CHAPTER 3
Please see the disclaimer at the beginning of Chapter 1 and do not sue. Please.
Beneath the silent bulk of the non-functional power plant, translucent blue thread hung from the six points of the arcane geometry chiseled into the ceiling of the ritual chamber. Visible only from the corner of the eye, the threads wove inward; creating a tangled web of magical energies that pierced the warlocks' victim and continued downward into the deep cavity beneath her chair. The victim's emotions: fear, spite, confusion, loss, rage, and despair flowed down the threads in globs, making a supernatural string of greasy pearls that slowly oozed into the trench. The pulsating darkness from the pit pounded eagerly now, well fed by the emotions it ripped from the sacrifice above. Two of the three warlocks mounted the dais and, with the squeal of rusted iron, forced the mechanism in the chair to recline.
Moving their victim's body stirred the air, and the foul stench of her imprisonment mingled with the sulphurous pong of the oily candle smoke. Sour sweat, caked filth, rotting teeth, and the rancid breath that accompanied starvation hung in the air, smothering the room with thick nauseating vapors.
The third of the warlocks approached the husk of a woman that lay stretched out between his two accomplices. The monstrous power they sought to control lay beneath their feet. Their ritual had wrung her heart and mind dry of thought and impulse. They circled her, low chants almost drowned out by the silent menace lurking underneath them. Their foul prayers pleaded for spiritual aid: a share of the dark authority below them to help them contain the soul of their victim as they completed the ritual. A shapeless shadow blacker than the room around it streamed like water, racing up from below to the waiting warlock above. The most powerful of the three drank in the shadow. His body grew rigid and his eyes rolled back into his head. When his eyes rolled forward again, they were no longer his, but that of the shadow he swallowed: a ravenous predator.
The two remaining warlocks stepped forward, flanking the victim with ceremonial blades carved of the bones of corpses. A nod from the possessed warlock bade them begin their work and they brought the knives down into the victim's skin. The sickly gold of the bone scalpels turned to red as the blades cut razor lines over the woman's dirty flesh. Fresh welts of wet black-red rose, pooled, and ran down her limbs, sucked into the pit below. The woman made no sound as the warlocks traced her veins with their knives. The midnight-red fluid that trickled down the legs of her iron chair and seeped over the rock floor to the lip of the pit spoke for her. Her blood itself cried a shrill buzzing, a high-pitched whine, the discordant keening of glass ground against metal. It shrieked just on the edge of hearing for respite and an end to the suffering. As the warlocks continued, a heavy scent of copper filled the room and coated all three of the warlocks, permeating their wrinkled robes and their skin.
The possessed warlock with eyes of coal extended his hand over the body. His spell rang through the chamber like a roll of thunder. "De bevoegdheid aan verleen me om deze ziel te houden en te binden, om het aan de dodelijke rol te geselen waaruit het kwam. Spoel het van dit lichaam en neem weer eens het binnen gevangen!" No sooner had the final syllable passed his lips then the shadow that he housed began to dribble from his fingertips. It slipped over her cooling flesh and writhed over her body, heading up toward her face. The sacrifice herself lay white and still as a drowned woman. Her cracked lips stretched tight as the formless black mist forced its way inside of her mouth. It filled her lungs, and slowly replaced her blood. It forced every last drop of red from her body, and in its wake her nerves shriveled and her pain dwindled. Within her mind, panic gave way to gladness, and she welcomed the black cloud that violated her; it eased her pain. The deep lines around her eyes relaxed and for a brief moment, she had a hope that she would live through her ordeal.
Her hope soured suddenly with a nauseas understanding: she was already dead. Her consciousness wriggled at that thought. She should go, she should move on, yet she was held fast to the cage of rotting meat around her. Something snaked through her soul, and she tried to flee. The mist within her grew palpable, and like a ruthless hand clenching her being, it pulled at her. It dragged her out of her body, but imprisoned her within a sphere of darkness that surrounded her torso. It refused to let her soul depart; It could neither to ascend to heaven nor descend to hell.
The three warlocks' brows dripped with perspiration. Controlling the evil spirit and manipulating a human soul took great amounts of concentration and focus of will. The soul hovered above the body, looking almost liquid, pulsing in tandem with the black light from the pit beneath the corpse. Cutting completed, the warlocks scraped the last of the blood from their blades into the inky blackness of the pit. Only then, did the two warlocks resume the ritual—the final stage.
Restrained, choking and pressing desperately against the constraints around it, the soul fought to keep from being forced back into the body again. The warlocks' chanting increased in volume, and the black sphere surrounding the body began to shrink. Each time the soul battered against it, the sound of scorching meat and yellowed smoke would rise from the contact point. Frantic, the soul fled in the other direction, downward, away from the dome above it. It burrowed into cold flesh and forced its way through. It tried to exit the other side of the corpse, and it met the other half of the sphere. Scorched a second time, the soul backed up into the dead form. The black spirit ball shrank, forcing the soul into a smaller and smaller pocket. It held the soul into the corpse's stomach like a terrible pregnancy.
The warlocks worked outside the body, preparing the dead flesh. They sewed up the veins they had opened with hair from the stiff scalp of their victim. The dried, blood-crusted skin had no elasticity left. Even after the wounds were mystically sealed by threads of hair, they gaped open, contrasting the clammy gray-white of the dead skin with the shriveled brown-red of her muscles. The warlocks worked over the corpse, piercing thin skin and stitching closed any and all openings in the body with threads of hair. The victim's ears were bent over and bound closed. Her staring eyes were covered with a lattice of hair. Her nose and lips were pulled tightly shut by a web of hair.
Only after the warlocks barred the every possible one of the soul's exits did they banish the spirit holding it. The possessed warlock reabsorbed the shadow and with the gift of three drops of his blood into the pit, it fled his body. He came back to himself in time to see the woman's soul flooding back into her body. Even closed with hair and freshly dead, he could see her face registering pain, finding physical sensations, and only just beginning to comprehend what that meant: she was a live soul housed in a corpse.
The body twitched and thrashed as it tried to either fully live or fully die. The soul cried wordlessly for its heart to beat and its lungs to breathe. The body rocked back and forth on its iron bed as the soul commanded dead muscles to move. She struggled to scream, but the hair through her lips kept them shut. She struggled to open her eyes, but only succeeded in tearing the holes in her eyelids open wider. Yet already, the soul's connection with its flesh faded, allowing the soul less and less control over its cage. The corpse subsided slowly and the warlocks began to close the ceremony. As the warlocks snuffed the final candle of their circle, the only sound in the subbasement was a whimper of rigor mortis and vocal cords, the birth cry of a zombie.
To Be Continued!
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Hey y'all! It's been nearly a year, but we're finally back in the saddle. PeasNcarrots rides again! The fiction has officially been scootched over to "R" rating (or the equivalent. You know what I mean.) Here's what Peas had to say:
"Hi all, Peas here! Yes, I'm finally peering out of my corner and speaking a moment. I'd like to thank you reviewers. I am VERY honored that one of you enjoyed my fic in the AFFC. PSSST! However, don't let Carrots fool you. I started this fic, but she's made this project shine and she's doing almost all the work. All I can really be credited with is the idea of starting a spooky round robin and taking care of the parts of Leo and Mikey. Everything else is all her. Of course since she edits and posts this stuff too, she might not let me tell you. ...ah well. Just, many points to Carrots for making this story great. Thanks again to those who reviewed!"
I second her heart-felt thanks for reviews, but Peas is so modest, it's laughable. But nevertheless! We are BACK! (And the next chapter just needs proofing before posting.) So you won't wait a year for this fic again! woo hoo!
thanks again, guys
--Carrots