“What will we need?”
“We must wait until the Dark Moon, the evening before the moon transitions into her New Phase,” he explained. “We will need the blood of our foes, dozens of crow feathers, and as many red and black stained candles as can be found. We can call her here, right in this bath, for water arouses her interest.”
“You remember this alchemy from your childhood?” Lucius asked, mystified.
“These rituals, these ideas...they live deep in my mind, as if I have always known them. They never disappeared with my transformation, but remain dormant until I have use for them.”
Lucius clapped his hands together, the sharp crack echoing throughout the steamy chamber. “Then it is settled! We shall have your ritual, Davius. I do hope it works. I have not seen the Dark Goddess in many eons. I look forward to her presence once more.”
“He wakes.”
“He is no longer human.”
“Disgusting.”
“Stop, he will hear you.”
Davius opened his eyes to a collection of images distorted by blurred vision. He blinked, realizing his mind was just as muddled, a fog of disarray preventing his senses from grasping his surroundings. A dream? He hadn’t dreamt since his transformation.
He suddenly realized both his arms and legs were shackled to a post erected at the crux of a giant wheel. Furious, he pulled at his bounds, but his strength, supernatural as it was, failed him. As throes of frustration burned the cobwebs from his mind, his eyes adjusted, and he was able to make out four creatures surrounding him in each direction.
“You are in the astral plane, an intermediary space between the realms,” a luminescent man with white wings explained to him, a trace smile at his lips. He held a book lovingly in his arms. The word angel came to mind, Davius recognizing the term from his conversation with Libraean.
“We brought you here to help you,” an enlarged eagle to the right of the man continued, staring at him earnestly with warm ochre eyes.
“To offer you the tools you will need for your spell,” chimed in a lion to the right of him, his own set of wings stretching out behind his flaxen mane.
“For you invoking the Morrigan’s aid is but a part of a greater plan,” finished a similarly bewinged bull who brought the circle of extraordinary beings to a close.
An incandescent blue surrounded them all, interrupted only by swirling pearls of clouds, as if they all hovered weightlessly in the zenith of the sky. The wheel at his feet was a smooth, sparkling amethyst reminiscent of polished marble, gilded lettering corrupting its immaculate surface. Davius was unable to decipher the symbols, the language foreign to him. He watched as one of the ideograms began to move, coiling itself into the shape of a snake, its thin body rippling as it made its way to where he stood.
“You do not need to understand the words. You are a monster, anyway,” it hissed, a tiny bifurcated tongue flitting out towards him with derisive disdain.
“Enough, Typhon,” sighed another creature who also seemed to materialize from the symbols etched on the wheel. It moved towards Davius, a box grasped between his hands.
Davius had never seen a creature like it before, presenting the muscular body of a man but with the head of a coal black jackal. Radiant jewels lay on his chest and gold wrapped his arms. “I am Anubis,” he offered, holding up the box for Davius to see. “Within this chest holds the power that you were promised, one of the six elements required to manifest ultimate power on the earthly realm. Your father has already endowed you with four. Since you have heeded the advice of the Libraean, we have decided to honor your father’s dying request and offer you this.”
Davius observed the same glowing script scrawled across the box as the floor, this one in a shape resembling a cross but with a loop replacing the top arm.
“I know we are not the gods you are accustomed to, but our motives are the same,” the mouth on the jackal face stretched upwards into a grin, a gesture intended to be friendly, but giving the opposite effect as it revealed acute carnivorous teeth.
“Do not be afraid,” the shimmering man said in his soft voice.
“We all work together here,” the lion assured him.
Davius was too dumbfounded to struggle as Anubis edged closer. The snake Typhon hissed his displeasure as the jackal man before him slowly pulled the jaws of the box apart. It opened with a wail, black smoke escaping from its prison with gusto before assaulting the creature before it. Davius choked as the piceous vapor forced its way into his lungs through his mouth and nose, smothering him with its invasion. He was powerless to stop it, succumbing to its assault as the creatures and the wheel vanished, and darkness enveloped every one of his senses.
He awakened to see Lucius standing above him, watching him intently. He looked past where he stood, the length of the surrounding candles revealing that it was well into the evening. Davius threw off his silk blankets, an unusual grogginess disorienting him as he tried to move.
“You still dream?” Lucius asked curiously, stepping backwards to offer him room to pull himself together. It appeared that he had been perched over him for quite some time, like a patient bird of prey, his goblet in one hand and a slender candle in the other, dripping wax in tiny pools on the floor. Davius noticed he was oddly well-groomed for the late hour, his curls neatly combed and fastened at the nape of his neck, his rich violet robes pressed and clean, accented by silver hardware.
“I have not dreamt until this night,” Davius replied, the events of his strange experience slowly trickling back into his consciousness.
“Interesting.” Lucius handed him the goblet that was in his hand, which he gulped down hastily, grateful it still had its warmth. “Are you ready for our ritual?” he asked when he finished, an air of excitement buzzing around him.
Suddenly, Davius remembered their plan. It was the night of the dark moon. He sprang up from his bed, hastily draping around his frame the toga he’d laid out prior. He shook the persistent fogginess from his mind.
“I prepared everything as you instructed,” Lucius informed him as the two hurried down the hall. The house was fully illuminated in preparation for their guest, revenant slaves standing idly in each hallway, awaiting instruction. Two had been situated at the entryway to the bathhouse, and they tugged open the giant door at the sight of their approach.
The room scintillated from the flames of dozens of black and crimson candles, set in standing candelabras that surrounded the length of the onyx pool. The flickering light animated the twin Pan fountains, whose playful smiles stretched into manic grins, their marble eyes glittering in wicked delight.
Davius caught the scent of human blood, mixing pleasantly with the aroma of flowering jasmine. It drew his eyes to the forefront of the chamber where an altar had been stationed. It was draped with red fabric and crow feathers, with a silver bowl, knife, and cup resting upon it, patiently awaiting use. Tied to a post near the altar was a trembling man, stripped completely nude.
His terrified eyes caught theirs and his body instinctively recoiled. Davius recognized him immediately. It was one of Nirus’s soldiers, the exact one who had stabbed Gaia, years ago. Amazed, he spun around to look at Lucius. “However, did you find him?”
“I petitioned a daemon,” he explained, proud of his guile. “Although their guise is convincing, daemons are not corporeal beings; they can dissolve from one place and appear in another. It makes them the perfect tool for transporting desired items.”
“Good to know,” Davius commented. He laid an affectionate hand on Lucius’s narrow shoulder. “Thank you, my friend.”
“Please—please let me go,” the man interrupted them. “I did not mean to kill all those girls—they were only slaves—I would never hurt a real woman.”
“We should silence him,” Davius suggested.
Lucius snapped his bony fingers together and one of the slaves moved to gag their cowering captive. He turned back to Davius. “Shall we begin?”
