The Bound Angel (Sacrilege Rising: Book 1)

Chapter Eleven

It was the middle of the night. Stars twinkled like diamonds on velvet. A book, the color of dried blood, lay open on a nearby table. Its faded scripture was lit by a soft orange glow

Candles were everywhere. Short and fat, wide and thin, a menagerie of wax and flame. Fresh fragrances mingled with scentless, lumpy things that had seen years of use. They littered the old living room, covering every surface. Through a smokey haze, flowery wallpaper puckered and curled at the edges. The mantle over the fireplace had long since faded to a sickly gray.

None of this bothered Silas. Trivial concerns were just that. The basement library would have been more convenient, but fire and books were a pair best kept apart. For years he’d been conducting rituals in the living room of his parents’ old home. Even if the house burned down, his library would be safe.

Once the candles were appropriately arranged, he turned his attention to the chalk. He hated chalk. The sound it made when it scratched, the way it bumped as it dragged along the hardwood, the dry, filmy feeling it left on his fingers. It made his teeth ache.

A wide circle came first, almost touching the walls. Next were the five points of a star in the center to complete the pentagram. Silas couldn’t keep himself from rolling his eyes at the display. Candles and pentagrams were the stuff of children, but the book was old, written before more modern tools had been discovered. Like a chef trying a new recipe, it was best to stick to the directions the first time before adding your own flare. If something went wrong, he wanted as few variables to blame as possible.

Silas stood, stretched his aching back, and scanned the room. The placement of everything might look haphazard, but it had all been carefully arranged. He judged angles and lines, confident he’d done it right, but best to be sure. Measure twice and cut once, as they say.

His excitement grew as each piece fell into place. It had been a long time since he felt this way, years since his last great breakthrough. It didn’t feel like that long ago, but he didn’t remember his knees aching so much when he managed to bridge the material world to the immaterial.

He remembered his nerves then, and the butterflies in his stomach. At the time, he hadn’t known if it would work. In hindsight, after countless repetitions, of course it worked. The theory was sound, his execution flawless. But the future was still a mystery back then, hidden within a labyrinth of what-ifs.

Trust and hope were his companions, and the unknown was exciting. In the years since, it had all grown a bit mundane, if the supernatural could ever be called such. His pacts with the Abyss changed as champions rose and fell, but they always wanted the same thing. Souls. But now he was trying something new, exploring another frontier, and the butterflies were fluttering again.

What if it worked? Again, the theory was sound, and he hoped his execution was sufficient. Nothing was guaranteed, but if it worked…

He’d long since mastered the process of bringing demons into this plane, but he still had to be incredibly careful. He never knew exactly what would come through from the other side, or if the bargain struck would turn out as he expected. When his life was on the line, specifics were important, and demonic priorities typically did not include his well-being.

But if Silas could sever their connection to their previous master and bind them to himself, well, the world as he knew it would change. He could summon brutes to enforce his will, brokers to negotiate on his behalf, temptresses to play with, all without fear of tricks or retribution. The thought made him shiver, and with the inspection concluded, he went to fetch his goat.

“Where,” the old man said, his voice a dry rasp, “where are we?”

Silas was constantly searching for fresh recruits, as they didn’t tend to last very long. He was thrilled to discover Arthur. It only took one meeting to recognize his potential. At the sound of his voice, memories came back. That first conversation over the phone, staring at each other through a clear plastic barrier. The long walk through the prison yard, watched by eyes that burrowed under the skin. Arthur’s frustratingly blank smile and vacant nod at Silas’ teachings.

The old man was convicted of prohibited sexual conduct. Just as importantly, he was guilty. An exemplary recruit, though it took considerable resources to change his sentence to house arrest. Now, after months of marinating, the discovery was about to pay off.

“Shhh,” Silas whispered, ignoring Arthur’s question. “Almost there now.”

“But… where?”

After his release, Arthur’s first request was for hard drugs, quickly followed by money. It fit Silas’ plans well enough, so he was happy to provide the latter, leaving it up to Arthur to find the former. Just now, the old man was far enough gone to shuffle obliviously into the candlelit room.

Silas almost sang from his excitement. “Ah, here we are my friend, no need to worry.”

Arthur mumbled something under his breath as he started to nod off.

“Let’s just get you more comfortable. There we go. Yes, yes, I know, just a moment, and, there. Now you can relax. This will help take the weight off.”

The old man was strung up on a large wooden cross in the center of the pentagram, hands and feet tied to the posts.

“There,” Silas murmured to himself, surveying the room. “Everything is as it should be.” Satisfied, he took a deep breath and stepped back. The time for preparation was over. He gathered his will and began to preach.

“The world is a dark and gloomy place, my friend. It is full of terror and regret. Terror of the bittersweet promise of temptation. Regret at having given in before. Terror of being persecuted by a system designed by man with all of man’s flaws.” Arthur’s slack face spread into a grin at the reminder of how he was released from prison. “And regret at time gone by, never to be retrieved. But I promise you now, God is faithful, and He will not let you suffer beyond your ability to resist. He will provide the strength to endure and the will to escape.” Silas weaved verses from the White Bible into his sermon, giving stolen power to his words. “Be ever vigilant, my friend, and pray that you do not fall, for the spirit is willing, though the flesh may be weak.” The righteous words charged the air and made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

Then Silas allowed doubt to creep into his voice. “But, as I think about the world and all its misery, I find myself asking… why? Why does He set these temptations before his children when he knows our weaknesses? Why give us these flaws and then place our downfall within easy reach?” The air stirred and the candles fluttered as he weaved his order’s centuries-old questions into the scripture. “Is He not all powerful? Is He not all knowing? Could He not simply cradle us in His palm and place us in His garden? Why is there need for a test at all?”

The candle flames began to grow. They rose in both heat and intensity, bringing the room from comfortably lit and pleasantly warm to glaring and hot.

“There are but two conclusions. That the White God is not all powerful, that He is not all-knowing, or,” he paused, letting that possibility sink in, “that He willingly condemns His weakest children, those Hemade that way, to unnecessary pain and suffering.”

A wind from nowhere picked up, swirling around the room and whipping the candle flames sideways. “Must we abide His intentional damnation without recourse? Is there no other way? One that is open and honest, instead of manipulative and deceitful?” He spoke loud enough to rise above the gale. “I am here to tell you there is another way. I am here to say we are ready to resist the pull of His yoke and carry torches through the night. We will sing we are here! We will set the world ablaze and stand in defiance before His wrathful gaze!”

Sweat poured down Silas’s face. He squinted against the blazing light as he approached Arthur. The older man looked terrible; his gaunt features sharp and lean in the glare, his skin stretched, his wrists and ankles red from chafing.

Close now, Silas’ voice dropped to a whisper but held its intensity. “My friend, will you stand with me now, like you did before? Will you,” he paused, fighting to maintain his composure with the raging power whipping through the room. “Will you commit yourself to this path of honesty? To a life of fairness and justice unending?”

The pressure in his mind swelled as the powers beneath recognized the coming moment. The chalk outline glowed and the air hummed with energy.

Free will was a funny thing. It didn’t matter that Arthur could barely understand what he was saying, for nobody forced him to do drugs. It didn’t matter that Silas’ words were meant to twist logic, for if he was paying attention, he would have heard them for what they were. The only things that mattered were a choice offered and a decision freely made.

With a prod from Silas, Arthur lifted his head long enough to croak, “Alright.”

With that single word, Silas’ mind was flooded with power. He turned away from the old man, his purpose fulfilled, and lifted the bloodred tome. There was one final passage. “Lords of the Abyss, here me now!” He infused his will into the words as he shouted to the otherwise empty room. “A mortal soul, guilty of the blackest sins, offered as tribute.” He stepped into the center of the pentagram. “A servant for a servant, so do we barter. A life for a life, the bargain is struck. Accept my offering!” He held the image in his mind of the demon he was attempting to bind, and poured his power into it.

Time. Stopped.

The candles froze, their tortured flames stuck in an unending bend. The wind quieted, leaving empty silence in its wake. If anyone was looking, they would have seen even the stars go still in the night sky. In that instant, the two men stared at each other.

Understanding finally dawned in Arthur’s eyes. Horror unfolded along the lines in his face as he looked around the room with blossoming fear. He strained at his bonds and his bloodshot eyes opened wide until the whites went all the way around. He opened his mouth to speak.

Silas pulled an athame from his robe, the same one he stole from the shopkeeper all those years ago. He used it to slice Arthur’s throat.

Time resumed. A puff of blood sprayed in the air as swollen power found an escape, swirling like bath water down an opened drain. In a moment that felt like an hour but lasted an instant, color and life bled from Arthur’s face. The power in the room seemed to sigh as it settled into the floor. Choking on his own blood, Arthur’s head finally drooped. The air was flat and stale, and the candles resumed their natural flickering.

Silas waited on bated breath for the pressure to fade. Any moment now, a creature from the Abyss would burst through the portal and materialize within the pentagram, and he had to be ready. Would the binding work? Would the demon be linked to his will? What would it feel like? With nervous excitement, he steeled his mind and prepared himself.

Flickering light glinted off the metal fixtures around the room. Hazy smoke hung thick in the air. Somewhere, one of the last working smoke detectors in the old house was beeping incessantly. His focus held as seconds turned into minutes. When nothing happened, he began to relax. Had he done something wrong? He looked around, examining the chalk lines and limp corpse hanging from the wooden cross.

The second his guard was down, the doors and windows all burst open at once. They slammed against the walls and rattled in their frames. A gale of wind whipped through the open house, billowing Silas’ robe and making him stumble. It blew out the candles and cast him in smoky darkness.

It happened in an instant, too fast to process. He blinked, and whether his eyes were open or closed all he saw was a curtain of black. The wind howled through the old house like a freight train. Smoke burned in the back of his throat. Like a fool, he’d let his guard down. He’d made a mistake somewhere. Was Arthur an insufficient sacrifice? Was his preparation off? No time to wonder now. This was what he’d been dreading all these years, the moment the Abyss came for him.

Eyes and ears reaching for a hint of warning, he held the athame out before him and waited for the blow to come while Arthur’s blood dripped on the floor. Instead, he heard a low rumble. A voice reverberated in his chest as deep, mocking laughter echoed from the walls.