Main Menu

Front Page

News and Announcements
Ask the Elder
Administration
From the Associates
Night's Beat
Art Gallery

Articles of Interest
Short Story
Interview with a Vampire
Reviews and more
The Vampire's Vestibule
Polls

Letters to the Editor
Comments from the Website
Cartoon Corner
From the Staff
Advertising

Credits
Link To Us
Past Issues
The Vampire Church
The Darkfear Network

Guestbook


Have a Comment?
Name

Email

Your Comments

Contact

VC Magazine
VCMagazine_Staff@
yahoogroups.com


Magazine Staff

Damien Daville, Producer
LA Judge, Editor


Tell a Friend

Click HERE to tell a friend about the VC Magazine.

Top Site Listings

Vote for us in the





Soul Sacrifice

I awoke to the sensation of a thousand cold, wet, fat, writhing earthworms sliding across my skin. Pulling and pulsing, pinching and digging in to my flesh from head to toe. I wanted to scream, to cry out in utter disgust but did not dare lest I break the spell I had paid for so dearly. Besides hadn't the Old Crone warned me of such things the day I went to her for help?

My request was of no mundane matter and the spell she help me cast was no casual love charm or talisman, what I had asked for required deep old Magick for which consequences and repercussions could be dire. I had asked to find someone who could not be found, to heal that which could not be healed, to retrieve that which was lost beyond retrieval. The Crone in her wisdom had bade me not to follow through, but I in my great need refused to be swayed, and seeing this she agreed to help. She said that someone needed to close the gates of Hell if I did not return.

So it was she mixed her wares, a noxious paste of toad poison, cobra venom, bat shit and komodo saliva. She rendered it down through the filling of the moon then added honey the eve of the new moon. The night of total blackness when spells are trickiest if you misinterpret the old ways. The night of negatives, of reverse polarity. I had fasted of seven days, wore only natural fiber, touched no metals and slept only on Earth. I bathed in the heavy mineral laden waters of the Dead Sea and besmeared my flesh with eucalyptus oil for my presentation before the Crone.

She began the chant as soon as I broke the threshold, she opened a door in the protective ring and sealed it quickly behind. Invisible hands guided me a the stone platform encouraged me upon the pressed me down to lay flat on the cold, hard unforgiving surface. The glow of a hundred blue candles shone the madness in her eyes, the power and the strength of the Goddess. I closed my eyes and my mouth, and opened my mind and soul to the incantations and entities reverberating through the sealed chamber.

The Crone took up her blade, a Wicked thing, a black bladed thing that seemed to humm in her hand as she dipped its lethal edge into the black concoction waiting in ivory skullcap of a bastard Priest. At the first touch of the blade chill cold filled my bones and a rush of frosty breath escaped my lips. My muscles went rigoured as the pain rolled through me, the toxins stripping my nerves and firing my synapses in agony as the autonomic powers of my mind failed, and failed, and failed.

So now, I awake to the worms. Very few of the candles burn and despite this I can see very well. The room is death cold but I hardly notice as my skin is on fire, and my mind burns hotter yet. I feel strong, I feel purposeful, I feel as a hound feels when on scent. Allowing the drive to push me I, sniff the air, turn, and bound of the platform and land inches from a Mirror. It is eight foot tall and five foot wide, the border is a mass of surging writhing things that don’t remain still enough to get a decent look at. Their quivering doesn't dissuade me and I feel a surge of satisfaction as I know that this could be the only path from here. The path to the things below.

My reflection reveals a myriad of patterns, so much like the henna with which middle eastern women stain their olive skin. The designs here do not bode happiness but death, disillusionment, and suffering. Like the Mirror frame they move, swell, and twist never staying in one place or form at a time and as I approach the Glass they become more volatile. They burn and eat into my skin until almost unbearable, almost. I touch the smooth surface and as I do my tissues peel away, I might have drawn away at this point had I the chance. I might have drawn away except that I found myself siphoned though that great gateway to Hell and found I had absolutely no recourse, the deal was done, the blood spilt, the bread broke.

I look back and see a husk of myself lying on the floor in front of the Mirror, white skinned and blue lipped with nary a breath left to give to the world. No matter I am not for myself anymore I am only for him, this I decided long ago. I move away into the backward world of the Mirror and a moonless night where all is reverse, where EVIL is to LIVE and to LIVE is to be EVIL. I am but a writhing mass of incantation and scribe looking for a place to light so my purpose may be fulfilled.

My love, my life , my soul, how else to describe him? You want a physical description? That is harder than you may think. He is a fade a shadow a ghost. His mortal self can move and change to suit his needs. I can tell you that he is six foot three, dark and deadly. I can tell you that his voice is the sound of glass ground into asphalt and that if you hear it in the dead of night most assuredly it will be the last thing that you will ever hear. I can tell you that his eyes will take you to the depths of hell and if he sees fit to leave you living those eyes will have punched a hole in your mind that never allows for a restful night of sleep for the rest of your pathetic existence. Oh yes I love him. He is not without suffering and he draws himself away from this plane of existence. So it is that I sacrifice everything to come to him, come to him below to remain below if need be.

I move silently through the inky darkness of this place and not without some distress. The air here is thick and seems to wrinkle and fold away from me as i walk, it clings and drags at my form as a reluctant lover might linger before a long and dreaded separation. It fills the spaces between the runes and make me feel almost solid again, lending an odd semblance of comfort as I search this dreadful place. As I become more accustomed to the texture of this place I come to understand that I am not alone in my wanderings. there are things here that cling to the walls, slither on the floor and fumble in the darker corners of the corridors. Tendrils of blackness snake out and wrap around my ankles and legs as if to trip me up, how disappointed it must be when the runes slip right on by allowing no purchase. The blackness is forever and as time has no place here I could not tell you how long I meandered the paths, tiny silver traces on the ground ahead. It is quite possible that I was moving in circles as nothing changed until, until I gleaned an amber glow that seemed to pull at my senses. I pulsed, and the incantations began a throbbing that excited me beyond belief. I could not tell how far or close the source was as there were no land marks to judge be it didn't matter really it was my destination and I would spend eternity tracking it down if that is what it took to complete my chosen task.

As I approach the runes swell, so much so that they begin to push against each out. They slide and roll against themselves with increasing fervor. I spare a moment to look down and marvel at their countenance. I look almost to be standing in the flesh and I am glowing throwing back the amber light I sought. Closer now the light in the corridor and my own merge and as I step through the gap in the pilings that is serving as a door I feel myself combust. White light bursts through the spaces between the swollen runes and bath the walls of the room in a soft glow. My light rivals with the candle glow already present as I seek the center of the room.

I cast my eyes about and see that I am in the room of the dead. Skulls are imbedded into the mud walls. Human skulls, animal skulls and skulls of the Others are all gathered here in an amphitheater of ancestors. They whisper, there is a current that passes here that flows over the skulls in such a way that gives them their voices yet. As the gale moves across the holes where eyes once were, and knars and ears once were it gives cause to whispers, hollow eerie sounding vestiges of speech and prose. Sometimes they talk in harmony and sometimes in discord and in times of heated dispute they howl and howl and howl.

The dirt floor is so packed and hard that even my passage sounds like dried corn husks rubbing together. At this there is a stirring, in the center of the room there sits a man. The stool he sits upon is so low that his long black coat spreads out around him in a great circle giving the appearance that he is emerging out of the soil itself. He sits with one knee nearly touching the ground, foot poised behind him resting on its ball. The other is brought up and he rests his elbow upon it and with this hand he leans his head heavily, his raven's black hair falling forward over his facial features. I do not need to see his face to know that he is the one I seek, I have long memorized the strong line of he shoulders the lank of his back, the smooth continuity of his limbs. Still he has changed. The time below, the time in this room, has taken its toll on him. He is leaner and as I move to gaze upon his face I see a gauntness that was not there the last time we has trespassed one another. His eyes are fixed and staring and do not focus on me as I move into his line of sight. I am not fooled, he knows I'm here, I feel his mind shift within its walls. His brow is furrowed and he has the look of someone trying to catch a whisper on the wind, indeed, that is what he has been doing all this time away. Listening to voices. I do not inquire what is in his mind or what the Skulls have been telling him. My intent is to transfer Power, to sacrifice my Life-force so that he may be whole again that, that , is my only desire and purpose.

He rises in one smooth motion, even in his current condition he is magnificent, Fluid darkness married with the grace of a Ninja and the raw strength of a Beast. The runes throb, even in this state I desire him, love him, and am desperate for him . So moved am I that I reach to touch his face. Quick as a striking snake he grasps my wrist, something that I did not think was possible, I would have gasped had I the facility. He peered hard into my undulating features with such intensity that I moved to turn away. He reached up and grabbed my jaw , turned my face to him and as he did I saw his eyes soften. He gazed deep into the only recognizable part of my former self and I saw recognition and realization clear the cold mists that had previously clouded his _expression. Moisture swelled there and a single perfect tear breached his eye and slid silently down his sharp cheek. Again I reached to touch his face, he closed his eyes and i retrieved the glistening jewel as is slid closer to his chin. I put the tear against the runes where my mouth once was, a gesture only, or so I thought. At the touch of the salty tribute my face grew warm then hot and I found I had a face, a nose, a mouth. The scribe had pulled together so that my former face was bared to the one I had loved all of my existence. He opened his eyes and found he was staring down at the face of the only one who would dare the awful darkness for him the only one who would transverse Hell to try and feel him, heal him. He smiled down at me, a bittersweet thing, but something I could have only dreamed of seeing again before my task was done. He had both of my wrists now pulling them down and close to him, he leaned in and our lips touched..................

The runes leapt against each other cascading over one another. they flowed up his arms from my hands and across the floor and around his legs. I felt a great surging as the incantations disarticulated from my entity and engaged themselves first upon then into my love. He roared as I bit into him with thousands and thousands of tiny teeth digging into his flesh, a flame with all of the passion and pain that comes with such a sacrifice. I do not stop at his skin I push and chew my way through his tissues into his viscera and mind. Burning and etching the runes as i go. Each one forever to be a scar, a testimony of my gift. Every inch covered with the old Magick. I reach his heart and lay my soul against it, caress it, binding myself here forever, and ever and ever. The last thing I am conscience of is a moan from my beloved's lips, a croak, as his vocal cords tight from disuse issue

" I love you, Laura".

I have not the properties or the sense of existence to reply back but I hope that my actions have spoken where words have failed me.

The Crone sits cross-legged on the floor before the great mirror. It has been a full moon cycle since the stubborn little Bitch came to see her about the retrieval spell. She was against the casting from the very first but something about the woman persuaded her to do as she bid. Besides her money was good and it was not likely that it would work anyway. All of the others had either gone crazy or had died from the concoction she cut into their flesh, either way she had always come out ahead. So it was she was astonished and a little terrified to find evidence that the spell had actually worked the next afternoon. When she had Opened the chamber she had found a pool of tarry substance in front of the Mirror and Impressions of the very runes she had cut into the woman on the Glass. As much as she feared touching the Glass when she tried to clean the markings off they skittered and refracted around and the frame seemed to mock her efforts. So her she sat day after day watching the Gate, fearful of what may come through to this plane. She should have left, she should have smashed the Damn thing, but instead she sat with the black blade lain cross her lap drinking a bottle of whisky the woman had left in her room, transfixed.

She promised herself she would leave on the marrow.... regardless.

As he moved through the darkness he noted a low glow and made his way toward it. It appeared as a picture hanging suspended in space of the black. He spied an old woman sitting cross-legged on the floor, eyes half-mast with a great black blade across her lap. Something stirred in his breast and it became his desire to own that blade.

The Crone sensed movement on the other side of the room, no, not the room! The other side of the Mirror! The man, if it truly was a man and not a Demon, flowed from the Mirrors surface. The Glass rippled with his passing, the tiny bright runes rushed to gather on his skin like tiny droplets of mercury joining a larger pool of the same stuff. They ran over his form then gathered filled his eyes until they glowed unnatural. A shout, a curse, almost made her lips but he was upon her too quickly.

Tiny shocks hit his skin as the little worms of light found their way to his skin, then his eyes began to fill with extrapolated sight, he saw the Crone draw the blade, saw her open her mouth. Before she could incant and trap him here he grabbed the knife from her hand and plunged it into her throat. The blade sang its bloodlust and twisted itself from his hand to gain deeper purchase in her neck on it own accord. The blood splashed back upon him and his skin began to glow, the runes shone phosphorescent against the night. They opened and moved as tiny mouths might to drink up the life flow of the Crone. He bent cleaned the Blade, picked up the bottle of vodka and took a long pull. Turning to see the label he laughed, Grey goose, now they could all sate their thirsts.

Sabriel Barclay

For Questions, please contact the VC Magazine Staff at VCMagazine_Staff@yahoogroups.com

©1997-2004 Vampire Church -- All rights reserved. No use or reproduction without written consent.