Leroy's Writing Space

A lone, robed figure trudged through the rows of crumbling tombstones. He guided his way with the weak, flickering flame of his lantern. The leaves of a dying tree rustled in the wind, but all else was still in the pale moonlight.

“Halt!” A voice, cold and stern, pierced the silence. Another robed figure stood sentinel, outside the remains of a mausoleum. “Have you brought it?”  

The figure with the lantern nodded, solemnly. 

“The virgin’s blood,” said the sentinel, “have you the virgins blood?”

The figure with the lantern nodded, solemnly. 

“And the goat entrails. Have you the goat entrails?”

Again, the figure with the lantern nodded. Solemnly.

“And the candles. Have you the…”

“Look mate,” the first figure dropped the lantern and threw back his hood, “I brought the stuff, okay?” He waggled a plastic bag in his companion’s face. “And a little extra. So get off my back, won’t ya?”

The sentinel stiffened. “Speak not to me in that tone…”

“Blow it out your arse, Will.”

The sentinel, Will, frowned. He curtly yanked the plastic bag out of his companion’s hands and rifled around the contents. “It seems you got everything.” He sounded almost disappointed. “Carry it then, to Brother Dominicus.”

“Who?”

Will sighed. “Dave. Give it to Dave.”

Past the unknown tomb, before the withered remains of an old oak tree, Dave knelt just outside a pentagram, drawn with the blood of beasts. He chanted words not meant to be heard by mortal ears. 

“Et in profundis inferni aperi nobis. Servire volentibus animis defunctorum”

“Hi Dave,” said the newcomer. He dropped the plastic bag.

“Per mortem domini, sanguis in hac aetate immenso furore exsolvitur.” Dave looked up, “Hey Chris. You remember the chips?”

“Don’t stop!” cried Will, from across the cemetery. He decided to come their way, calling as he did.  “You can’t stop now, not when we are so close!”

“How do you know we’re so close,” Chris reached into his robes and produced a cigarette. “Give him a break. He’s been doing this for hours.”

Rituals of this satanic nature were supposed to have at least a dozen cultic devotees chanting in unison. Unfortunately, the Brotherhood of the Chaotic Order was stretched a bit thin this week. With Will preparing the offering, Chris picking up last minute evocation supplies and Paul down with the flu, it was all up to Dave to attract the dreaded attentions of the mighty demon, Sanguine the Blood Bringer, and tempt him towards the mortal realm.

“I’m not sure I’m getting through to him.” Dave massaged his weary throat. “I’ve said the whole lot about a dozen times, and nothing.”

Will folded his arms. “Are you sure that you are saying those evocations exactly as I have written them?”

Dave was very sure. The few times he had strayed so much as a syllable from the provided script, Will had hurried over to knock him back into line. Dave knew that Will was just angry at him because he’d forgotten his dark robes this week, and was forced to make do with jeans and an an oversized hoodie.

“Do we need more time?” Chris lit his cigarette.

If a dozen chanters could attract demonic attention in ten minutes, the Brotherhood assumed one chanter could do it in about two or three hours. The complete absence of results, however, were not encouraging.  

“You’re sure you haven’t heard anything?” said Will.

“The ground is supposed to rip open, and Sanguine is supposed to crawl out of the depths of hell, unleashing an eternal tidal wave of blood.” Dave looked around, pointedly. “As far as I can tell, that hasn’t happened yet.”

This was most troubling. Will couldn’t understand why any demon, let alone Sanguine, would refuse an opportunity to butcher his way into the mortal realm. At this rate, the world was never going to be buried beneath the bodies of the innocent.   

“Chris, why don’t you repaint the pentagrams with the fresh blood and relight some of these candles. Then you can help Dave with the chanting.”

“Ya-huh,” said Chris, “and what are you going to do?” Chris didn’t mind grunt work. He didmind grunt working while Will stood around micromanaging him, which comprised most of last week’s ritual.

“How am I supposed to coordinate affairs if I’m stuck chanting?” said Will. “Do you want the world destroyed or don’t you?”   

“Of course, I do,” said Chris, “which is exactly why I keep questioning you, because I don’t think it’s going to happen at this rate.”  

Will put his hands on his hips. “You think that’s helpful, do you?”

Chris shrugged. “Certainly accurate.”    

Dave went to open his bag of chili chips, at least until he saw the look Will was giving him. With an exhausted sigh, he went back to chanting. “domini inferi, aperi diem magnum tuum et mitte nobis canes tuos parvos.”

“Are you sure you’re saying that right?” asked Will.  

“I’m just reading off the sheet you gave me,” Dave held up an ink splatted bundle of papers. As well as the lantern, Will insisted on using an oldie-timey inkwell for all Brotherhood correspondence. Half the pages had succumbed to dark blots. “I don’t understand half of it, to be honest. It’s not like you ever let us anywhere near the lexicon…”

“And Chris,” said Will, “are you ready?”

Chris shrugged. “Ready for what?”

Will sighed. “For when our new lord and master comes through.”

 “What am I supposed to do? Dave’s summoning him, you’re supposed to sway him. What did you want me to do?”

“There’s always something to do,” said Will, “you could be a little more useful.”  

“You think that virgin’s blood just went and got itself?” said Chris.   

“You didn’t have to take so long.”

Chris blew a plume of smoke in Will’s face, causing the latter to cough. “Because a dead goat is easy to find on a Friday night. Just a quick nip down to the shops and back.” 

Will ignored Chris and checked his notes, as well as his lexicon. Try as he might, he found nothing wanting. He seldom did with his own work. “Everything’s’ as it should be.”

“Then why is nothing happening?” said Chris.

“Maybe Sanguine’s busy?” offered Dave.

“Busy?” said Chris, “how many people do you think are trying to summon him right now?”

“I suppose we’d know if they were,” said Dave. Sanguine’s presence was foretold by the screams of the damned and the raining of molten sulphur, which was pretty hard to miss. “Maybe it’s the portions?”

“Portions?” said Chris.

“I mean, if a pint of virgin blood is supposed to do it in so many minutes,” said Dave, “twice the stuff should do it in half the time, right?”

Will shook his head. “I’m not sure it works that way.”

“But it’s not working now.” said Chris. “What have we got to lose?”

“I’m with him,” said Dave, agreeing with his own idea. “It’s worth a shot. Let’s give it a go, and see where it gets us.” The truth was that Dave wasn’t sure about the plan either, but his throat couldn’t take anymore chanting. Throwing bloodied body parts onto chalk outlines would be a nice change of pace.

With nothing else to do, the cultists doubled up on everything. One pint of virgin’s blood became two, then four when Will got his portions wrong. One set of goat’s entrails doubled. Then it tripled because Chris put down an extra lot when he didn’t see Will do it in the first place. Dave finished the ensemble by adding a dog heart, along with several wayward chili chips, to the pentagrams centre. 

Then they waited. The wind whistled and a dog barked, but the world did not end.

“Whelp, tonight’s a bust.” Chris dropped his cigarette and stamped on it. This wasn’t the group’s first failure, far from it, in fact, but the sting was always fresh. The world would sleep soundly tonight, and come morning, the Brotherhood of the Chaotic Order would all have to go back to their day jobs. Chris lit up another cigarette. “What a crock of shit.”

Will had to agree, though he didn’t do it out loud. Five failed summonings in a row, and not a single dead innocent to show for it. This reflected very poorly on him as the group’s self-appointed leader. But what else was there to do? “Alright, why don’t we just pack up and prepare a time for next week…”

A crackle of thunder silenced him. From darkened clouds came rain, beating down so hard, it almost broke the skin. The pentagram glowed hellfire, then caught ablaze. The brotherhood backed away as the flames licked higher and higher, fashioning themselves into the outline of a mighty gate. Wails of the damned shrieked into the night.

“I think we got something there,” said Dave.

“Holy shit,” added Chris. The cigarette fell from his lips. 

Will said nothing, though his mouth hung open. He stared wide eyed as the fiery gate yawned open, and from the deep abyss, a gibbering monster crawled out. A dozen malevolent eyes pocketed its face, which was split diagonally by a drooling maw. Three rows of razor-sharp teeth snapped greedily at the air. Its claws were as long and sharp as daggers. It stood on hoofed feet.   

The Brotherhood gaped at the monster they had summoned. It was the most terrifying thing any of them had ever seen. It was also about two feet tall.    

“That’s not Sanguine,” said Dave.

“You don’t say,” said Chris. “I think we got a fun-sized one by mistake.”  

“This must be your fault,” said Will. He directed this at no one in particular.

“Sod off,” said Chris. He directed this at Will.

“We still doing the apocalypse?” said Dave. He inched a little closer to the small imp monster.

“Of course,” said Will, though it were obvious, “we proceed as planned.”  

“Proceed as planned?” said Chris. “The plan was to bathe the world in a sea of blood, you’re going to do that with him” He cupped his hands over his mouth. “Hey everyone! The apocalypse is nigh, and we have the broken Furby to prove it.”

The heavens roared again. From the fiery gate, another imp like monster shambled forth. It looked the first, but with slightly different set of facial aberrations. It also gibbered.  

“Uh?” said Chris. He was interrupted by the arrival of another one. Then another. And another after that. Soon, there was at least twenty of them. “I think we might have used too much stuff.” Another crackled of thunder. Another dozen imps. “Much too much of the stuff.”

“Now see here, guys,” said Will, a conspirators glint in his eyes, “there’s opportunity in this. I mean, think about it…” He was interrupted by the arrival of a dozen more. Then another dozen after that. “And, uh…”

“Something about opportunity?” said Chris.

“Look, we could use this,” said Will, gesturing towards the gaggle of screeching beasts. “If we can’t have a big one, what’s wrong with an army? We could summon a few more and…” Dave shrieked as one of the imps took a swipe at him. In one cut, his leg had come clean off. “Oh…uh…” Will stumbled over his words as Dave stumbled to the ground. “Then again…”

#

Some time had passed. All three members of the Brotherhood of Chaotic Order, Will, Chris and what was left of Dave, were now in a tree. The imps waited down below. There were about fifty of them, snarling and biting, driven mad with bloodlust. At least no more had come through the fiery gate since the last batch. Not that there weren’t enough to deal with already.  

“All in all,” said Will, hanging precariously from a branch, “I would say that tonight was about 90% successful.”

“Oh good,” said Chris, who was also hanging from a branch, “I was really worried that we’d fucked something up.”

“It could have gone a lot worse,” said Will. Dave raised his remaining leg, narrowly avoiding the swipe of a jumping imp. The amputated leg sat at the base of the tree. “At least they’re not eating it.”

“I’m not sure that’s better,” said Chris, “I could understand them eating it cos they were hungry, but they didn’t knock it off for a feed. They’re just cunts.”

“They are the spawn of hell,” said Will, “tis their nature.”

“I guess,” said Chris, “but I thought we were all the same side here. I mean, there’s a million non-believers just down the road and they go and knock Dave’s leg off. What a crock of shit.”

“There’s no point complaining about it,” said Will. He was well pleased that he had finally managed to conjure a demon, a whole set of them, no less. And no amount of his comrades being ripped apart was going to spoil that. “Again, some things to unpack from this week’s ritual, but I am very happy how things turned out.”

Dave made a gurgling sound. It sounded vaguely like an accusation.

“Ask our beloved leader,” said Chris, drily. “I’m sure he’d love to explain his actions.”

“I was trying to handle the situation,” answered Will, “it’s part of the burden of leadership.”

“Handle the situation?” said Chris, “you were the first one up the tree.”

“It’s what the situation called for,” said Will, “a leader leads, don’t forget. Would you rather be down there?”

‘Down there’ was now home to a sea of vicious teeth attached to no less vicious monstrosities. The look Chris gave Will suggested he was very much onboard with Will being down there. “You were supposed to control them.”

“That’s not my fault,” said Will, quickly, “there’s many more than I anticipated there would be. You can’t expect me to control fifty of them.”

“You couldn’t control one of them.” 

“Might I remind you,” said Will, “that, if the procedures had been followed properly, we were supposed to summon mighty Sanguine, the Blood Bringer, not these piddling critters.”

“You couldn’t control a demon the size of a garden gnome, and you’re complaining that we didn’t get the one bigger than Mount Everest?” That shut Will up. The imps below continued to jibber and jabber. Thankfully, they hadn’t worked out how to cut the tree down. “What are we going to do? “Do you think the cops will come?”

“The cops?” said Will, “you want them here?”

“I don’t know,” said Chris, “I was just thinking to myself how much I’d love to no longer be in this tree surrounded by things that want to kill me, and at this point, I willing to admit we may require outside assistance.”

“You don’t suppose the police are going to ask questions,” said Will, “like what the hell is that?” He pointed at the fire gate.  

“As long as they make them leave,” said Chris, nodding at the imps.  

“And afterwards?”

“We’d lie, obviously,” said Chris.

“Oh, great plan,” said Will, “so there we were, officer, minding our own business, next to a fiery gate in the abandoned cemetery, when some absolute bastard came along and summoned up a demonic host, and then left, leaving nothing behind but a skin grafted lexicon, with my name on it.”

“Not my fault you mark all your books,” grumbled Chris.

“Just a reminder who paid for them.”

“Guys…” moaned Dave. “I…don’t…”

“Another shot,” said Will. He handed Chris a syringe.  

“Not a permanent solution,” said Chris. He nevertheless administered the morphine.

“I don’t feel so good…” said Dave.

“Don’t worry,” said Chris, “the sun will be up in a few hours, and provided that someone visits this place and isn’t torn to pieces, I’m sure they will be more than happy to help.” He raised his leg to avoid a swipe from the imps. “Can we all agree this has been a really lousy evening?”

“Not our worse, though,” said Will.

“True enough…” said Dave, “same time next week?”

THE END