The glug-glug of wine being poured from a bottle. Then a scraping sound. Stirring--metal on metal. A gulp. The burned blood scraped and stirred into wine, then drunk. I shivered. Jeremy's arms tightened around me.
"Spirit of Asmodai!" Botnick cried. "I am yours to command."
Chanting from the group, rising in pitch. Then a snarl from Botnick.
"You," he said, his voice guttural, the word almost indistinguishable. "Prepare her."
The clink of chains, the click of locks, the slap of leather. Then it began.
The snap of the whip, the muffled cries of the gagged woman, smell of blood so strong even I could recognize it. And, worst of all, the shouts of the others, egging Botnick on, by turns ecstatic and enraged, lust perverted into bloodlust.
Hearing them earlier, chatting about broken appliances and children, I'd relaxed. Just repressed suburbanites playing S & M games. But now it was chillingly real. I could picture that woman, bloodied and writhing in pain--real pain, n
ot the put-on horror of that woman on the magazine cover.
My stomach twisted, bile rising. I started to squirm, but Jeremy's hands went to my hips, holding me still. I flushed.
When I swallowed hard, Jeremy raised his hand to cover my left ear and leaned into my right, whispering, telling me to ignore it, to block it, but as hard as I tried, I couldn't. It was like upstairs, trying not to imagine accidentally reanimating those parts.
I thought of the ghost, tried concentrating on that pathetic spook getting his voyeuristic jollies, but then I heard his words again, about them finding me--a real prisoner--and my heart started hammering.
While that woman was genuinely in pain, presumably no one had coerced her into coming here. She'd submitted without protest. Maybe, in sexual dominance, that was the goal--willing submission. Or maybe it was just the closest facsimile they could get to what they really yearned for--an unwilling victim. If they found me here...
I tried not to think about it, but of course I did. I pictured that whip with the lead ends, that horrible mask, smelled the metal going around my head, felt the cold of it against my skin, the engulfing blackness, stealing my light, my breath, my screams...
"Shhh," Jeremy whispered, pulling me against him, his lips at my ear. "Block it out."
I tried. Really tried. Then I saw those jars, those bags, envisioned them not as magical aids stolen from graves and morgues--like my necromantic artifacts--but as body disposal, like hunters making use of every piece--
"They can't find you." Jeremy rubbed goose bumps from my arms. "I won't let them. You know that."
I nodded, but kept hearing fresh noises from beyond, grunts and whimpers, the sounds ping-ponging in my skull, refusing to leave, throwing up images...
I started to squirm again, then caught myself and stopped.
"Here," Jeremy whispered. He shifted me forward and took something from his jacket. His notepad, the pen stored in the coils. He flipped open the pad, past a few pages of notes to a clean sheet. He drew four lines--two horizontal and two vertical. Then he shifted me again, until I was leaning back against him, head in the dip of his shoulder as his chin rested on my shoulder, looking over it. He made an X in the center square and handed me the pen.
I stared at the paper, the layout he'd drawn so familiar I should recognize it, but my brain refused to work, still filled with unwanted sounds and unwelcome images. I blinked...and gave a silent laugh, seeing a tic-tac-toe board. I put on my O.
Every kid over the age of eight knows the trick to the game, but I was so preoccupied it took me a few rounds to remember how to win.
Once I remembered that, of course, the game lost its challenge. So he switched to hangman, starting with a four-letter animal. Got that one pretty quickly, and he doodled a wolf for me, then drew out a fresh game. On it went, with Jeremy challenging me with ever-tougher puzzles and making me smile with his doodles and intricate hanged-man sketches.
The sounds beyond seemed to fade into background noise, like an annoying neighbor playing his porn video with the volume jacked. My world narrowed to this little cubby, to the warmth of Jeremy's arms, stretched around me as he wrote, to the whispers that tickled my ear and vibrated down my back, to the scratch of his cheek against mine as he shifted, to the spicy smell of his breath--tacos or burritos grabbed on the run. I leaned against him, solved his puzzles and laughed at his drawings.
Who else would do this for me, play hangman while an S & M cult was in full swing only yards away? Who else would know it was exactly what I needed--a distraction so innocent, so innocuous, that it couldn't help but make what was happening out there seem equally harmless?
I didn't even notice that the ritual had ended, I was so engrossed in solving a hangman puzzle. The Disciples' conversation was sparse and subdued now, no one in the mood to discuss dishwashers. Chains rattled as they were unclipped. A hoarse voice asked for the wine. Chalices clinked as someone gathered them.
I went on to the next puzzle: a nine-letter American city. Minutes later, the basement light clicked off and the puzzle went dark.
The voices and footsteps receded as Jeremy put away his notepad. I slid from his lap, found the flashlight and turned it on, then picked up my shoes and slung them over my arm.
I whispered, "Do we wait for them to leave or try to find that alternate exit?"
"The latter is probably safer. Do you remember where you left off searching?"
I nodded, and slipped from the box maze. As I crossed the main area, I looked around it, ignoring the flecks of blood on the walls as I searched for the ghost. As unpleasant as he was, I might be able to blackmail him into telling us where to find that door, by threatening to "report" him. But there was no sign of the ghost. Typical. Always there when you don't need them, never when you do.