Ekron

Saturn - 4

In her workroom, Maria spent most of her private time looking for a way to escape from the Macsks, be safe from Anubis and beyond the reach of Szörnyet. The only possible destiny for her was Nineveh, the city carved in Titan, a Saturnian moon; assuming the outer planets of the Solar System had also traveled across the stars and time but were in an unknown location. It was not a whimsical assumption, as to her knowledge, Agatha of Halych was taken to Nineveh at the end of the last war. So, if Agatha's spirit was taken to Dobruj after her death, it means that her soul was taken from Nineveh.

Maria focused her effort on traditional esoteric practices, concentrating her thoughts in Saturn and the Empress as she had no possible technological aid to link with Nineveh. She used tarot cards and a Ouija to catch possible communication from there. She had no response for nineteen years, after that time, a spirit finally reached to her, but it seemed neither entirely human nor a Crom. She proceeded with caution, having the sensation that it was of chimeric nature, but it was neither Baphomet nor Heidrun. After several months of playing card games with the spirit and spending hours to acquire minimum information with the Ouija, she decided to do a riskier move.

With her blood, Maria drew a circle on the floor, and two eight-pointed stars inside it, Nineveh's symbol, and asked the spirit to do the same with only one star, Kish's symbol. She put four lit candles on the circle and sat on the center of it. She said short verses in Qatrian and closed her eyes, visualizing the spirit she was trying to contact inside the circle. She could see the circle as it was made of flames, and a tenuous image of an old woman appeared, barely visible. She was sitting on the floor in front of her, dressed in rags and emaciated, as if she would have been starving for some time.

"What is your name?"

"Dolora, what is yours?"

"Maria. Are you in Nineveh?"

"Not in the city, outcasted. After the Night of Black Tears."

"But you are in Titan?"

"What is Titan?"

"Are you near Nineveh?"

"Underneath it. We need your help, I called for a spirit that can help me resuscitate someone, and you answered. Can you help us?"

"It depends, who do you want to resuscitate?"

"The Virgin of Halych."

Maria felt a shiver down her spine.

"I can't help you," and she disposed to open her eyes, but Dolora reached out to her and grabbed her hands; her touch was cold and metallic, like a bundle of cables.

"Don't leave me, please, we are dying. We have a rightful Empress, one that will not reject us, but we need the Virgin to defeat the Corpse."

Then Maria saw her clearly, her hair was white with blue and green shades, it moved by itself almost imperceptibly, her eyes were human, her skin was transparent, her veins were visible and had metallic tones.

"You don't understand," replied Maria, "Agatha of Halych is not the same anymore, her brain has been connected to a mollusk for almost a hundred years. Besides, she already had brain damage when she died. If you bring her back, she will not think straight, will not thank you for resurrecting her, or obey to any of your commands. I know for experience how dangerous is to summon something you can't control."

"We would do anything you ask for in return. We are desperate. Starving."

Maria got free from Dolora's grab, opened her eyes, and remained in the circle for some time, thinking, more interested in Dolora's proposal than she would like to admit.

In her workroom, things began to appear in different positions than those in which she had left them, or just moved in front of her. She refused to erase the circle and the symbols on the floor, as she had not completely discarded helping Dolora and escape to Nineveh.

A month after her first encounter with Dolora, Maria contacted her again. This time, Dolora materialized in her workroom, but confined to the blood circle. Then Maria realized that Dolora's hair was actually made of jellyfish tentacles and her visible veins were made of wires and circuitry. Her nails were like long needles and she had three red stigmas in her inner left forearm, one in the wrist, other in the middle and the third near the cubital fossa.

"In what condition is the body?" asked Maria.

"Her body is cut in a half at waist height, but it never decayed, as she is a saint," the real reason was in the nature of her existential transmutation, and the presence of a remaining spirit inside her brain.

"Do you have any of her eyes?"

"Both, in reasonable conditions and into her sockets."

"Is the rest of the body complete?"

"She has mechanical prostheses instead of her right hand and her left forearm. In her left upper arm, she has three red stigmas, one near the shoulder, one in the middle and other near the stump."

"Good. Everything is in place. You must search in her bowels, in the lower half of her body, embedded inside you'll find a red eye; take it out and throw it away, is already drained, it should become ash outside her body in a couple minutes. Then stitch her parts together."

"Understood."

"You will need electricity, cables, and wires."

"We have electric power, we can scavenger the wires."

"You'll need something more, something that I must get for you, but I'll only provide it once you have materialized me into your world."

"I see that besides those cat eyes, you are human, so I can do that," Maria wasn't sure what Dolora had meant by that.

"Have everything ready, I will summon you."