by Khurt Khave
Strange Communion Allen Griffin
“Stop it, stop saying that,” Monica said into her cellphone, her voice rising slightly. Carlos sat in a plush chair across the rather spacious hotel room. He watched her intently, let the seconds drag out while waiting for her to speak again, but as her frustration becomes more apparent, a look of amusement seemed to flash across his features and then disappear again. Monica wondered if she imagined things.
“There are no kids, I don't know why you keep saying that.” Carlos chuckled and Monica couldn't help but to smile back at him.
She looked away and the smile disappeared from her lips.
“Look Greg, I'm hanging up now. You need to take some time to calm
down. If you think about it, you'll see this isn't the big deal you're making it
out to be.” Greg's voice could still be heard as she hit the red bar on the
phone's screen and hung up on him.
“There,” Monica said, “it's done.”
“You think it's that easy?” Carlos countered. “Do you think he'll really leave
you alone?”
Monica didn't reply. They both knew Greg wouldn't go away that
easy. She pushed down her first twinge of guilt. She should've never married
Greg. He just came along at the right time, a time when she'd grown tired and
frustrated with polyamory and all the accompanying drama. Although,
without her marriage to sacrifice, would they have been convinced of the
sincerity of her intentions?
Carlos held up a crystal ball prism hung around his neck and looked at
Monica through it. She imagined herself split into several identical pieces, her
facets falling to the floor and scurrying into the corners. He then stood and
danced with himself across the carpet to the room's only table. He opened her
purse and rooted around inside. He pulled out her wallet and thumbed
through her credit cards, picked her license out and slipped it into his pocket. She watched him closely and did not protest. He looked up at her and
held out his hand. She laid her cellphone on his palm and he slipped that in
his other pocket.
“What is your name?”
He knows her name.
“What is your name?” he repeated.
“Alhazred.”
“Not funny.”
“Monica Blackwood.”
“That's not what your identification says.” He smiled. He must've
enjoyed this.
“It's my maiden name. I didn't think that would be a surprise to
either of us.”
She expected this kind of treatment. These people weren't the drugaddled squatter punk cultists she knew in Chicago. These were the elites, the
true sorcerers and psychonauts. She'd waited her whole life for this, she could
deal with whatever hoops she needed to jump through.
Carlos pulled the phone and license out of his pockets again and held
them up, “You'll get these back later.” He smiled and she smiled back. “Relax,
you have some time before you need to get ready for our little soirée this
evening.”
He put the items back in his pockets and spun on his heel and walked
to the door, letting himself out. Monica felt relieved to be alone, needing time
to process what had just happened.
“I'm single now,” she thought to herself. That never really mattered.
Her marriage to Greg had been open, even if she never bothered to inform him
of that fact. She had wanted to protect him, the way a mother kept
objectionable material from a small child.
The door closed behind Carlos, and Monica took a moment to give the
room a second look. The walls and the bedspread matched in their black and
white checkerboard patterns while the floor consisted of a deep-red shag
carpet. There was no television or phone in the room. The furniture appeared
expensive, handcrafted dark woods, but Monica really knew nothing of such
things. Despite being a world class surgeon with plenty of money, Greg
possessed no eye or concern for style and admonished Monica anytime she
wanted to make their place nicer.
She stepped to the window, a small round portal framed in steel, like
something from a prison but more stylish. She looked out and was sure the
hotel sat somewhere on the edge of the Inner Belt district in Somerville. Any
car ride through Boston proved disorienting, but she still felt she knew her
way around from when she'd lived here a little over a decade ago. She had
been back several times too, covering various experimental music festivals as a
freelance journalist.
Monica felt a tear drop down her cheek and then another, one on
each side of her face.
“Really?” she admonished herself. She sat down on the edge of the
bed and a few more tears fell before she regained her composure. She told
herself Greg offered her nothing. He didn't respect her journalism, thought
the music she was passionate about was stupid, and he didn't even begin to
grasp her spiritual pursuits, barely recognizing they existed at all. The long
hours he put in at the hospital allowed her to compartmentalize everything,
he still considered her the doting wife of his dreams.
Monica contemplated the idea that if she stayed in the room until
they were ready for her, she would certainly dwell too much on the demise of
her marriage, but she didn't know if she was allowed to go anywhere else. She went to the door and gave the handle a tentative turn. It opened to an empty
hallway.
The building seemed well-maintained but deserted when Carlos had
brought her in. No one worked the front desk and she saw no other guests.
Hell, there wasn't even a sign over the entrance. He signed her in himself and
walked her through the hotel. She admired the ornate décor but couldn't help
to wonder where the others were. The scheduled ceremonies were to be quite
large.
Now, she wandered the halls and still didn't see another living soul.
She took the elevator down to the lobby and found the front doors unlocked as
well. She stepped out onto the street and began walking. She made her way
past several warehouses to the train tracks and turned around and went back
the way she came.
The Inner Belt was quiet, but not completely deserted, and she
mourned the workers forced to work on the weekend. She tried to clear her
mind, and let her anxiety go. Her meditation practice usually served her well
in this regard, but the call to Greg and his reaction put her to the test. “Your marriage has to go,” Brandon had told her almost a year ago.
She trusted him, had always trusted him. They met in college at a punk show,
held in some basement off-campus. She wanted him, but he managed to rebuff
her without making it seem that he was doing it. A friendship blossomed
instead.
Much of that friendship centered around their shared interest in the
occult. At the time, she was exploring Enochian magick with a group on
campus while he was just beginning to work through Peter Carroll's Chaos
Magick system. She considered herself more developed but within a year, he'd
found a group and his evolution accelerated rapidly. Within months, he bid
her farewell, only saying that he was undertaking a 'Black Pilgrimage.' She
didn't hear from him for years.
When Brandon did cont
act her again, he seemed a changed man. He
called her out of the blue, somehow getting her cell number without
explanation and inviting her to coffee. She counter-offered dinner with her
and her new husband Greg but he politely declined, saying he wanted their
first meeting to be one-on-one so they could catch up.
“How are your studies going?” Brandon asked as soon as they sat down. They'd barely exchanged perfunctory hugs and gotten their coffees before he started in.
“Well, good I guess,” she muttered in reply, slightly embarrassed. She'd never given up, meditated daily performed rituals here and there. Greg purposely turned a blind eye to it, and he was gone a lot anyway. Still, she didn't feel like she'd progressed any in years, never experienced anything which couldn't be written off as self-delusion.
“You're goddess, you have the potential to be a great sorceress,” he said, too loudly. She looked around to see if anyone was listening. He'd changed so much.
Not sure how to respond she just smiled awkwardly, “What about you?”
“I've been around the world, seen things.” He leaned in now, somehow, a sense of decorum suddenly important to him. “I have cleaned the feet of a chaos tantrika for a month – with my tongue.” He leaned back, triumphant.
“So you must know all the secrets now,” she replied, but she felt ashamed. Her only defense seemed to be dismissive. Maybe he'd lost his mind, but for whatever reason, she didn't think that was it.
“No one can know all the secrets.” Those words hooked in her mind and she would hear them in her head for a long time to come. Most get into these things longing for power, but that was a fool's errand. Monica wanted to know the unknowable, but to also to have a vast unknowable always left to explore.
“Is your husband,” Brandon paused, “does he share your passion?”
Monica shook her head.
“You must cut him loose.”
“I'm married,” she shot back with more vigor. “Just because we don't share a hobby. . .”
“A hobby?” Brandon stood as if to leave. “You know this is no hobby. You have my number. If you want to quit this charade, call me.” He turned and left with no goodbye. His coffee remained on the table untouched.
Monica returned to the hotel but didn't go back inside. She leaned against the wall and wished she was still a smoker. If she had a cigarette, she'd light it up in a heartbeat. Apparently, she was only a non-smoker due to a lack of availability.
She hadn't told Brandon that day that she was pregnant, and it wouldn't have mattered because she miscarried two days later. Something broke inside her. A road split into two forks, and only one led toward Greg and having a family. She accepted her fate, assumed she had no say in the matter.
And she called Brandon the following week. Part of her wanted to accuse him of having something to do with what happened, but she knew that was ridiculous. Instead, she asked him to help her get her occult practice back on track. He said he'd met with her for a reason, that he knew despite her recent neglect of her occult practice, he knew she had great potential.
Brandon didn't meet with her again. Instead, he told her where to find the coven of squatter punks who lurked in the neighborhoods around the Albion House, which still hosted basement shows on a weekly basis. She embraced the new opportunity, and began to admit to herself she was relieved she'd miscarried. Within six months, everything changed.
“Perhaps you should go get ready.”
Monica jumped. Carlos leaned against the wall next to her. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you,” he laughed, too loud for what
the situation warranted but she joined in and soon she giggled hysterically.
When she caught her breath, she responded simply, “you're right,” and headed back inside. She only questioned her own reaction briefly but let it go without too much examination. She was feeling much better.
Back in the room, Monica seemed to ride the high of the laughing fit for several minutes while she changed. She got out of her jeans and sweater and began to do her hair and make-up. She laid out her black evening dress and tried to remember the last time she'd dressed so elegantly. She hadn't had a romantic evening with her husband in quite a while.
Monica wanted to check her phone out of habit but remembered Carlos had taken it along with her purse. How many calls from Greg went to voicemail? What was he going through? For all his professional success, the man was an emotional child and she hated thinking about what kind of wreck he might be at this very moment.
A short time later, Carlos knocked on her door. She let him and he seemed to take stock of her. She didn't mind being assessed for viability as an initiate, but if he was merely deciding if he wanted to fuck her, well he could fuck right off.
“Do I get my phone and purse back yet?” she pushed.
“Tomorrow, dear. What's the rush?”
“No rush.” She headed toward the hall, feeling his eyes look her over.
She felt beautiful and latched on to the feeling to push down her nervousness. She winced though at the thought of being confident only because she looked good. She'd made it this far for a reason.
They made their way through the halls. This time, the hotel did not seem as empty. She caught brief glimpses of others, turning corners and dropping out of sight before she got a good look at them. Small echoes of laughter and hushed conversation seemed to seep through the walls.
They made their way down toward the lobby and then veered off, taking a large wood-railed spiral staircase down several more floors. Monica's feet already ached from her heels, and she anticipated the bottom of the stairs.
The place exerted a disorienting effect. When they finally reached the grand ballroom, Monica couldn't wrap her mind around the layout. She'd never been in a structure which seemed that deep below street level. She assumed she miscalculated the depth, but wasn't sure how it happened.
They stood on the precipice of entering, a set of immense wooden doors waiting to swallow them up. Monica stopped for a moment, suddenly overcome with the urge to ask to check her phone just once before the evening got underway.
She turned to Carlos, about to speak. He already had his hand up and finger extended, slowly moving it from side to side. She felt admonished and gave up asking before speaking.
The doors opened for them, Brandon held one open and another man, whom she didn't recognize, held the other. They stepped in and the doors swung shut behind them. Monica turned quickly and embraced Brandon, so happy to see a familiar face.
“Monica,” he embraced her hard and when she released and stepped back, he grinned wide at her. His expression was relaxed and reminded her of the Brandon she'd always known, rather than the stern person she met at the coffee shop months ago. “This is Mr. Long,” Brandon said, introducing the other man who held open the door. “You'll get to know everyone soon enough.”
She looked across the vast room. There must've been at least fifty people inside, all dressed to the nines and chattering away in small groups. “Charmed,” Mr. Long said, taking her hand and kissing it. “I've heard good things about your work with the Rogers Park coven. I particularly enjoyed your Chinese Lantern ritual.”
Monica had heard from Robin and Staple, two of the higher ranking initiates of the Rogers Park coven, that the Lantern ritual she'd devised was well received in the higher echelons. She thought it may have played a role in her being here now.
Over the course of six months, they must've performed the ritual at least ten times, each time with better results. They would construct a flying congregation of globes of light using Chinese Lanterns and release them from rooftops to fly over the city. They chanted dedications to both Yog-Sothoth and Shub-Niggurath in an attempt to summon Ishnigarrab to her lover. This often led to the general populace reporting UFO sightings. On the best nights, Monica and the others would see black clouds suddenly descending over the neighborhood and hear the clop of cloven hooves on the roo
ftops. They heard when the authorities recovered the lanterns, they would be filled with throngs of spiders.
A beautiful woman swung by their little group and sucked Mr. Long into her passing orbit before he could say more. Brandon and Carlos also quickly merged into the crowd and before long, Monica stood alone. She felt singled out without anyone to talk to. She wanted her phone now more than ever, not to check on Greg, but rather to make herself look busy. She never realized how often she used the small device as armor, something to use to make herself look important when no one was paying attention to her.
Brandon reappeared after a couple of minutes. He held a glass of champagne in each hand and offered her one of them.
“I felt like a fish out of water my first time too,” he said to her.
“That obvious?” She drained her glass in two quick gulps and wished she hadn't. Brandon eyed the empty glass and chuckled. She glanced around to see if anyone else had noticed.
“No more for you.”
“Why not? You don't think I can handle my alcohol?”
“I'm sure you could drink me under the table, but there are more interesting things on the way.”
Monica had very little time to consider what he meant before the lights in the room dimmed and a strange droning music began to bubble up from beneath the group chatter. Conversation slowly began to die off and robed figures began to slip through the crowd collecting everyone's glasses, empty or not.
The crowd began to take shape, forming two lines facing the front of the room. Brandon gently grabbed Monica by the hand and guided her into one of the lines. A heartbeat paced drum began to pound beneath the drone. The congregants paced slowly in two single-file lines toward the front. Monica was reminded of her Catholic upbringing, so distant now, never as much as in that very moment.
And as she got closer, she could see that everyone was indeed ingesting some sort of Eucharist, except in place of a wafer of unleavened bread, the clergy was placing what looked to be small chunks of oddly colored meat on the supplicant's tongue. The morsel looked disgusting.
