Lore vs. The Summoning

by Anya Breton

  My captor surprised me by stopping in front of my cage after he'd stuffed our newest addition into her new home. His face turned toward me until his eyes were holding mine. It had been the first time he'd looked at me since begging me to kill him days earlier. I stared mutely, willing him to say something, anything.

  Gray's eyelids closed over his brown irises, a sorrowful gesture. He murmured something that had sounded an awful lot like "forgive me" just before his large hand pushed between the metal bars to grab my leg.

  "No!" I cried out when I saw the syringe jab into the fleshy part opposite my ankle.

  The last thing I remembered seeing was Gray's dead-eyed stare just before I blacked out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  I knew I was in a world of trouble when I woke strapped to a pole in the middle of a sacred circle. Coarse hemp rope cut into my wrists where they were affixed to the dry wooden log behind me. My ankles were similarly bound several inches off the ground. Five straps around my body suspended me in midair. The first secured my head to the wood in such a way that I couldn't move it more than a few millimeters. The others were above my breasts, around my waist, another at my hips and the last bound my knees together.

  My vision was limited to what I could see in front of me and in my peripheral vision. The latter was murky thanks to tunnel vision I was ascribing to the after effects of whatever drug Gray had used to knock me out.

  It was night but someone had set up torches around the perimeter of the salt-lined circle. There were chunks of sandy colored rock at regular intervals edging the salt. No doubt it was the rare desert shale Mailman Michael had delivered.

  From what I could gather there were two women strapped to wooden poles in front of me. Their eyes were closed and their poses slack as if they were still unconscious. Logic would tell me the other three women were arranged behind me.

  An impressively large moon hung low on the horizon in front of me. I saw it as a harbinger of evil. I had failed. The demon summoning was going to take place after all. And I'd have a front row seat to it as one of the human sacrifices.

  It all began with someone screaming frantically behind me in a wordless howl. A sharp feminine voice that sounded vaguely familiar shouted out, "Muzzle her!" The screaming was cut off abruptly.

  I was struggling to place the woman's voice in my memory bank of people when she walked around the outside edge of the circle into my line of sight. The spiky white hair and bluish tinted skin of Talise the priestess of Water witches were easy to pick out in the torchlight. My jaw set so tightly that I heard a crack in my ears.

  I'd had the culprit in my grasp and I'd let her go! Worse, I'd Healed her beyond her regular health! Good gods, what I'd done would help her to spawn mini-evil priestesses. I was truly an idiot. If I managed to get out of this I was seriously going to have to reevaluate just about everything in my life.

  The blue woman was dressed in a long flowing white robe that hung open, revealing her naked body. Apparently she took the "sky clad optional" portion of rituals a little too seriously. Behind her trailed her brawny lover, Gerard, wearing his robe belted around his abdomen. His eyes were focused on me with a kind of savage intensity I knew didn't bode well for me walking away from this.

  Two more figures appeared around the side. One had broad shoulders and unruly hair that was too familiar to be anyone other than Grayson Dennison. A petite woman with long flame-colored hair shoved him forward. I had to admit that she was very beautiful, not the exotic and voluptuous beauty of Morrígan, but lovely all the same. But there was a certain kind of wrongness about her that I knew could mean only one thing: she was a vampire.

  "You sure you gonna be able to get him to do it?" Talise asked in her unpolished Dorchester accent.

  "For the final time, yes," the redhead replied in a foreign sounding voice that was frigid enough to turn the witch bluer. She spider-walked fire engine red fingernails up the front of Gray's chest. "He will do anything I ask of him."

  Gray stood still while she did it, unblinking his dead-eyed stare. My stomach did an uneasy roll.

  I'd already outlined the tale in my head. Gray had no doubt succumbed to the vampire's charms, become her lover and somehow allowed himself to be taken over. Which of the two of them should have my ire? Her for daring to mess with my friend or him for foolishly getting involved with a vampire bitch in the first place?

  The redhead seemed to note my presence a moment later. She took a step forward to stand on the very edge of the line of salt staring at me boldly. Apparently my vulnerable position strapped to a pole wasn't insult enough.

  "Kiss me, Grayson," the vampire demanded with her eyes fixed on my face.

  He stepped nearer, slid his hand beneath her long flaming hair and laid a lip lock on her worthy of a pornographic movie. The grizzled remains of the beef jerky rolled sickly in my stomach. Her triumphant smirk when he pulled away made me wish the angry red I was seeing could be focused into a beam of fire aimed at her heart.

  "Let's get this show on the road," Talise announced just before tossing off her robe. "He...goes into the circle." Her blue finger made a sweeping gesture from Gray toward the center of the sacred space where I was. "But first, he needs this."

  The nasty looking foot-long dagger Gerard produced from a long satchel did not look promising.

  "Take the dagger and go into the circle, Grayson," the vampire ordered.

  The shapeshifter walked around the salt to take the knife from Talise's lover. Robotically he stepped over the line of salt to stand just inside with his eyes on the ground. Talise said a few words and made some gestures, I assumed to close the sacred circle again.

  The Water witch turned toward the vampire with her head cocked to the right. "You sure you're gonna be able to order him from a half a mile away?"

  "We cannot begin our partnership toward a better Boston with you questioning my every move!" The vampire snarled in answer.

  "You are right, Linea," the witch murmured. "You will do what you have to for the greater good."

  That was the piece of information I'd needed. I might not have recognized her appearance but I knew the name. Linea was one of the three rulers of Boston. If I lived through this Aiden Bruce was going to be getting a visit from me and I couldn't guarantee we'd both walk away from it.

  The vampire took out a slim cellular phone, hit a button and then dropped it on the ground. She was gone before I could make out which way she went. I wasn't sure if her departure was a good thing. One less person to attack me could be helpful but it was also one less bad guy for me to conveniently kill if I happened to get free. There was still the ridiculous hope in the back of my head that I would figure some way out of this even though I might as well be hogtied and drunk.

  Gerard gave me a last glare before walking to the portion of the circle behind me. Moments later Talise's arms lifted above her toward the sky and she began chanting in a foreign language. The male voice behind me joined in soon after.

  My blood pressure shot up when Gray stepped forward. Oh gods. He was going to stab me. My friend was going to kill me!

  I somehow managed to keep quiet despite my trepidation until I realized he was continuing past me. He was going to do something to the others first.

  "Gray," I whispered, knowing his supernaturally enhanced senses would hear it anyway. "You can't do this. Snap out of it."

  I heard an unmistakable sound, a quick wet slashing. He had stabbed a woman behind me!

  "Gray!" I screamed in shock. The Prime of Massachusetts wasn't supposed to kill defenseless women!

  The chanting lifted in volume and grew just a little faster. I heard an anguished groan behind me that had been too low to be female. Was Gray trying to fight the vampire's control? Gods, I hoped so.

  But another sickening slash followed by the dying gurgles of a woman's last labored breaths followed shortly behind. Gray had murdered a second woman. The beef jerky and bread threatened to come up. I quickly tamped it down.
/>   "Gray," I sobbed because there was nothing else I could do. "Please. Don't do this."

  It seemed pointless to reason with him. There wasn't anything there at the moment to reason with. But Talise was in full control of her faculties. If I could reach out to her, I might have a chance.

  "Talise! This is wrong! Is this the kind of world you want to bring a baby into?"

  She ignored me while chanting even faster. But her lover did not. Gerard snarled behind me, "Shut up, you slut! You killed one of ours!"

  I was so screwed.

  "Unnggg," Gray moaned just before I heard a woman's muffled scream.

  The high-pitched noise cut short with a sick sloshing. If I hadn't been strapped to the pole I'd have collapsed to the ground. This was awful. But it hadn't been truly awful, not yet. No, now that Gray had moved to where I could see him it would be.

  He shook all over, his body covered in blood but he still moved like Michael Myers in the Halloween movies, with measured steps and strong but unhurried gestures.

  "Gray!" I shrieked. "Look at me! You have to fight this!"

  "Shut her up!" Gerard hollered behind me.

  Without so much as glancing back, Gray's arm shot out toward me. His fist slammed into my chest to knock the wind from me. I gasped for air even as he plunged the dagger into the slightly slumped woman's chest with a force so great that it was possible she hadn't noticed it before she'd died. The blood poured from the wound the moment he'd pulled the instrument out of her.

  He seemed to shudder violently when he saw it. Another louder sound of anguish left his chest while he did so. It was barely heard over the din of the witches' rapid chanting.

  The extremeness of my situation made me silently pray to the gods, Apollo to be exact. I knew Kastio wouldn't mess with Fate enough to help me out of this bind. Apollo might give me some sort of guidance. I couldn't see him giving me the powers I had only to have me die like this. But as Gray's dagger disappeared into the abdomen of the fifth woman, I started to wonder if maybe I'd been wrong.

  I was going to die.

  I had made a good go of it, hadn't it? I'd saved many lives, gotten rid of a horde of nasty monsters and had begun cleaning up Boston. I'd even managed to get my degree in Music Performance and scored a dream gig with the symphony while doing it. It hadn't been a shabby life, had it?

  But there was still too much I'd missed out on. I'd never traveled farther than New York. I hadn't climbed a mountain. I'd never swum in the brilliant blue waters of some place impossibly warm. I'd never truly been in love.

  As Grayson stood holding the bloody dagger, shaking violently, I couldn't help but think one thought: Maybe next time.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  With my death imminent I spread my eyes wide to bravely experience my last few breaths. Five women were dead, sacrificed to the demon that would soon walk among mortals. I'd been left for last. Unfortunately the Prime wasn't going to make it quick.

  Gray's frame shook so greatly from his effort to fight that he fell to the ground. Cries tore from his chest, "No! No!"

  The witches' chanting was truly furious now, so furious that Gerard didn't stop to shout at Gray for pausing. The Prime's body rolled into a ball of quivering muscles. A cacophony of tormented moans emitted from his frame. I shamefully took a tiny bit of comfort in the fact that he was truly trying to fight the vampire's orders for me.

  He shook harder, his body moved several inches to the left as he did so. I couldn't be certain but I thought his figure was actually shaking toward something, perhaps toward the outer edge of the sacred circle.

  Gerard broke the chant to shout, "Your thrall is trying to break free!"

  "Nuuhhhgg," Gray groaned in a pained voice seconds later.

  I was no longer sobbing when Gray got to his knees. My death meant little to me in the grand scheme of things. If it had, I wouldn't have voluntarily pit myself against the majority of the things I'd fought in the nine years since I'd been transformed into a Diakonos.

  Bravely I watched him get to his feet and stumble closer. He wavered there, nearly falling again. I heard an undertone of noise beneath the crazed chanting that echoed around me. Gray said, "No, no, no, no, no."

  The gesture that chilled my heart was when he took the time to clean the blood off the ceremonial dagger. He even found a clean portion on the bottom of his heavily stained blue shirt to do it.

  I knew then that Grayson Dennison was going to kill me.

  I didn't plead with him when he started forward with that dead-eyed stare. It wasn't my Gray looking at me. This was someone under the influence of some bad, bad voodoo.

  He stalled with a mighty shake and let out a wolf-like howl from deep within his throat. My silent prayers shifted. I just wanted him to get it over with. He was only prolonging the inevitable.

  "Gray," I whispered, "Make it fast."

  The dead-eyed stare flickered for a moment to reveal a more familiar gleam in my friend's gaze. "No, god, no," he whimpered. Another shudder took over. "Unnngg!" He was gone again.

  I took a deep, steadying breath as he closed the distance to me. This waiting was excruciating. "Just do it!" I shouted at him.

  His fingers shot up to my throat to squeeze it...gently. Gray lowered himself forward until his quaking chest was against me. His forehead and nose pressed to mine. I felt the warmth of his tears splash down onto my cheeks.

  "I'm so sorry," he whispered.

  This was so much worse than if he'd just stabbed me as soon as he'd stood. "Just do it, please," I begged because I couldn't handle much more of this without falling to pieces.

  Gray's lips slammed down on mine for a bruising kiss that lasted only seconds. When he pulled back he said five unmistakable words, "I love you, band girl."

  I wasn't sure what shocked me more, what Gray had said or the debilitating pain of a dagger through the chest. Gray had stabbed me with the same force I'd seen him use on the other women. But I'd been wrong about that.

  I did notice. Holy fuck did I notice.

  The fact that he'd stabbed me through a lung instead of my heart didn't seem to make me feel any better considering I could barely breath despite my rapid gasps. At least if he'd hit me through the heart I'd have died quicker.

  Gray pulled the dagger out with a horrified look affixed to his handsome features and fell to his knees. He screamed one long, heartfelt noise. "Noooooooooooo!"

  My blood poured out of me at an alarming rate and even though I could feel my healing power furiously racing to make things better, I knew it wouldn't matter. If the wound didn't kill me, the demon that was about to appear would.

  Apparently Gray had grown a pair, finally. Now that he'd killed everyone in the circle (or nearly had, I'd be dead in a few minutes), he dragged himself toward Talise. The priestess's lover must have been distracted because he didn't shout for him to stay in the circle until Gray was nearly past the salt line.

  Another pained choke had a river of blood gushing out over my chest onto the ground. It must have been just the right amount needed because I felt the power in the circle snap taut seconds later. Every hair on my body stood on end. The space began pulsating with both energy and light. Each of the torches flared up like fountain fireworks before they were snuffed out with only tendrils of smoke remaining. The witches had gone quiet, perhaps in surprise.

  It wasn't for long. Talise's voice called out a single foreign phrase in the darkness. Absolutely nothing happened for three heartbeats.

  Then I heard roaring in my ears and felt a slight rumbling of the ground. I knew I was in for a shit storm of epic proportions. Even with the forewarning sounds I hadn't been prepared for what happened next.

  The circle exploded in a column of fire that must have been visible from space. I couldn't help but scream as much as my wounded lung would allow while everything was incinerated around me in the white-hot heat. My ears burst from the thundering sound of it as if a jet engine had fallen atop me. There was nothing for my eyes to
watch but the very flames of hell engulfing me. And then as suddenly as it had begun, everything went silent.

  I was at peace.

  There was only a calming, quiet blackness all around. Was this the afterlife? When the Diakonos of a Greek god died, did she go to Hades? I'd been hoping for the Elysian Fields. But that would be green, wouldn't it? Maybe I hadn't been heroic enough to pass there.

  My peace was ruined when my chest shook in a painful, bloody cough. I saw light again in the form of the pale blue glow from the full moon overhead reflecting against my body. Aside from the knife wound in my chest, my skin was whole and unblemished. Somehow I'd ended up in a naked ball in the middle of the sacred circle.

  I wasn't dead? How was that possible? How the hell wasn't I incinerated? Could Morrígan's Brand have protected me from that?

  "Kill her!" Talise shrieked somewhere in front of me.

  Ah hell. She was still alive. I'd have to take care of that now that I was unbound and only partially dead.

  The ground shook behind me with a mighty thud and then the symptom repeated. It wasn't until I heard something breathing from very close that I understood what the noise had been: footsteps. From the sound of it, that something had a nasal problem and monstrous nostrils.

  An uneven and rough object slid beneath my back. Moments later I dangled high in the air, facing a thing from out of a horror film. Worse, I was dangling from its hand.

  The gray skinned creature must have been fourteen feet tall with four spiraled horns protruding from its bald head. The horns only accounted for two of the fourteen feet. Behind its monstrous shoulders was a pair of leathery wings one might expect to find on a pterodactyl. It had a humanoid face complete with all of the major features. Only the nose was odd, a smashed blunt thing in which the nostrils were merely holes in the face. Despite the ugly nose, leathery wings and sharp horns, it was the large empty obsidian eyes that disturbed me most. When I looked into them I saw nothing reflected back but emptiness I could feel gnawing at something within me.