The Sacrifice

By Anton Kukal

The woman wakes slowly from a drug-induced slumber. She is pretty, in her early twenties, a country girl still wearing her Sunday sundress, modest earrings, and a fine necklace with a golden cross. Conservative low-heeled shoes lie next to her, but she is missing her purse and phone.

Feeling the cold stone floor under her, the woman comes fully awake with a gasp. Panicking, she sits up, eyes darting around. Flickering candles set in a wooden chandelier reflect light down from a vaulted stone ceiling to show her prison, a wrought-iron cage sitting in the center of a rectangular dungeon chamber. How did she get here?

The spacious room outside her cage is crowded with occult paraphernalia. Shelves along the two long stone walls are piled with scrolls, bones, beakers, bottles, crystals, and leering skulls. Is this place some kind of medieval magician’s workshop? The aesthetics come right out of a video game, or maybe a movie set.

A cloth tapestry hangs on the furthest wall from her cage. The fine embroidery shows demons frolicking in a field littered with human corpses. On a pedestal in front of the horrific tapestry rests an ancient, worm-riddled tome. A blasphemous book made with yellowed parchment pages and stained with bloody fingerprints.

In the stone wall directly across from the demonic tapestry, a dungeon-like corridor vanishes into dappled shadows where candleflames dance above tall shafts of wax held aloft by dull iron frames.

As the woman stares, incredulous at her situation, she hears a high-pitched scream echo from some distant location down the dark corridor. Startled, the woman calls out, “Who’ is there?”

No reply.

She stands and grasps the bars of her cage. “Are you hurt?”

A scream echoes back, louder and more desperate. Certainly, female and terrified.

“Hello?” the woman calls into the darkness. “I’m locked in a cage. I can’t help you. I’m sorry.”

A third scream begins—even more frantic than the last—and then cuts off abruptly.

“Hello. Hello. Can you still hear me?” the woman calls out. “What happened? Are you okay?”

Silence stretches for a long moment. 

“Please say something.”

No reply comes, and the woman knows something terrible has indeed happened down that shadowy corridor. She clutches the cold bars of the cage, peering into the darkness. She closes her eyes and whispers a quick prayer. “Dear God, please let this be a dream. Let me open my eyes and wake up in my bed.”

Hours ago, she was at her church fundraising event. She paid a hundred dollars for her plate. A lot of money for a newly graduated student facing a mountain of education loans, but faith was important. Today, more than ever, people need God and community. They need real connections. Real friendships. Real love.

The woman opens her eyes. Seeing the same overloaded shelves and dim dungeon corridor, she knows this is no dream, but a nightmare reality where she has somehow been kidnapped from the safety of her church gathering.

She waits. Listening. Hoping. Praying softly. Soon, the sound of muffled conversation comes from down the corridor. Flickering candlelight appears in the distance, bobbing in the center of the passage and growing brighter as two men approach. 

The man carrying the candle wears a blood-red hooded robe belted with a golden cord. The deep cowl of his hood hides all but his chin. She cannot see enough of the face to name him, yet he seems familiar. Could he be part of her church? No. He dresses like a demon-serving sorcerer.

The other man follows a few steps behind, like a servant. He is a brutish figure with an unctuous cast to his face. Dressed incongruously in a plain modern black suit, his massive arms tug at the fabric of his sleeves. His large hands curl reflexively into hammer-like fists. This ugly man attended her church event earlier that evening, but he was not part of the congregation, and people wondered who he was.

“…all that matters is that the ritual failed.” The sorcerer’s words are audible as he enters the room.

“I am sorry, Master,” speaks the servant.

“There is so much at stake.” The sorcerer motions to the cage. “And this is the last woman.”

“I could only get three.”

The sorcerer nods.

“I could go back out,” the servant offers. “I could try to procure another.”

“There is no time,” the sorcerer replies gravely. “We must have a course of action.”

Unable to keep quiet, the woman asks. “What’s going on? Who are you?”

Ignoring her pleas, the servant says, “I could hurry.”

“No.” The robed man sighs. “Everything depends on her. Everything!”

“Please,” the woman begs. “Talk to me. Why am I in this cage?”

The sorcerer studies the woman. “I have a good feeling about this one.”

“Yes. Master,” the servant agrees. “I always save the most promising for last.”

“I will prepare,” the sorcerer announces. “Bring her.”

The robed man disappears back down the corridor. The servant takes an old iron key from one of the shelves and unlocks the medieval latch. The gate squeaks open, and the large man steps between the bars, his movements slow and deliberate. Dangerous.

The woman retreats until her back is against the bars. “Please, tell me what’s going on? I saw you at the party. How did I get here? Did you drug me? Please, why are you doing this?”

The servant steps forward. She picks up her shoes. She hurls one. The heel strikes him in the shoulder, and he just laughs, a callous, hateful sound—half amusement, half contempt. She throws the second shoe, and he swats it aside with ease.

He laughs again, obviously enjoying this moment. The bulk of his muscular body blocks the opening. The woman vows to fight. She will not go quietly. As the servant seizes her wrist, she attacks, kicking for his groin. He shifts left and right, taking the kicks on his hips and knees. She punches with her free hand, but hitting him is like hitting a steel wall.

With inhuman strength, the servant lifts her into the air and slams her onto the stone floor. Years of gymnastics have taught her how to fall. She rolls, springs to her feet, and darts for the open gate and freedom.

***

The servant easily grabs her arm and jerks her flight to a halt. Enjoying the shock on her face, he pulls her back and slams her into the bars. He holds her by the throat with one hand and leans close. She is trembling, and he likes that.

“You cannot escape,” he tells her, whispering into her ear like a lover.

Sobbing with obvious frustration, she struggles. This one is brave. He squeezes, tightening his grip on her throat, knowing she cannot breathe, enjoying the way her eyes bulge. She claws feebly at his forearms. Her nails breaking on the thick fabric of his sleeve.

“There is no escape,” he whispers. “But you have a choice. Stop struggling and avoid pain or fight me and suffer.”

As her clawing motions become spasmodic, he loosens his grip. He doesn’t want her to pass out. She gasps in a single breath, then makes a series of shallow wheezes. He enjoys watching the dawning terror in her darting eyes.

“Do you want pain? Do you want to suffer?”

His grip relaxes, so she can shake her head.

“No,” she pants. “Please don’t hurt me.”

“Come along without fighting,” he encourages. “Then, I won’t have to beat you.”

“I’ll come,” she agrees. 

His victims always agree, but he knows they are lying. Victims always think they can get away. They’ll say anything. Offer anything. Do anything. In the beginning, he trusted them, but he had been tricked too many times. Deceived and harmed for his faith in human honesty. This woman, like all those he had brought to the sorcerer, could not be trusted. She was a liar who would turn on him as soon as he let his guard down.

He remembers the woman who nearly killed him with the magic wand. She didn’t know how to access the magic, but she jammed it into his chest and punctured his lung. There were others, of course, but none had got so close to killing him. Now, he always used extra care, never trusting a woman.

The servant takes a firm grip on the woman’s wrist and drags her down the long corridor. They pass the candelabras illuminating the passage.

“Where are you taking me?”

He does not answer.

As they move through intersections, her eyes search for a possible escape route.

“Please tell me what's happening.” She speaks kindly as if trying to be his friend.

Victims always try that. These pretty women, thinking their beauty could dominate him. Most women live their lives bending men to their will with their sexuality, predators in a world of easy prey.

“You know—”

The servant doesn’t let her finish the offer. With inhuman speed he spins, grabs her by the throat with both hands, and pulls her close, again. He holds his cheek to her cheek and whispers in her ear. “You are trying to get away.”

She trembles in his arms. “Please don’t hurt me.”

“Then stop thinking of escape.”

“I’m not.”

He stares into her eyes.

She meets his gaze. “Is this some kind of reality television show?”

The question surprises him.

“Are there cameras here? Is this whole thing a sick joke?”

He loosens his grip. “No cameras. No jokes.”

“Then why am I here?”

“The world needs you.”

“Me.”

“Come along. Help us save the innocents.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will.” The servant pulls her by the wrist. “Just follow.”

She comes more willingly. “I’ve always wanted to help people.”

“Helping others is important.”

“I go to church. I don’t drink or use drugs.”

“I am glad,” he told her honestly. “Those things are good things.”

They walk in silence. The servant feels her stiffen as they pass the two bodies lying together on a rolling steel table, limbs entwined. Earlier, he’d covered them with a sheet, but carelessly. The blood has soaked into the fabric. A leg hangs down past the sheet’s edge, blood dripping from a toe into a wide spreading pool. He will need to mop that up later. His work is never done.

“What happened to them?” she asks.

“They were not good enough.”

“I am a good person,” she insists. “I don’t want to die.”

Without answering, the servant tugs her past the bodies and through another four-way intersection with corridors leading to darkness. She looks longingly down into the shadow but does not try to break his grip.

Candles gutter as they enter a wide chamber with a vaulted ceiling. Iron candelabras and smoking braziers offer light. A stone altar with fresh blood dripping from its flat top dominates the center of the room.

“No,” the girl sobs, collapsing to her knees. 

The servant suspects that she has seen enough horror movies to know what happens next.

***

The sorcerer watches the pretty young woman sag to her knees. Some sacrifices react that way when they enter the altar chamber. Others scream and go wild with terror. The quiet reactions are always preferable to the screaming.

His servant lifts the woman effortlessly, carries her across the floor, lays her on the altar, and, with years of practice, clamps the manacles onto her ankles with perfect precision.

The woman seems to wake from her shock as he clamps her arms into the steel bracelets.

“Please. You don't want to do this.”

“You’re right,” he agrees. “I don’t, but my desires mean nothing.”

“I don't understand,” she whispers. “This is crazy. Please just let me go!”

“I cannot. There is too much at stake.”

Tears slide from the corners of her eyes. “Why are you doing this?”

“The ends always justify the means.”

“I just finished medical school. I want to spend my life helping people.”

“Then you should be at peace. Your life could save millions.”

The sorcerer removes the sacrificial dagger from a notch in the altar.

Her eyes grow wide as she focuses on the blade. “This can’t be how my life ends!”

He holds the knife to his chest, reverently, hilt against his heart, blade pointing down.

“Why me?” she asks.

He tells the truth. “I need a pure, loving heart and a virgin body.”

The woman seems to understand now. She almost relaxes. Fear leaves her face, replaced by stubborn defiance. “I am a good, god-loving person.”

“I hope so, but we shall see.”

“You cannot use me in this evil rite.”

He chuckles at her naivety and almost feels bad. “Your goodness is what I need.”

She begins to pray. “Dear God, deliver me from evil and forgive me my sins. I pray to the Lord to accept me into his kingdom of heaven.”

He raises the knife above his head but lets the pretty young girl finish her prayer. Then, he intones words of real power. “In the name of He-Who-Walks-Beyond, I seek to peer through the veil of the present. By the powers of the elements and the blood of this innocent, I seek second sight.”

The sorcerer lowers the knife. He slashes open the woman’s belly with three shallow cuts. Laying aside the knife, ignoring her screams, he pulls forth the coils of her intestines and studies the future in her death throes.

She lasts a long time, her screams slowly fading as her lifeblood spills down the altar. He sees everything he needs to see, and when the ritual is done, he sags down, leaning his back against the altar, looking at his bloody hands. 

After a long moment, his servant asks, “Master, did it work? Did you see what needs to be done?”

“Yes. I will meet them now.”

They leave the altar chamber, climbing stone stairs and passing through a black steel door into a modern marble bathroom. The sorcerer sheds his robe and undershirt. He washes himself at a fine sink. He cleans the bloody smears from his arms and face. The servant hands him a towel. 

A short time later, impeccably dressed in a pristine business suit, the sorcerer walks down a hallway, through a door, and out into the press conference. Crowds cheer as he approaches the podium.

“Please welcome the President of our great nation,” the announcer declares to the hundreds gathered in the room and the millions watching on screens throughout the world.

A band plays. Cameras flash. And the crowd continues to cheer. After basking in their adoration, the sorcerer raises his hands, and they fall silent.

“People of the world,” he announces. “I have seen a way to peacefully resolve this crisis. There does not need to be any more violence. No one else needs to die. This is what we must do.”