Phantom Chained

Chapter 4. Intrusion(cont.) Elm.

I once knew a demon, Aspid, who was as beautiful and violently toxic as his name suggests. He dedicated his whole existence to comprehending eastern wisdom, mastering the exalted dreamers during spiritual seances and meditation.

'Kundalini' was what he gracefully called the incubi's food source, comparing it to the coiled serpent who is able to drive any mortal to sin.

A 'spindle' is what I prefer to call it.

The spindle hovers motionlessly in the air, dissipating the darkness with a faint glow. Green capillaries branch against the walls, full of paralysing poison that I injected with the first step into my prey's sanctum sanctorum.

The spindle is dense, living, filled with boundless energy. It feels my approach, responding with an anxious flow of light. A bright spiral pulses rhythmically in the middle.

Nearby is a dense winding of translucent threads of energy. I track the end of a thread that appears brighter than the rest and carefully stretch my finger toward it.

The thready shyly flows to the side, aiming to hide inside the winding, but I persist. I gently blow on it, whispering and assuring it. The thread pauses, rises toward the finger like a newly-hatched snake, and then trustingly pokes my palm as if it's a puppy wanting to be caressed. Good boy, come here, come...

Serpens iens, repoe ad pedum meorum!*

I let the threads weave around my wrist, sinking their jaws into the eternal flesh. I grab the threads and pull them toward me, then let go. Then pull again, still as carefully but more persistently. Again and again.

A distinct shudder spreads through the spindle's surface and it begins the rotation. Slowly and reluctantly at first, but then faster and faster. The central spiral begins to scorch, occasionally sending out fiery-red flashes that trickle into the strands and flow on the fibers that connect me to the spindle. At this moment we are akin to two connected organs, one of which is hopelessly empty and thirsts to be filled up.

The spindle generously shares its substance with me.

Half-forgotten feelings of peace and comfort return to me. However, I don't let the false serenity lure me into a loss of control beyond the threads. The pressure needs to be constantly regulated; if the spiral starts rotating too fast then it can lead to a final energy surge, stopping the process of assimilation for a while. It's in my best interest to keep the rotation going for as long as possible.

Along with satiety comes curiosity. I haven't had the privilege of going outside for so long, so I decide to do it right now. Leaving a part of my consciousness at work on the spindle, I climb to the highest floor and position myself between two black mirrors reflecting each other's darkness. A moment later I can already feel the cool night breeze.

My maiden, wearing an ugly puffer jacket with a fluffy hood, stares into the darkness with a still gaze. In her shaky hand, she is clasping a cylindrical metal tube from which comes out a bright beam of light. Despite the modified casing, the method of how it works is familiar to me. I saw similar machines even before my burial and I, being a fan of technological innovation, approve of this invention.

I inspect the two mortals who are fumbling around a nearby gravestone. The tall youngster turns to the girl, or rather me, and says something with a demanding tone. Alas, it's impossible to answer in her current state.

The young man insistently repeats the same phrase.

I lazily turn on the perception system of my paralysed prey. What does he want? Ah, got it.

"Inga, turn the damn thing off!"

Inga is my girl's name it seems, and the torch turns off with this button on the back of the handle. Alright, I'll let her press it. Or more accurately, I'll let myself press it since... This is confusing, but not like it matters.

The black candles flicker with small flames, forming a circle. The guy falls on his knees and starts drawing an intricate pattern on the cloth with chalk, constantly referring to a piece of paper. I notice how the outlines gain volume, projecting into the world of the dead.

A blonde beauty sits next to the youngster and they both begin chanting a curse. I listen closely... no, It's pure gibberish. Or is it?

To my surprise, the rhythmic nonsense is capable of rendering a directed action on the spatiotemporal structure of the world. The space turns into a twister above the couple, flowing into the unformed informational layer with an unstable navel. This navel reeks of anger and the desire for death.

Tsk-tsk, naughty little kids! These fools are just free food for grave demons!

So? Did you want power? Revenge? Idiots! Did you even bring an offering to the caretaker? Then brace yourselves! And I'll just watch from the side, trying to guess who will get to you first, hehe.

But the navel is fickle, rotten and barely holding its form. That's inevitable though, modification of the structures requires surgical precision and therefore such amateurism will result in side-effects that are a minimum of two-thirds of the common probability coefficient.

The victim of this moronic performance will suffer at most a broken bone or two, or maybe a lost wallet. Basically, they will suffer, just not too harshly. The sorcerers themselves ever will experience something wa-a-ay worse. You can already see black sores forming, let's see what else...

The evil beauty unfolds a cloth, which reveals a white box. Click.

And then the smell of fresh blood assaults my senses like a tsunami.

Pezzo di merda! With a yelp, I stumble backwards into a grave.

Do you like the smell of meat cooking above a fire? Now imagine that you're standing by a fire above which a whole pig is cooking. With a sudden gust of wind the whole suffocating wave of smoke is blown directly into your face... how would that feel? Well, that's how it is for me!

Stupid little shits, I hope all your relatives get diarrhoea! What the hell are they doing?

I see how the darkness above the candles squirms with hundreds of vermin, all thirsting for blood. Ghostly shadows rise from the ground, lusting for life force. The guy still holds strong; his specs aren't half-bad, with some mentoring he could've made a decent necromancer. The blondie, on the other hand, is not as lucky. A pack of larvae are fiercely fighting over the right to dig their fang into her aura. You bet! Such a wonderful mixture of emotions and temperament! Even I would... actually, why not?

I reach out to the beauty but the larvae, brutalised from hunger, snarl at me with their fanged eye cavities that ooze rotting darkness. To hell with it, let them feast.

I have my own prey.

*(From Latin: Writhing serpent, creep by my feet!)