The sounds of the owls, hooting gently to one another in companions' undertones, were all around him as a troubled and pale young man made his way tentatively through the forest. A symphony of crickets and cicadas joined in shortly thereafter, gossiping with the toads and the fairyfolk about the strange youth, and how long had it been since a human braved these remote woods? One year, was it? Almost to the day. Could this have been the same man?
Yes, they whispered amongst themselves as the man, armed with only a flickering torch against the consuming darkness, knelt in the patch of calla lilies and drew something out of his jacket. His face, even in the red half-light of the pucks that drifted past, looked drawn well beyond his years. His eyes were shadowed beneath with pockets of dark, dusty blue and deeply etched worry lines had formed around what would otherwise have been a very sweet and tender mouth. The same one that had come on this night one year ago, and the year before that. The wildlife tittered with satisfaction.
Nestled there--even half-buried--amongst the unearthly, white flowers, was a stone slab. It had eroded badly over time; Corners crumbled away and a large crack, like a scar, cut grotesquely down the middle so that one uneven half of the mass had broken upwards from the other. A handful of beetles scurried away from the spot when the young man, called Alary in his village, chose here to take a knee. Before long a wavery voice began to sound from his fervently moving lips, barely audible against the unearthly croonings of the glen. He spoke an awkward mixture of his native language and the broken gibberish he'd picked up in his readings into the arcane, and one name repeated again and again: Elizabeth. My love. Elizabeth. Dark splotches appeared in the dirt before him, where droplets of water leaked from the man's tightly squeezed eyes.
Get on with it the glen whispered in his ear, sounding nothing short of sinister and gleeful.
The haggard youth held his hand out before him, and drew the knife over his palm. Crimson blood dripped down onto the slab. The thicket around him grew cacophanous, suddenly, with the roar of the cicadas, pixies and nymphs. Birds alit from their perches and flew over his head an a mirthful circle, squawking like grackles, and an icy, cold gale blew over it all and brought goosebumps to life on the man's arms and the back of his neck. Tree branches and Alary's hair both rustled in the forest's chilling breath. In the years before, this was all his summoning ritual had ever amounted to; the grieving youth had never returned home successful in his sinful excursions. A little spooked, a little dirty, but always without the lost lover that he pined for.
That was why he scarcely believed the white, soft silhouette he could see emerging from the shadows now. It was a woman.. or the hint of a woman. The shape of her body was shimmery and translucent, like the reflection of a pool in the dark. He couldn't make out any finer details than that--as if she was still caught in the purgatory between worlds and he could glimpse her only through the gauzy, ethereal boundary that separated them.
Ala.. ry..
"
Elizabeth!" He cried, despairing with newfound hope. "Is that you?"
trapped... help me.
Four years he had made pilgrimage to the most haunted thicket on Terreneus, just to see her face again. Four years he had stayed faithful, even through the darkest throes of loneliness, and misery. And all willingly! Now he was closer to reuniting with his dearly departed than he had ever been; of
course he would leap to do this! The man, white as the moon and half wasted away, didn't hesitate for a moment. "Yes, yes of course!" He cried, scrambling onto the slab. A tremor coursed through his hands and fingers. His whole body quivered. The young widower thought his chest would burst with the tremendous insurgence of joy and relief. He laid back on the stone--
and immediately, it was as if an unseen hand reached up through the bedrock and held fast over his chest. The heavy weight of the spirit arm deprived him brusquely of his capacity to breathe. Another invisible lash bound him by the throat. Then the hips. The wrists. He could feel their pressure pulling him down against the marble platform and could not even so much as writhe beneath his binds. "E--" Alary tried to shout but a cinching around his neck cut his voice back to a hoarse gasp. The man's blue eyes widened in terror, watched the ghostly figure in white step towards the stone table and become clear.
"Hello, Alary."
Materialized, scarlet lips split into a wicked, exhilarated sneer. The figure, a strikingly beautiful woman with generous curves and the joy of sadism upon her face, stood over her catch and peered down. As he watched, the innocent, white shift that she wore to bear the appearance of his lost love grew tight on her lustful body and darkened to black, until the nightgown became nothing more than a swathe of leather that skimmed her hips and barely contained the swells of her breasts. 'Elizabeth's' golden hair turned red and extruded a pair of spiraling, yellowed horns. Purple shadows glimmered into being across her pale eyelids. The woman--- the
devil--- bent at the waist and leaned down, so her face came close to that of her stupefied captive. She gave him a slow wink, tongue drifting out from those parted lips in an obscenely jovial, teasing gesture. The man struggled and gave a muffled yell, blood pooling behind his sunken cheeks.
"Ah-ah," Alira chided him and stood upright once again. "You got yourself into this one,
lover. I have to thank you, though. Why, if it weren't for you.. I wouldn't be here, would I?" The succubus paused and giggled a soft and flirtatious,
a-hehn to herself, her hand sliding down the flat of her stomach. A slender tail switched back and forth behind her, extruding from the small of her back. Her ample backside peeked out from beneath the thin shift of skirt.
Striking golden eyes slid to the side and regarded her prey as thin lips curled into a wicked grin. "But I'm afraid I still need more from you," Alira crooned. She turned and stepped back towards the slab, her bare feet padding into the soft, loamy soil. "There's still the matter of my sisters..."
The young man's screams of protest as Alira climbed on top of him, straddling his stomach between her legs, would never be heard. The succubus' every move was deliberate and sensual. She leaned down, slow and oozing as syrup, and curled her fingers around the handle of his forgotten knife. Her skin grew hot with lust against his stomach.
"San fhaisean iobairt fa ar doirteadh fola,"
Alira began, trailing the tip of the knife across his chest with all the precision of a surgeon. And like a scalpel, it just opened his skin; deep enough to draw blood and no deeper. Thick rivulets of crimson seeped from the open wound and pooled around her thighs. Alira moaned. She could barely wait until they, together again, could feed on her prey. And then Her voice spiraled upwards and shook the forest as if in the throes of torrid, passionate gospel.
"Sisters, I summon you!"