Forces Beyond The Grave

13.4

They tortured her. For thirty eight minutes, with all their chanting, Jay watched as Evelyn and the ancestors stripped Lennox of everything that made her human, and there was nothing he could do except writhe and fight against the ropes until he was bruised all over his body from throwing himself against the invisible box he'd been caged in. After so many years as a cop he thought he'd seen everything there was to see, but nobody could've prepared him to see the transfer of one person's soul into another. There were 12 ancestors all repeating the same Latin, drawing on the full moon's powerful energy to intensify their magic, and despite the bruises and screaming and roaring at the top of his lung until his throat was raw, his physical pain didn't compare to the throbbing of emotions he felt. The feeling of his heart being shredded bore a hole in his chest that he could never hope to fill, and left a burning ache over every inch of his being as he watched those witches extract Ekaterina's spirit and force it into Lennox's body. He was sure that he would never get the sound of her screams and cries for them to stop out of his head, but it was darkly comforting, because he knew she was alive. 

But when she stopped moving and the ancestors all went silent, he screamed her name, thrusting his fists against the invisible glass. None of them had tried to keep him quiet during the ritual so it was obvious whatever they'd trapped him in was soundproof. He watched as three of the ancestors entered the circle to simultaneously untie her from the wooden anchors before returning to their places, waiting for something to happen. His exhaustion got the better of him as he slumped to one side, leaning his head against his cage, feeling one of the many tears he'd shed roll from eye across his nose. But after just a minute of silence, light rays began to appear on Lennox's skin. From a distance, Jay could see that the sigils drawn in blood were embedding themselves into her arms and face, leaving behind a golden aura as her hair turned from it's rich chocolate brown shade to white. The transformation took moments, and all at once an icy coolness took to the air as the ancestors began to kneel one by one around the circle. Jay sat up, just in time to see her eyes burst open, but he was quick to shuffle backwards when her body arose from the bed of flowers with the sudden power of levitation. Once upright, it was clear from her bright white eyes that she was no longer Lennox.