Rigson starts verbally describing what Jack is adding to the “circle”. Inaudibly, I start laying down my own wards and protections. First I lay down a series of runes around me, mostly consisting of Ehwaz and a few others in repetition. A sudden inspiration forces me to call Elhaz as well, but not to protect myself, but to protect those around me from any violence on my part.
I know candles have been added to the room. I can smell the burning wax. Various incense is being burned. I get whiffs of different scents swirling from different burning points. I can hear Jack intoning in a strange and difficult tongue. This all helps to push me deeper, downward, within.
I hear Jack moving around me. I know he is walking the lines, sealing them. I hear him walk the smaller square that contains me, and the background sounds drop drastically in volume. I feel him walk the triangle, and I am audibly isolated from everything else. I never hear him walk my circle. I am no longer there.
I float in disinterested darkness. I have an awareness of my body, but it only serves as a reminder of my body posture. I wish to descend deeper, but remind myself of my role. The reminder lights up the personal circles I had placed around me. The light from these illuminate the magic lines and sigils Jack had traced out on the living room floor. My eyes open in the darkness of InBetween. I see myself, sitting crosslegged as I had left, the lines, and Jack standing in his own circle.
I see none of the candles and incense I had smelled earlier. There is only him, me, and the glowing lines and runes. He and I am dressed in shadows and glamour. He is standing, with his arms stretched out towards me. Intoning in that strange polysyllabic drone as before. The sounds push and pull at my ear. They wrap me in itchy bonds that tighten more and more. I realize Jack is not content to allow me to descend into trance on my own. He is trying to force me into a tiny corner of myself.
Having suspected he was not entirely forthcoming about his intent, I had planned a mental escape plan. I was terribly curious what he was trying to call forth, and felt that whatever happened, I should not stop the proceedings. His bonds trigger one of my defense circles. I am suddenly enveloped in Elhaz runes, spinning maddeningly about me. They force the itchy aural bonds away from me, giving me space to make my getaway.
I called on my opal pendant, that I oh so rarely remove from around my neck. It was nestled safely in an interior pocket of my purse. Or, so I thought it was. I called upon it, and felt its location. I also felt an overwhelming presence around it. Instead of being tucked within my purse, Rigson had taken it out and was holding it firmly in his hand. If it were anyone else, I would be ready to disembowel the errant helper. But I know Rigson’s intent. I’ll have words with him later, but for now, I’ll accept any layer of protection I can get.
I focus on the opal, and shift my awareness from my body ensconced within warded space to the warming opal in Rigson’s hand. Immediately, the itching droning ceases. I open my eyes to find I am “sitting” on the couch next to Rigson. I look over at his hands, and indeed, there is my opal pendent held securely in his fist, with the gold chain wrapped twice around his wrist. I wonder what happened that he felt it necessary to do this.
I look up at his tightening face. He is sitting ramrod straight, and watching the proceedings with growing anger. I follow his gaze to the squared circle on the floor. I see my body, still sitting cross legged as I had left it, but now trembling with great beads of sweat running off it. I look up and see Jack. He had donned a robe over his street clothes. The sight of the black fabric trimmed with red and green symbols is humorous to me. No where is a representation of the seal he had told Rigson he needed to empower. He has a book in his left hand. And a flail in his right.
Wait. A flail?
Male caller, female receiver, black robe, flail. Oh no. Oh no, no, no. The night is about to become entertaining for me, a story generator for Rigson, and hell for Jack.
I look over my body for any sign of being whipped, but there are no marks viewable to my spiritual eyes. I look back at Rigson. He is still seated on the couch, holding my opal tightly. I hear him muttering something under his breath, but I can not make out clearly what he is saying.
Jack is sweating profusely. The heavy robe is not the sole source of his struggle. Something went wrong, to his point of view. He is calling commands in what sounds like Hebrew. My spiritual, unseen self, starts giggling as I put the pieces together. Jack is attempting to summon Lilith.
I’ve ran into Lilith before, alone. After a private adventure, she left me wounded, bleeding, and a little bit wiser. After running into her again several times later, Lilith and I have a gentlewoman’s agreement. I won’t encroach on her territories, she won’t throw me into abject terror and destruction of self.
I see the various wards and protections set by the circles, squares, and sigils. From my point of view, I can see clearly the indrawing spiral swirling over and into me. Around Jack was an angry red and black braid of empowered and summoned energies. Twisting and twirling over and around him, the energy flowed through him towards the triangle ward where it entered the draining spiral.
I feel Rigson tensing next to me. Jack has raised his flail in a threatening gesture. He calls upon Lilith, his Hebrew phrases angry and accusatory. I sit back and laugh wholeheartedly. If Jack manages to strike me with the flail, he will awaken a terrible response. If he succeeds in summoning Lilith, he’ll wish he had stopped at pissing me off.
Rigson is suddenly to his feet, shouting angrily. I watch as Jack brings down the flail with viciousness. All time slows as the flail crosses the boundary of Jack’s square. The red and black braid of energy focuses in the tips of the flail. The sweep continues, crossing the boundary of my square. The energy appears as darkly bright beads of poison on the tendrils of the flail. I’m not concerned about whatever may happen. My psyche is off to the side.
The energy crosses the boundary of the triangle. I see quite clearly now, the wards were setup for the oncoming possession. I wondered why Jack was visibly upset I had Rigson bind my hands and feet. The spiral vortex about me guide the dripping energies from the flail into me. I feel a distant connection to my body, tightening up as the blackened red energy braid coiled into me. Now, I’m sure, Jack is summoning Lilith, using me as her container. This time, however, I’m not afraid of Lilith or what she may do to me. I’m looking forward to working with her to hand Jack’s hubris back to him.
Rigson is starting to rush forward. I take advantage of his physical connection to my opal. “Sit down, Rigson.” He stops and looks about in confusion. “Trust me. It’s okay. Sit down.” Perplexed, he obeys my voice that he senses within him and sits down, just in time to watch the flail connect with my blinded face.
I close my spiritual eyes as the vortex pulls on the portion of me that had escaped the wards. The location of my awareness shifts and I feel myself forcibly returning to my flesh. The mantle of Lilith descends on me, twisting, contorted, shrieking, blasphemous. This time, I do not resist her as she devours my soul. My sense of “Keri” disappears, replaced by furious anger and indignation at this male that has bound me hand and foot. This lesser creature that dares to command me!
I screech at Jack. Promising unending torment and physical blasphemies. The sting of the flail against my face is still blooming as I struggle to my feet. But I can’t move them more than a few inches at a time. My hands are forced together by some strange binding. I try to pull them apart, to reach through the feeble wards and feast on the heart of this dick that dares to enter my presence. But they are held fast together, I can not free them. Even my eyes are blinded by an impenetrable shadow. I am bound and held captive. I sense another set of wards, laid by a woman’s hand. Even if I were to physically free myself, I can not pass her wards. The wailing of my frustration shakes the very existence of all around me.
I can sense beyond the wards around me. There is another male, I can smell his fear. Blinded to the physical world, I can see a beacon the size of a tear drop burning brightly in his hand. I am drawn to it, but not impulsively so. Instead, I want to reach through the wards to the dark presence of an impetuous male.
“Lilith! Bound in my power, you are held captive! You will not be released until you submit to my demands!”
I laugh derisively. My voice sounds like the agonies of women giving birth to known stillborn deformities. “You have no power over me. Fool! All you have succeeded in doing is giving me flesh to devour! You want something from me? Stop hiding behind the wards and step forward.”
I still can’t see him. I can’t shift the blind no matter how hard I pull at it. I do hear him. I continue taunting and defying him. I hear the swish of something tassled, but the swing stops at the wards surrounding me. The power has shifted to my advantage. I still can not pass the wards the woman has laid, but his magic now belongs to me.
My words succeed in seducing him. His determination to obtain whatever he had summoned me for takes hold. Jack steps through all his warding and passes through the woman’s rings. In the distance, I can hear another man yelling, “No, Jack! She’ll eat you from inside out!” Jack pays no heed. He grabs me by the face with both hands.
“Kiss me, Jack. Take me and I’ll give you knowledge forbidden to the saints and the holy.” His face comes close to mine, the heat from his breath adding to the fire burning within me. He takes a breath, yells to someone behind him, “This is what I wanted, Rigson! This is precisely what I wanted!” He kisses me, to consume and control.
The rings of warding the woman had lain down explode in painful brilliance. There is a shattering and I feel the precense of Lilith lifting away from me. I fall down across all the wards, but then they had already been destroyed by Jack’s desecration. I feel someone grabbing me by the shirt and dragging me away from Jack.
I could hear Jack screaming in pain and agony at my feet.
The ribbons that had hobbled me were ripped off, the beads that bound my hands were unwound. Rigson pulls the blindfold off my eyes and tells me to hold still. My head in his lap, he fastens the opal pendant around my neck. At once, I feel more like myself and less like the nightmare that was now possessing Jack.
The sudden absence of screams catches my and Rigson’s attention. We look at Jack, Rigson with mundane eyes, me with augmented sight. Rigson sees a man in the latter stages of a seizure. I see the shadow that is Lilith, sinking deeper and deeper into Jack’s spirit. The shadow looks back at me, darkly grins, then buries itself into him.
“I don’t think things went the way Jack wanted it to.” Rigson deadpans with a tremor of fear in his voice.
“Actually, my friend, they did. He wanted to summon Lilith, and gain knowledge from her. That is precisely what he is going to get.” I’m out of breath and utterly exhausted.
“Hey, Rigson. Get a broom and scatter the sand. Then let’s get the hell out of here.” He leaves me sitting on the floor and complies with my request. Putting out candles and incense burners as he does.
“Shouldn’t the magic circle be deconstructed?”
“Lilith did that already. I don’t want to be here when Jack… or what’s left of Jack… wakes up.” I struggle to get to my feet.
Rigson helps me up completely, and agrees with the plan. Leaning heavily on his shoulder, the two of us exits Jack’s house and into the night. It is at this point, I realize I am dreaming. Feeling the scenario to have ended, I will the dream to end.
~fin~