The Devil's Equinox

by John Everson

  The text also goes into a lot of the theory behind blood bonds, and why sharing blood in a ritual with someone you are close to can work as part of a warding spell. Basically, if your blood mingles with the blood of another by choice, you can invoke the power of earth to cement the bond and help preserve your lives inside your circle of blood. It’s like a shield. Creating a circle of infant bones is more powerful, but a blood bond can go a long way toward warding off the unwanted…”

  There were footsteps on the landing up above, and Austin quickly closed the book and left it on the center of the cushion on the couch. Regina breezed into the room seconds later, and held out her hand to him.

  “My turn?” he asked. “I’m not sure I can compete with that.” He nodded at the sheer black silk top that draped perfectly to show cleavage, and the skirt that showed a daring expanse of black hose.

  “You don’t need to compete,” she said. “You just need to keep up! Now, get changed – Brandy will be here any minute.”

  * * *

  Regina took the blindfold off as soon as she had guided him over the threshold of the club doorway. “Maybe this will be the last time you have to wear it,” she suggested. He blinked as his eyes adjusted, and saw Regina frown.

  “Almost forgot,” she said, and reached into her purse for a vial of clear liquid. She wet her finger and inscribed his forehead with the Mark of Cain. The mark was invisible on the street, but it shown like a beacon in the blacklight areas of the club.

  They handed in their phones to the doorman, who clearly recognized them and thus barely looked at them twice. Then they made their way straight to the bar. The DJ was already filling the room with a pounding beat. It sounded gothy and dark, but with a more manic energy than typical darkwave. Austin had to admit it made him want to dance. And he never danced.

  They sat at the bar and watched as the room slowly filled; by nine o’clock, there was a steady stream of people filing through the front door.

  Austin was on his third beer when a thin man in a black T-shirt and the club’s ubiquitous half-moon symbol emblazoned in red came up to Regina and leaned in to whisper something in her ear. He watched as her face lit up, and then she nodded.

  “We’ll be there,” she said loudly over the music, and the guy faded back instantly into the crowd gyrating on the floor nearby.

  “What’s up?” Austin asked.

  “Something good,” she said, leaning in to his ear. “Tonight in the Sacristy, they’re holding the Ritual of Letting Go. You’ll be able to take Dark Communion and empty your need into the chosen vessel.”

  “That all sounds pretty…oblique. And possibly obscene,” Austin answered, nearly yelling into her left ear to be heard.

  “You’ll enjoy it,” she promised, and lifted her Jack and Coke to toast him. “It’s a special night that doesn’t happen often.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “We wait until the time is right,” she said. “We wait for the signal.”

  Austin raised one eyebrow at that but said nothing. He lifted his pint and closed his eyes for a second as the cool bitter ale slid down the back of his throat.

  A short while later, in the midst of an amped up remix of The Cure’s ‘Closedown’, an ominous bell sounded somewhere in the hall. The music did not stop, but the tolling bell was easily heard.

  “That’s our cue,” Regina said, and emptied the last swig from her glass before setting it back on the counter and pushing it across the bar. Austin did the same and got off his stool. He turned toward the dance floor and noticed that while many people continued dancing, there were also quite a few who had begun moving through the crowd toward the back of the room. Regina took his hand and pulled him in that direction.

  Apparently, this was not a ‘club-wide’ event.

  They walked through a doorway and down a short hall before descending a set of stone steps to a cool antechamber below. That room was filled with black candles; the scent of burning wax was heavy in the air. The light reflecting off of the dark walls was almost blinding.

  There were several people loitering there, talking in couples and trios in low tones. But most of the people walked straight through the heavy dark wooden door to pass into what Austin assumed was their destination.

  Regina squeezed his hand and pulled him through the door as well, and as soon as they reached the other side, leaned in to proclaim, “Welcome to the Sacristy!”

  The room was wide and windowless; the walls were made of mortared stone, and the floor was also stone – wide, irregular slabs of polished limestone. Most of the light in the room came from candles burning in small insets in the walls. There were a half-dozen low divans around the room and people gathered around each of them, as well as a bar on the far side. Austin had to stifle a laugh when he noticed the statue in the center of the room.

  A satyr. The goat man sported a visible erection as it raised one hand in the air, as if to invite the start of revelry. He wondered if the nuns would dance around it, like the covens of old.

  Regina led him to the bar but stepped in front of him when he was about to place his order. “I need one Evil Sacrament and one Dark Desire, please.”

  “I just wanted a beer,” he complained.

  She shook her head. “This is a ceremony. You need the right drink.”

  He looked at her sideways as if to say, Are you serious?

  She ignored the look and handed him a silver goblet a moment later. “You’re going to like this, trust me,” she said.

  He looked into the container. The liquid looked blood-red. Of course. Hopefully it wasn’t actually virgin or goat’s blood or something equally goofy.

  She touched her goblet to his and smiled. He hesitated but, after watching her swallow hers, he went ahead and put the edge of the goblet to his lips. And took a tentative sip from the potion within.

  When the heavy liquid hit the back of his throat, he almost moaned. The drink was like a heavy mead, filled with the thick sweet of honey and the bitter scent of incense or herb. His taste buds flipped cartwheels and he took a deeper draught almost instantly.

  “Careful,” Regina cautioned. “That shit sneaks up on you. But I was right, huh?”

  He pulled the goblet away from his lips and nodded. “What’s in it?”

  Regina grinned. “Oh, the usual things. Bats’ wings, the hair of a murderer, virgin blood…and lots of alcohol.”

  “You’re not serious,” he said. She didn’t answer.

  “I don’t care what it is,” he said and lifted the goblet to take another drink. “This stuff is amazing.”

  The buzz of conversation in the room suddenly quieted, and Austin turned to see a procession of nuns walking in from the main entry. They were led by the Irreverent Mother. The women filed around the room and after circling it once, took up positions around the statue of the satyr.

  “Tonight is a special night,” the Irreverent Mother announced. “We are gathered here to celebrate the needs of the flesh. We will perform the sacrament of Letting Go. The gods and demons will be jealous of your loins, my children. Hold nothing back. Give and take until there is no more.

  “Let the ceremony begin.”

  From the corner of the room, a slow drumbeat began, and Austin peered into the shadows there to see a dark-skinned man sitting on the floor surrounded by handmade drums with wooden shells and white skins. He was setting a tribal beat, in stark opposition to the electronic techno music of the main room of the club. This was organic, and ancient.

  The sisters in the center of the room began to writhe in a very non-nun-like fashion, the black film of their habits moving and shifting like shadow play against the swaying curves of their hips and jiggling outlines of their breasts. The candlelight gave everything a weirdly shimmering quality, as if the room was seen through a fever dream.

  All around them, small crowds of pe
ople gathered around the divans and knelt. They appeared to be praying. One by one, the sisters touched the prong between the statue’s legs and then danced away from the satyr to take up positions at the front of each divan. The Irreverent Mother then walked up to each and undid the clasp that held her vestments on. One by one, the garments fell to the floor, and the sisters stood naked and exposed at the edge of each divan.

  A man in a bishop hat – though one that looked to be decorated with satanic symbology – walked behind the Irreverent Mother and removed the headgear from each stripped nun. Then he held out a small black wafer – as if he was giving communion. The sisters each stuck out their tongues and took the wafer into their mouths before bringing it back inside their lips to chew and swallow. After they accepted his sacrament, they lay down on the divans and held their hands over their heads, exposing themselves to the kneeling crowds around them.

  “Blood of our blood, life of our life,” the Irreverent Mother said from the side of the room. “Remove the costumes and masks that you hide behind and show your true selves. Only in our nakedness can we share truth and the nature of what we are. You are not salesmen and accountants and cashiers and mechanics and electricians and web page designers. You are members of Equinox. You are our brothers and sisters, and you know the power that we hold in our chests, power that only in our unity can we set free. Stand up, watchers, and divest your impediments now.”

  All around the room, the kneelers rose and began to undress. In moments, nearly everyone in the room was nude.

  “Come,” Regina said, and led him to stand near one of the divans. She began to strip her own clothes off, tossing her blouse and bra to the floor behind the divan with the clothes of eight others. Austin was slow to follow, but she returned to him and took the goblet from his hand. “It’s an all-or-nothing thing,” she said.

  He got it.

  The room was feeling hot and thick anyway, he thought, as he pulled the shirt over his head. Regina’s hands were on his belt buckle then, and before he knew it he was kicking off the pant legs. When he could feel the air suddenly slipping between his legs, he knew that he was fully nude, and blinked back a wave of fuzziness to see what was going on around him. The alcohol of the Dark Desire drink was suddenly hitting him hard, he realized. He felt buzzed and half out of it.

  Regina picked their goblets up from where she’d placed them on the floor and handed his back to him. He took a sip, and the power of the drink took an even deeper hold. He felt his spine growing liquid. The Irreverent Mother was giving instructions from somewhere in the room behind him, and he watched as one by one the people around the divan leaned in to kiss the nun lying prone before them.

  Regina guided him closer and then she herself leaned down to kiss the woman on the low divan. Their lips locked and held for what seemed like five minutes to Austin. But then the room pulsed, or at least his vision did, and Regina was pressing him to bend and kiss the nun as well.

  He did and found the woman’s lips hot and swollen. They felt like they would burst as his own touched hers, and the wetness of her tongue slipped into his mouth to tease him. The throbbing rhythm of the hand drums only seemed to heighten the eroticism of the moment.

  The nun was not shy.

  Regina’s hands pulled him back and he stood then and watched as the girl kissed three more comers.

  The drumbeat changed. Suddenly it became more staccato. More intense. Rougher.

  The Irreverent Mother said something from behind him. Everyone in the room seemed to come to attention. And then the bishop was walking around again, handing out something to people at each of the divans.

  When he reached Austin’s spot, a balding man with a hairy paunch that nearly obscured a thick, stubby turtle’s head of a penis took the offering from the bishop.

  It was a ceremonial knife. The haft was decorated with colored stones, and the blade was at least eight inches long. And curved.

  “The ultimate union is to share all that we are, not simply spit or cum but blood and life itself, my children. Undo the boundaries of your flesh and let yourself out. Let go. Be one with a bride of Equinox. Let the letting begin!”

  The balding paunchy man took the knife and pressed it to his chest, drawing it across his skin. Where the blade passed, a thin line of crimson revealed itself. A line of life.

  The man took the blade and pressed it in the matching spot on the flawless white skin of the girl below. She did not flinch or move her arms from over her head. Her eyes followed the arms of the man as he drew the knife across the skin just above her breasts. Then her eyes rolled back and she let out a low cry of pain. Maybe. Austin wasn’t sure if it was pain or pleasure, honestly. But she did not seem unhappy about the violation. She was not restrained, and yet she lay there and let him do it.

  The man lowered himself until his wound was over hers. He eased his chest down on top of hers, briefly touching his whole body to hers until the blood of their mutual wounds smeared together across their chests. He lay there and gyrated for a moment. Then he raised himself back up, stood, and drifted away.

  A woman took his place. She used the knife to slice across the top of her thigh, and then, just as the man had, sliced a wound in a corresponding place on the girl below. When she lay on top of the girl to share wounds, the two kissed for several minutes before the woman pushed herself away and handed the knife to another man.

  Austin leaned in to Regina’s ear and whispered, “This is kinda fucked up.”

  She shook her head. And then turned to him to whisper back, “This is Letting Go. Blood and kisses. They bind us. Here we share everything about ourselves with each other. And at the end, we all are one.”

  Austin closed his eyes for a moment to clear his head, and took that thought in. He didn’t really buy it, but he got the symbolism. Still, the ‘bride’ on the couch was soon bleeding from a handful of wounds, while everyone else escaped with just one. It hardly seemed fair.

  The drumbeat had begun to take on a different vibe again, more slow and throbbing. More sensual. And now the Irreverent Mother began to speak again.

  “There are initiates among us,” she said. “And this ceremony is for them. We take them inside ourselves and they bring us into their very hearts tonight. Make room, and celebrate their Letting Go.”

  The bishop was walking around the room again and handing out black wafers once more. But this time, he gave them not to the nuns lying prostrate, but to people at each of the divans. When he approached their group, he went unerringly to Austin. The people around him all fell back, and Austin was suddenly acutely aware that he was standing naked in front of a man in transparent vestments, who held out a black host. The Devil’s communion? What made it black?

  Austin felt the room swim for a second. Then he opened his mouth and accepted the host. What else could he do? When the bishop nodded and moved on, Austin turned to Regina. “You didn’t tell me,” he began.

  She only smiled. And handed him the knife.

  “Share your blood with us,” she said. “And we will share a new life with you.”

  “Where,” he asked. “I don’t know where….”

  He held the blade over his body, moving it from his chest to his belly to his legs and then back up. Cutting himself was not high on his list of things to do.

  “Share the blood where you run hot,” Regina suggested. And even as she said it, he felt his erection growing beneath the blade. Almost begging for the knife.

  He nixed that idea right away. He would not cut his cock… but he could cut above it. Austin went with that idea and drew the edge of the blade along the top of his pubic hair. Blood instantly welled up atop his groin.

  “And now take her in the same way,” Regina prodded.

  He frowned but brought the knife to the faint down that was all that remained of the nun’s pubic thatch. She clearly did not believe in ‘wild and wooly’ and
was almost as clean as a girl.

  Austin touched the blade to the spot where the stubble ended and drew the knife across.

  She bled, another line of pain on a body smeared with her own and others’ blood.

  “Take her as yours now,” Regina said. When he didn’t move immediately, she put her hand on his arm, and took the goblet from him. “Lie with her,” she demanded. “Give yourself completely to her. I’ll be right here behind you.”

  Austin climbed onto the girl, who accepted him easily, drawing her arms across his shoulders and pulling him down into her embrace. He could feel the heat of his blood seeping across the base of his penis and dripping down his testicles, but somehow that only made him more excited, as he kissed the ceremonial bride and felt his erection slide easily into the wetness of her sex. Blood or excitement, he wasn’t sure, but he was suddenly surrounded with heat, and it drove him to an instinctual thrust.

  The drumbeat in the corner of the room had become purely sexual and when Austin took a second to look up, he saw that every divan had people writhing in passion on it. When the girl beneath him grabbed his ass and drew him fully into her, he surrendered completely to the situation.