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The bone white finger clicks to eleven and the chimes of the family Grandfather clock echo in the entrance hall and down the dark, dank stairway to the cellar. Where a sickly looking lanky black robed figure glances over to a short muscular black robed figure and proclaims in a forlorn voice.
"dammit, we're never gonna be ready in time"
With an exasperated tone, the short one responds,
"quit your yapping and pass me the virgin's blood"
"you owe me big time for this ya know"
With an even more exasperated, and a slightly patient tone,
"and just what do you think tonight is all about, eh"
Holding his hand out for his brother to place the blood in, he waits patiently for the coagulated blood filled jam jar. Upon reception he carefully examines the jar and it's contents.
"anyway, you sure Lucy is a virgin?"
Carefully ticking off the points on his fingers as he goes on the youngest brother reels off ;
"She's thirteen years old"
"She's pig-ugly"
"She hates boys and men with a vengeance"
"and"
after a drawn out pause for effect,
"She's been at a convent school in rural England or here in the middle of nowhere without visitors for the last six years"
"Ok, Ok, Jesus,"
With one last look a the contents of the jar he starts to unscrew it's lid, adding under his breathe just loud enough for his brother to hear,
"I hope we have enough"
With a dark glare his brother retorts,
"Well I ain't wringing out any more of our sister's tammies Dan, I'll tell ya that for nowt"
After a brief look of disgust Dan removes the unscrewed lid passing it to his brother before asking,
"pass Dad's sable brush over"
Still smarting over being the one lumbered with tammie duty he petulantly hands Dan the brush,
"ere ya go"
Dan kneels down slowly and carefully dips the brush into his sisters menstrual blood.
"Dad would go mad if e knew we was using is brushes ya know ! "
Looking up at his brother with a rare fire in his eyes Dan lashes into him, his normally clipped speech slipping with his passion.
"John, Dad fucked off and left us six years ago, without so much as a note, so I really couldn't give a shit what he'd think if e was ere, ok. Now shut up I need to concentrate."
Normally John would have continued nagging his brother, but he had seen that look in his Father's eyes, normally just before a beating, so he simply glowered at his brother sulkily and sat on his Dad's fishing stool to watch his brother at work. Dan was his Father's favourite son, because he had inherited his gift for art and his looks, John on the other hand was an eternal disappointment to his Father, looking more like his Mum and sharing the same lack of imagination. He twiddled his fingers for what seemed like an eternity as Dan carefully painted the pentagram, signs and sigils needed for the conjuration.
Anticipation was coursing through every nerve of his body, Dan was nearly finished, he tried really hard to keep quite, but silence had never been his strong point, and he muttered,
"Sod it"
With a look in his eyes that would send fear into the hearts of most Dan turned his head slightly to look at his brother,
"What is it with you John, can you not stay silent for five bloody minutes"
then with a wry smile,
"no pun intended"
Looking somewhat abashed as he shuffled his feet, and not wanting to point out that he has been silent for nearly twenty minutes, he asks
"Why does it have to be virgin's blood ?"
With an exasperated sigh Dan paints a final swirl and stands, glancing askance at his brother.
"We really do not have time for this now, but I will make it real simple for you."
Yet another exasperated sigh and in patient tones,
"If the blood used is not taken from a virgin, then the entity that we summon will not be bound to the pentagram and we will not have any control over it."
Looking at his handiwork and picking his path carefully he walks over to the bookshelf and in an awe like state lifts his Father's grimoire from it.
"got it"
"yeah, thanx Dan"
With a predatory gleam in his eyes Dan passes John the wick,
"light the candles it is almost time"
John methodically lit the outer circle exactly as they had practised with the commanding mantra of " protectum" before and after he lit each candle.
He glanced over to his brother who was staring intensely into the grimoire, he couldn't understand why.
"Dan, you've got a photo watsit memery, wot ya readin it again for?"
With a gentle smile he looks up at his brother and answered his query, all the fire gone in his eyes,
"Just making sure John, just making sure."
John retakes his place on his Father's fishing stool with a start as the grandfather clock in the hallway strikes twelve.
Taking a deep breathe Dan starts the complex incantation that he has been practising for the last three years. The inner pentagram of blood starts to glow gently and the cellar turns to winter, ice hanging off the wine bottles.
A mist forms in the centre of the pentagram as the smoke from the candles is drawn in, witnessed only by John, because Dan is too busy making sure that he is getting the archaic pronunciation correct.
By the time that the hallway clock has finished announcing midnight with it's ancient chimes the incantation is complete and the spirit is summoned.
At exactly the same time as Dan starts to lift his head to view the spirit they have summoned, John in a voice full of fear and confusion whispers,
"Dad?"
Dan doesn't even finish lifting his head to look at the spectre before starting for the stairs and bellowing,
"run John, for God's sake run"
He knows that John is far from bright, too many kicks and punches taken from his Father, he has enough trouble adding one and one and coming up with two mathematically, so there is no chance that he will have figured out what his Father standing in the pentagram means.
The thoughts flash through his mind like lightning as he bounds up the stairs, how could he have been so bloody blind ?
Sure he was the favourite son because he had inherited his Father's gift and looks, but Lucy was Daddies little Angel.
"SHIT !"
All those late night bedtime stories.
He knew what had happened the instant John had said "Dad?".
Their Mum had found their Father in bed with Lucy and killed him, he hadn't walked out at all. If he and John could just get out of the cellar and close the door, he could recant the spell and seal his father in the onyx stone.
He was almost at the top of the stairs when something hit his shoulder and he was greeted, as he looked over his shoulder, with the somewhat disorientating look of accusation in his brothers eyes, as his head bounced down the stairs.
Just as his hand reached for the cellar door he glanced sideways, straight into the eyes of his Father.
"Goodbye son"
Copyright © Mediablast 2003
