Wilt

Chapter 4: The Abyss (cont.)

Briony flicked her flashlight on. And off. And on. And off.

She'd been doing it for almost an hour, and if Gen hadn't been so exhausted, she would have wrestled the thing away from her friend long ago. As it was, she struggled to keep her eyes open.

They were staying up all night in the woods to see if another fire was lit, but it was past two in the morning and the night had been silent and still. Gen closed her eyes– just for a moment.

"Do you like Theo?" Briony asked bluntly, her voice a little louder than a whisper. Gen opened her eyes abruptly. Briony shined the flashlight in her face like a spotlight and grinned. "Are you blushing?"

Gen shoved the light out of her eyes and blinked quickly. "I don't blush, remember? Perfect Native complexion." She thought for a moment. "I actually haven't thought about it."

"Really? I thought overthinking everything was your Modus Operandi," Briony teased. "He's cute," she added as an afterthought. "In an intellectual, brutally self-aware way."

Gen grinned in the darkness. "No one is cute enough to overshadow the fact that the Hadlocks might be sorcerers."

"You can't spend your whole life pining for someone you've only ever met in you mind, Gen," Briony said in an uncharacteristic burst of sentimentality.

"I know, I'm not. It's just hard because..." Because she couldn't help comparing everyone to him. And no one could measure up to that sort of love. "Sometimes I go to sleep hours early because I can't wait to see him," Gen whispered. "What kind of psycho believes in that?"

Briony shifted on the log they were perched on. "I don't know if I'll ever believe that magic is one-hundred percent real." She shifted so that their shoulders were just touching. "But I believe in you."

Gen smiled.

Briony flicked the flashlight on and off again. "You've always been more of an idealist than me."

Gen blinked again. The spots in her eyes hadn't disappeared from when Briony had shone the flashlight in her face. She must not have reopened her eyes, because after a few moments, she was fast asleep.

She woke up a while later with Briony's hand over her mouth. It only took a few seconds for her sleep addled mind to process what had alarmed Briony. Only a few meters away, there was a hooded figure lighting a fire. His back was to them, and the warm golden glow of the fire settled just out of reach of their still bodies.

Gen slowly reached up and took Briony's hand off her mouth and gripped it tightly in hers. Briony's nails dug into her fingers painfully, but Gen couldn't have cared less.

The man was chanting something in a low, foreign language. He slowly rose and Gen saw that he held a staff in one hand. Like Gandalf. She felt the absurd urge to giggle.

It died in her throat as he circled the fire, drawing a line in the earth as he walked. As he paced past where they sat hidden in the shadows, Gen was sure he would hear her heart beating in her chest. The chanting grew louder.

And then it stopped.

The silence that followed was unbearable. Her whole body prickled with alarm. Gen's mind screamed to do anything, fight, run, shout, but she forced herself to sit as still as the trees around her. Briony's breathing beside her slowed. Gen focused on the figure. She would pretend she was a detective examining a suspect.

He wasn't that tall, but his shoulders were broad and he hefted the staff easily. She examined his clothing, but he wore, unoriginally, black pants and a large black coat. Gen wished she could get a glimpse of his face. Her wish was granted when he spun to face them, throwing his hood back as he resumed chanting.

His black eyes bore into Gen from under pale eyebrows. He had a blocky chin and a stiff nose, but most striking was his hair. In the firelight, it looked almost golden. Gen braced herself for discovery. Briony's hand loosened in Gen's. From behind them, Gen heard a rustling. Another man, about to grab her by the shoulders and drag her into the circle. A fox, come to be the man's sacrifice. The demonic scratchings in the ground and chanting certainly seemed like the setting for a sacrifice, Gen just prayed that she wasn't the virgin.

Briony had been briefly obsessed with Nietzsche, but in the way that fourteen-year-olds are obsessed with the dark and dangerous. She had walked around with a tattered notebook of strange quotes and scribblings that she had continuously presented to Gen, but Gen couldn't remember anything about Nietzsche except for his most famous line. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.

Gen was looking into evil as she locked eyes with the man, and she was struck by the notion that he was staring into her also. The longer she stared, the more sure she was he knew she was there. He just hadn't acknowledged her presence yet to prolong her suffering. The rustling behind her crescendoed. She stared into the abyss.

A creature stepped gracefully past her, its long, delicate legs picking its way over the log. A stag, its antlers the largest Gen had ever seen, stepped into the circle. It paused to look back at Gen curiously, its large guiltless eyes blinking peacefully at her. Then it bowed towards the man, its forelegs bending and its head dipping so that the immense antlers brushed the man's feet. The man placed a hand on the stag's head and Gen watched raptly as it slowly sank to the ground.

It was asleep. The man paced around the circle in agitation. A creeping feeling of dread caught up to Gen. She peered over at Briony and in the slight light from the small fire she saw what she hadn't noticed before. Her friend was fast asleep.

Gen was alone with the man in the clearing. He was muttering something, it increased in speed and volume as he strode. Something was supposed to have happened, Gen thought, but it hadn't worked. The man seemed to realize this, because he let out a frustrated yell. Gen flinched. He picked up his staff from where he had laid it beside the fire. Weighing it in his hands, he placed himself back in front of the sleeping stag. He lifted the staff above his head and muttered something. The staff writhed beneath his hands, mutating into a sword, then a spear, and finally, a scythe, its crescent blade gruesome.

It arched over his head and cleaved the stag's head from its neck. Gen almost didn't see it happen. And then the head was toppling over, dragged by the weight of its crown of antlers. She clenched Briony's hand in her own so tightly she thought her bones might crack. The man cupped his hands so that the thick dark blood pooled in them. He ducked head and drank. Then he took his bloody fingers and painted strange swirling symbols across his cheeks and forehead.

Gen thought of the stag's eyes on hers, clear and intelligent. She would have been sick, but she was too afraid. The man muttered some more, but Gen couldn't make out the words. Then, abruptly, he kicked dirt over the fire and they were plunged into darkness. Gen was keenly aware of her pulse thundering in her head. She felt as though any moment he would fly out of the darkness and grab her with his blood-soaked hands.

Gen waited for hours for the man to find her, cold and motionless. She could smell the metallic scent of blood and the earthy musk of the stag. It smelled of death, she could taste it in the night air. When the first hints of dawn emerged with the creeping sun, she still didn't move.

Briony shifted beside her, yawning extravagantly as she stretched her aching muscles. Her friend looked at her and immediately pulled her into a tight hug. It was only then that she realized that she was crying, silent streams of tears coursed down her frigid cheeks.

"You're shaking!" Briony exclaimed. "Why didn't you wake me up?"

Gen buried her head in Briony's bony shoulder. "He killed it," Gen whispered. "And he would have killed me."

Briony frowned. "Killed what?" The taller girl looked over her shoulder at the clearing. Gen felt the exact moment she saw the stag, felt her back stiffen and the air in her chest rush out of her lungs in a soft exhale. Gen pulled away to look too. The stag's head was mounted where the fire had been, it's glassy eyes staring at them accusingly. Around it, deep groves had been carved in the ground. Briony took a deep breath. "We should take a picture."

Gen had to agree. They were looking at a clearly drawn pentagram. It wasn't every day a sacrifice was performed in her backyard.