Not many of them were left in the living room by the time they were going to start the ritual. The lights were off, but the room was lit with several white candles around the borders of the walls. The Book Of Rituals was opened to the required page, a yellow cloth on the table with various herbs on it: vanilla beans, rosemary, lily of the valley. There was also a bowl of crushed aventurine on the table. The virgin sat on the couch. By the looks of these people, she knew this wouldn't be good.
Jet watched Misa and Noella prepare through one eye while Exie pressed ice to the other, saying, "I told you not to start a fight."
Larkin moved the girl and laid her on the larger table they'd brought in from the kitchen. He put an empty bowl under the table. "So, how do we do this?"
The girl was getting fidgety, and everyone started to panic slightly since they really weren't sure how to do this. The virgin kept looking around anxiously, and five minutes later, she attempted an escape. She knew she had no chance against them, but she had to try. Larkin knocked her unconscious before anything could happen. He put her back on the table. "We really should get this over with."
Misa was getting fidgety herself. "Well, you're supposed to be really quiet, and then sacrifice her," she said quietly.
"Well," Alazne began. "We're quiet." She picked up her axe, moved across the room and swiftly beheaded the girl. Her head rolled over onto the floor, blood pouring. Alazne lifted the bowl up to the table, so all the blood coming from her neck would run into it. Once the bowl was full, she gave it to Misa and left the rest of the girl's blood to spill onto the floor. Bek looked like she could burst into tears any moment.
Misa held the bowl uncomfortably. "Now you're supposed to boil the blood," she instructed, handing the bowl to Griffin. He went into the kitchen and came back five minutes later with the bubbling blood.
"Alright, now tie up that yellow cloth," she told Kai. "Okay, good. Now take one of the candles and set it on fire." The little yellow drawstring bag was now aflame. "Umm, now put that in the blood." The bag oddly soaked up a lot of the blood right away. The smoke coming out of it was twisting. Everyone was intrigued. The wisps of smoke began to shape into a human form, but he or she looked strangely deformed. A raspy voice started to come from the smoke incoherently. The smoke convulsed bizarrely, as if the person was coughing. They caught the slight flicker of the image of a man who looked a lot like Larkin. The raspy voice tried to speak again, becoming slightly more intelligible. "She...has...to...know."
All the candles suddenly went out, the spirit was gone, what once was a yellow drawstring bag with herbs in it was now a sticky red pouch filled with ashes.
"Well, that was a huge waste of time," Jet said.
"And what were we supposed to do with the medal?" Kai asked.
"Does anyone have any idea what he meant by 'She needs to know'?" Noella inquired.
"Something must have gone wrong," Exie commented. "Why would the Book lie?"
Misa reread the page. "We were supposed to give the spirit the medal. A gift in exchange for information."
Larkin randomly came up with something. "She was supposed to know about the sacrifice. That's what went wrong."
They all looked at him. "How do you know?" Griffin pressed.
"Well, isn't it supposed to be me anyway? The smoke guy, he looked exactly like me. A little older though," Larkin explained his theory.
"You have no proof." Griffin refused to believe this.
"I think it makes sense," Kai commented.
Misa looked at her watch. "We'll try it again later."
