me?”
“As much as I can. If you don’t do it soon, it won’t matter. There won’t be anything left to save.”
As he said it, the room shook. But this wasn’t angry demons taking potshots at them. This was the earth itself, shuddering. Just as it had in the world of the Curburide. The open door was tearing both worlds apart, as people and demons crossed a divide never meant to be open.
Alex read the invocation and repeated it in her head. It relied on the speaker to embellish, but it gave direction. She understood what Ariana had said about focus. It wasn’t about the words, it was about the intent. And drawing on the power of a group. She had drawn on the power of a group before. The power of the dead. And she’d drawn on her own secret reserves to open the lock of the door when she escaped Helone’s house. Maybe it was that personal energy that really was what it was all about. Not everyone could say a few words and invoke demons. But some people, somehow, had that power. While most could not, some people could reach the dead when they spoke.
She knew what that felt like.
She could do this.
Alex raised the knife above her head. “There is a hole between worlds, a hole like bleeds like a woman. Life streams out through a secret place and when it passes through, it becomes death. Share in the blood of the woman!”
Alex brought the knife down and sliced a long cut in Ariana’s right calf. Blood flowed instantly, and the woman stiffened beneath her and cried out.
She ran her hand across Ariana’s leg, and then brought the bloody hand across her chest. A slash of red now marked her. She nodded at Cheyenne and Joe, and hesitantly, they each followed her example, rubbing their bodies with Ariana’s lifeblood.
“Life streams through holes in the fabric and feeds our hunger,” she said, as she brought the knife down to carve another slash in Ariana’s other leg. Ariana swore and began to struggle. But Alex only held her haunches tight, keeping the other woman pinned. She wiped her hand across the wet wound and transferred the blood across her chest in the opposite direction, forming a bloody X across her breasts. Joe and Cheyenne did the same.
She passed the knife to Joe then. “You must do the same,” she said. “Release the blood of her arm. I will say the words.”
Alex raised her hands in the air and called out, “We have touched the blood of the wounds, and we have seen the hole in the worlds. We call upon the blood to flow. We call upon the blood to heal.”
She nodded, and Joe pinned Ariana’s wrist beneath his knee before he brought the knife down on her biceps. Instantly, a red line appeared, and he moved a finger through it.
“Anoint your forehead,” Alex directed, and he smeared it there. She dipped a finger and did the same, and Cheyenne followed.
Joe passed the knife to Cheyenne then.
“You must open the other side,” Alex directed, and then repeated the same words.
They continued to paint themselves in Ariana’s blood. The sacrifice herself had closed her eyes and did not react, other than a flinch at the initial cuts.
Alex felt a pang of worry. What if they bled her to death and the door did not close? She needed a way to make sure this worked. She needed power. As much power as she could muster. Would Joe and Cheyenne’s resolve be enough?
On that horrible day when she had killed her parents, Malachai had encouraged her to draw on the energy of her ghostly friends. The act had alienated them, but their power had set her free. Without it…
Alex closed her eyes and reached out around her. With her ghost sight, she could see the figures of a dozen Curburide standing around the room. They circled the sacrificial zone, step by step, never coming closer, but not leaving. Malachai held them at bay. For now.
“Agnes, Brenda, Billy and Joel,” Alex called out with her mind. “Belinda, Terrence, Tommy, Mike and Zely. I need your help. I need your love. I need your power. Please, one more time, come. Please help.”
She repeated the calling three times, and then turned her attention back to the book. She didn’t know if her childhood friends would listen to her. Most had turned away from her before when she had drawn on their power. She was out of favors.
Alex took the knife back from Cheyenne, and now drew a line around Ariana’s bellybutton. “Life is a circle,” she spoke. “We are born and live and die. Our energy grows and ebbs until we are back to where we started. Feel the life of this one. Feel her power. Feel her life. Feel her death. All in one moment.”
Alex smeared the blood from Ariana’s belly onto the pit of her own bellybutton. And after her nod, Joe and Cheyenne followed her example.
Rocks continued to rattle and fall all around them, but Alex knew that Malachai was protecting them… he was the only reason they hadn’t all been struck with numbing, blinding force. She prayed his power did not slip. With every cut she made, the sound of angry stones increased.
“Why did you call me here?” A voice said in her ear. Alex smiled and turned to her left to see the ghostly form of Eric. And then right behind him, a woman walked into existence. Her dress was pale blue, and Alex could see the fractured walls of the chapel through her face.
“Beatrice!” she said.
“I told you before never to call me again. But I could not ignore you. What are you doing?”
A third form suddenly appeared, and a fourth. “Billy, Thomas!” Alex smiled. “The door to demons is open, and has been open now for days. If we don’t close it, there will be no earth for you to call home. I called you to help me. I am only trying to do good here, I promise. Please lend your power to my invocation. I am following the ritual of the Book of the Curburide to close the door between worlds. And we use a human sacrifice. I know that you’ll be against this, and you’ll wonder how you ever friended me…. But this sacrifice has offered herself, and she is one who broke down the walls between worlds in the past. She is here, in part, to atone.”
To her surprise, Beatrice nodded. “The
wound must be mended, and it can only be healed with blood. I will help.”
“As will I,” said Eric. Billy and Thomas also nodded, and then another stepped forward from… nowhere.
“Rusty,” Alex smiled.
“Who are you talking to?” Cheyenne whispered.
“Friends,” Alex said.
“Ghosts,” Joe explained. “Alex sees ghosts.”
“They will help us,” she said. “We must continue now.”
“Helone knows you are doing this,” Malachai said. “She is sending more Curburide through now every moment. I cannot hold them for much longer. They will drag you through the door before you can close it.”
“Protect us,” Alex begged of Beatrice and the rest. “I must complete the ritual. Lend us your strength.”
She raised the knife again, and this time brought it down on Ariana’s right breast. Blood sprayed out, a thin geyser that caught Alex in the face. Ariana jolted forward at the cut, and cried out. Cheyenne and Joe held her down.
“A hole in the body lets out the life,” Alex said. “A hole in the worlds lets out the life. We refuse to die.”
She brought the knife down again on Ariana’s left breast. “We refuse to die,” she said again. “From this blood of life, we draw power. Wash your faces in the blood of our sacrifice,” she said.
Together, she and Joe and Cheyenne put their hands on Ariana, who struggled and shook beneath them, and then coated their faces in her life.
“We take her life, and we send it back. We reach out with this life to end the death… let this life fill and close the door to a place of ending. We close this door now, with the sacrifice of this woman.”
Ariana lay with her eyes closed, awaiting the end.
“Repeat after me,” Alex instructed.
She raised the knife in the air. “Together we join our hearts,” she said.
Joe and Cheyenne repeated the words.
“Together we join our souls,” she said. And again the words were repeated.
“I call upon the power of all,” she said. “I call upon Joe and Cheyenne and Malachai and all of my spirit friends here in this room. Send the life of this woman into the void. Use this undoing to redo the stitches of the universe. From anarchy to order. From open to closed. I call upon your power… now!”
Alex drove all thoughts but one from her mind, and drove the knife down.
Ariana kicked beneath her, and a horrible scream erupted from her mouth. Joe and Cheyenne struggled to hold her hands down. Alex stared with her spirit eye at the yawning, swirling vortex above, and focused all of the power she could draw from the people and ghosts around her. She raised the knife from Ariana’s body, blood dripping down the haft to spill across her forearm. She used it like an antenna, or a rifle. She sucked energy from Joe and Cheyenne through the dying body of Ariana. She joined their power with the life eruption of Ariana, and drew dark energy from Malachai within her. He let go of his barriers against the Curburide in the room, and sent all of his energy to her. Beatrice placed ghostly hands on Alex’s shoulders, and closed her eyes as she gave her aid. The other ghosts gathered and did the same.
Alex saw as all around them, the Curburide charged forward, freed of Malachai’s spell as he surrendered his power to her single purpose. The air erupted with screams of anger and hunger and pain. And Alex could see a violet charge erupt from the tip of her knife to reach and crackle at the edges of the black vortex in the sky above.
As the Curburide dove to try to ride Joe and Cheyenne and Alex, the hole between the worlds began to close. One of the Curburide screamed out the alarm and the others looked above to see their portal home shrinking. The room began to hum with a sound like a vacuum, as demons turned from attack to flight. The air was suddenly filled with flashes of darkness and teeth. Curburide came from outside the chapel now, streamed through the front of the mission to ascend through the shrinking hole.
CHAPTER 68
CINDY WORE NOTHING but chains in a strange man’s bedroom. Chains and blood.
Delivida had ridden her hard for the past two days, moving from one man to the next. She never used her own name, but called herself Cindy as she picked up the men. She used Cindy’s body as an easy lure, taking her out into the streets with fewer and fewer clothes for each conquest.
Cindy was amazed at how easily Delivida managed to get the men naked. Not that she’d ever had a problem herself in that regard, but she had never seen a relationship move from “hello” to “fuck me” in such a short time.
But the speed of the foreplay was also a foreshadowing. The men never lasted long. Delivida wanted sex, but she also wanted blood.
A few hours ago, she had been sitting on the balcony at Draft Station, overlooking the plaza. She’d drawn more than a few stares, since her wardrobe had consisted of nothing more than a thin veil of blue and purple-swirled silk that the demon had made her purchase from one of the tourist shops.
When one of those stares turned into a visit to her table, Delivida had held out Cindy’s hand, and said “Hi, I’m Cindy Delivida,” the demon said. The inclusion of the second name was a slap at Cindy’s silent complaints.
“You’re not Cindy,” she screamed again in her head. But the demon ignored her.
“Tim,” the man answered. “Tim Feely. Can I buy you a drink?”
“Only if you’ll take me home and get Feely afterwards,” Delivida said with Cindy’s voice.
The man had raised his eyes at that, but quickly asked what she was having.
Thirty minutes later, they’d walked into his condo.
“Can I get you something?” he’d asked when they stepped into his living room.
“This is going to sound strange, but... do you have any chains?” Cindy’s mouth asked. Cindy’s mind was shaking her head and silently begging “Say no. Say no!”
Tim looked puzzled for a minute, and then shrugged. “I’ve got some chain in the garage,” he said. “Why?”
“I really get off on chains,” she said. Cindy could barely believe the words came from her mouth.
When he came back from the garage with an armful of silver links, Cindy dropped the veil she’d been wearing and draped herself in his armload of chain.
“What I really love is chaining guys to the bed,” Delivida said later in the bedroom, as he pulled the sheets down.
“You are a kinky one, aren’t you?” he asked.
“Do you mind?” she asked.
He looked nervous, but he didn’t say no.
“Oh shit,” Cindy moaned in her head.
Delivida soon had him stripped and his wrists tied in chain to the headboard. Not having enough chain, she used a sheet to tied down his right ankle. Tim’s nervousness evaporated with the warmth of her tongue. But after a few minutes of foreplay, Delivida sat up and said “hang on a second.”
She got off the bed and went into the kitchen. Cindy wanted to close her eyes, but couldn’t. She knew what was coming next.
“Do you like sushi?” she asked when she returned to the room. She kept one hand behind her back as she crawled back over him on the bed.
Tim shrugged. “Not really a fan,” he said. “But I’ve only had it once.”
“I love it,” she said. “It’s the essence of eating, isn’t it? The raw flesh sometimes only moments from life. It’s what it’s all about really,” she said. “Eat or be eaten.” She leaned forward, and licked the tips of his lips, trailing her tongue across the short crop of his beard. Then she flipped her body around, until her ass was at his face.
“They say eating pussy is like sushi,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind that.” His mouth moaned under her as she forced him to sample hers, and then she returned the favor and took him in her mouth, teasing it with her tongue before easing him into her throat.
Then she pulled the knife out from where sh
e’d slipped it beneath the blanket. He couldn’t see what she was doing, as he focused on pleasuring her. But when her mouth left his cock and the blade of the knife slipped down the underside of his penis, he noticed. He yelled, and yanked on the chains... to no avail.
“What did you do?” he cried out. She didn’t answer immediately, until she finished sliding the knife around the circumference of his erection. Then with her fingernails, she peeled back the foreskin. Delivida turned around then, and pressed his bloody penis into the wet cleft between her thighs.
“That’s better,” she said. “Raw is always better, don’t you think?” She held the bloody skin in front of his mouth and grinned. “Tim Sushi! Wanna share with me?”
He shook his head violently, as she took a bite of the skin before pressing it with two fingers to his mouth.
“I find there’s nothing more exquisite than eating while you fuck. Really, eating what you fuck,” she said.
Tim’s eyes bulged, as she trailed the knife along his chest.
“If we were in my world, I’d be eating you from the inside as you came,” she said. Her motions increased, and the knife began to draw bloody gouges in his belly as she lost herself in the action. “I like the way it feels here, though.” she added.
Then she slowed, and smiled at the man beneath her. She set the knife aside, and picked up the veil from the side of the bed. She leaned forward to kiss him, before wrapping the veil around his head. An impromptu gag.
Then she picked the knife back up, and traced the edge around one of his nipples. All the while, she shifted her hips, to keep a wet friction going inside her.
“You’ve got stamina,” she said with admiration. “I like that.”
She ignored the frantic bleats from beneath the veil, and began to draw the knife with real force down the center of his sternum.
“They say lust is skin deep,” she said, before slipping her hand beneath a flap of flesh at the edge of his rib cage. “But I disagree. I lust for all you.”
She brought her hands up a moment later holding a small rounded organ. Beneath her, Tim’s body bucked and writhed like a bronco, but she never let him sever their connection.