I: Dedication

This short story is dedicated to my Facebook friend, she who goes by the intriguing pseudonym of Dorian Grey (I must do an analysis of that novel one of these days; in the meantime, there’s this one, which has lots of allusions to the novel.), and she whose AI art is full of black cats, witches, mushrooms, cat-women, nuns, etc., which have inspired this story as well as my other one, “Sister Sorceress.” This story is also dedicated to her “old familiar,” Peta, and a friend of hers, Cain Helsson. I hope they like what I wrote.

II: Loss

Clara Jefferson bawled as she held the dead body of Ptah, her beloved black cat named after an Egyptian god, in her arms. The loss of this pet, her only friend in this whole rotten, cruel, uncaring, stinking world, was unbearable to her.

The one thing that gave her the hope to carry on was that she had been practicing sorcery for so long. The shelves on her walls were filled with books on such topics as ceremonial magic, how to contact the spirit world, various spells, world mythologies and religions, and the like. At the age of forty-five, Clara had been studying these books for almost thirty years. She was a master, and now she was about to work out a master plan to resurrect her cat.

It was either resurrect Ptah, or kill herself, for she knew she could never live without him. She hadn’t become a master of the spiritual and magical arts just to commit suicide, though.

She already knew, from memory, a number of rituals and spells she could use in aid of bringing Ptah back to life; but this would be such a difficult and complex act of sorcery that she would have to study hard, in the minutest detail, to get this done right. She put the cat’s body on the floor and immediately reached for a few books on her shelves.

She spent hours perusing these and many other books, jotting down notes, ignoring her hunger and fatigue. After reading enough, for the moment, she decided it was time to summon the spirits to give her aid and counsel.

…and which spirits were those that she confided in?

Trusting few, if any, people in this world of liars, cheaters, abusers, rapists, and corrupt politicians and clergy, Clara had sought the rarest, most obscure religious traditions she could find, searching for one untainted by the lure of money and power. She learned of the ancient pagan traditions of the Liput, an old tribe living on a small island off the west coast of what is now Finland. Over two thousand years ago, the Liput practiced animism and a kind of polytheism that phased into pantheism, or a spiritual oneness of all things. Such ideas appealed to Clara.

III: Summoning Divine Aid

Deep in a state of meditation, she was beginning to hear the soft, inarticulate moans of Talas, the Liput goddess of the sea. Soon, those moans became intelligible speech, the ancient language of the tribe, in which Clara had become fluent after years of rigorous study.

I know what you want, the goddess said in Clara’s mind. Are you aware of the great price you will have to pay to get Ptah back?

Yes, I’m aware, Clara said in her thoughts to Talas. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. I still want my cat back.

It is not natural to move the energy, which has left your cat, back to its body, the goddess warned. All life comes and goes, Clara. You must accept that. You should allow the energy of Ptah to flow where it will in the universe, wherever that may be, as far away from you as it may be. Give up your attachment to your dead cat, and your suffering will end.

I want my cat back! Clara insisted in her thoughts. She was moaning and sobbing. I’ll do anything to get him back!

Very well, Talas answered. There is a way to bring Ptah back, but you will need the aid of Lechi, the Liput god of mischief. In your studies of us gods, you’ll know his ways. He can be outright evil if he wants to be. However you negotiate your way into getting his aid, you will have to be extremely watchful of his tricks. Ensuring that you have come the closest you can to having your genuine cat back, in body and spirit, while also ensuring that he can do as little wickedness to you, in body and spirit, as possible, will demand the subtlest and cleverest use of spells and ritual magic that you can possibly muster.

I’m aware of the complications and dangers, Clara told Talas. To work with Lechi, while making my ritual flawless, will be like navigating a mine field. Still, I want to do this.

I will summon Lechi for you tomorrow morning. For now, study your books thoroughly. Take no detail for granted. Think of every possible obstacle, for he will find ways to get through your protective walls. Good luck, Clara.

Thank you, Talas.

Remember that the cat you resurrect, even through the best and most careful of rituals, won’t be absolutely the same as Ptah was. It may be the most ingenious of facsimiles, but it can never be exactly the same cat, however close it may come to such sameness.

I’m prepared to accept that.

Also know that as tight as your security is against Lechi, he will find some way to get at you, however slight that way may be for him. What he does to you will be, at the very least, something unsettling, something disturbing. Your safety against him may be impressively close to perfect, but never absolutely perfect. He is a god, after all, and you are just a mortal. You will have to accept whatever he demands from you in return for his aid, however you may circumscribe it.

I understand, Clara told Talas before the goddess vanished.

IV: Fear of Violation

After reading through all of the relevant passages in her books, anticipating what to expect from Lechi, Clara got out all of her tools and magical weapons, laying them out all over the floor of the red room where the ritual was to be done. These weapons were all daggers and swords, and the tools included several wands. A large magic circle was drawn on the floor, with a pentacle inside.

So many daggers and swords were needed to repel Lechi’s advances, since Clara knew, from her extensive reading, of how lewd and lascivious the god was. His sexual proclivities, being often quite perverse, triggered the most sensitive of feelings in her, for Clara was first raped by her father when she was a teen. In fact, she got into magic in order to learn how to protect herself from his lust.

Her mother had ignored her cries for help when he was preying on her, conniving at it, even, so Clara would satisfy his desire so her mother wouldn’t have to. It was for reasons such as these that Clara eventually used her magic to kill both of them in a car accident, then collect their vast amount of money and property so she could live self-sufficiently without need of a job.

She’d feed herself through gardening and a vegetarian diet; her garden was also where she collected various magical properties and drugs from her herbs and many mushrooms. Having no job was a blessing: no need to deal with so may people in whom she had no trust.

She did her rituals in the nude, and sometimes peeping Toms would watch her through her windows at night. Though forty-five now, she used her magic to ensure she’d always have the shapely, buxom figure of a twenty-year-old. Nine lecherous men in her neighbourhood liked her for her beauty, though through her magic, she made sure they’d never get their filthy hands on her!

She shuddered every time she realized any of those nine men were looking in her window during her rituals, often feeling PTSD flashbacks of what her father had done to her. This was why she needed so many consecrated daggers and swords, all fanned out in a circle surrounding her: they were a crucial part of her magical, protective wall, ensuring that no one could ever get inside her house, already protected with an electronic security system to be extra sure, or get at her body.

In fact, she was so sure of the efficacy of her daggers and swords that she found it amusing to think that those voyeurs/potential rapists all wanted the lovely naked body they saw, but could never have it. Her tantalizing of those men was her torturous punishment for all rapists.

Still, dealing with Lechi would be far more difficult. She’d need more than her daggers and swords to keep him away from her. They would be necessary, but not sufficient; and sure enough, having her delicious body would be one of his demands in exchange for his help in resurrecting Ptah. Clara would have to be extra subtle in tricking him into thinking he’d get what he wanted, while ensuring he’d never actually get it.

V: Lechi

The next morning, nude and meditating in the red room, sitting in the middle of her magic circle and pentacle, she summoned Lechi.

You are lovely, he told her mentally, in what felt to her like a grunt of lust, as he studied every inch of her body. I already know what I will want in return for helping you get your cat back.

Talas told you? Clara asked him in her thoughts.

No, I read your mind just now, my pretty.

She shuddered, knowing how difficult it would be to stop a mind-reader from knowing of her plan to cheat him out of having her. She would have to bury her thoughts and feelings deep down in her unconscious if she was to have any hope of him not detecting them.

I know what you want from me, she told him. I know your reputation as an incubus. Please spare me the filthy details. Just tell me what I have to do to get Ptah back, and I’ll do whatever you want.

One detail I must share, he insisted. I want to have you in a physical form, not just as a spirit. I want to enjoy you sensually.

Very well, she told him while a tear ran down her cheek. What must I do in the ritual to bring my cat back from the dead?

One thing crucial to the success of your ritual will be the collection of nine human skulls, he said.

May I dig them up from a graveyard? she asked.

No! You must have nine people decapitated. Have someone else do it for you, to deflect the bad karma away from you. Your killing of your mother and father is already a bad enough karmic burden for you. Find a young, strong, but naïve man who is in love with you; such a man would be willing to do anything for your love, and your magic and mushroom drugs should make him all the more obedient to your will. Gordon Marsh, from your neighbourhood, would be a good choice.

She trembled again at the realization of how thorough Lechi’s knowledge was of her private thoughts–to know of her killing of her parents–and of her neighbours. He’d only just come here, and already he knew of Gordon, one of the peeping Toms! Outwitting this god would be a formidable task. Still, she wanted Ptah back, and would do anything to have him again.

Why must it be nine skulls, specifically? she asked Lechi.

Come, come, Clara! A sorceress who has practiced for as many years as you have should already know of the symbolism of nine. Three symbolizes completion, so three times three reinforces that completion. Also, cats have nine lives, don’t they? Not literally, of course, but my point is that not only can I help you get Ptah back, but I can also allow you two potentially to live forever together…would you not like that? That is what the ‘nine lives’ will symbolize. Finally, I am aware that there are nine people in this neighbourhood whom you would like to see dead, are there not?

Yes, there are, she answered, remembering not only the eight peeping Toms other than Gordon, but also the woman she suspected of poisoning her cat for always trespassing in her garden, Ms. Bellows…that bitch! Still, such killings would be dangerous to her in terms of karma, as desirable as they were to her, so her next question to Lechi (though she already knew the answer to it) was this: and why must I have nine people die so Ptah can live?

Oh, Clara, I am disappointed in you! You surely know the religion of the Liput better than that! You’ve read of the unity of opposites as a central feature of the tribe’s belief system. There is also the unity of life and death. To have the one, you must allow its opposite. To bring about Ptah’s life, you will have to bring about someone’s death.

Yes, I suppose so, she acknowledged.

And with my willingness not only to help you bring your cat back, but also to let you and him live potentially forever in love and happiness, surely you will be willing to let me enjoy you while I am in physical form? he asked. She could feel his lewd smirk. Not only do I assure you that I will not hurt you at all, but I will also make it most pleasurable for you, even more than for myself.

His promises reminded her of her father’s words before raping her: “Don’t worry, honey,” Dad would say while unzipping his fly. “I’ll be gentle. In fact, I’ll make it better for you than it is for me.”

She cringed at the recollection, but she couldn’t let on to Lechi that she was unwilling to indulge the god in his disgusting desires. Very well, she told him. As you wish.

Good, he replied. Go find that young man, Gordon Marsh. Get him to hack off the nine heads. He, as one of your peeping Toms, could be incited to do the violence with a combination of you promising him he can enjoy your charms with a spell you can put on him to make him more obedient.

Yes, Lechi, I’ll do all of these things. Just help me get my cat back, she begged.

I will keep my promises if you keep yours, Clara.

He vanished.

VI: Preparations

Resurrecting Ptah would test her skills at magic to the maximum. Could she outwit a god? Could she ensure that Lechi kept his promise to her while she failed to keep her promise to satisfy his lust? She would have to set up powerful spells to keep him bound to his promises, while also sufficiently augmenting her sword-and-dagger protection against his every attempt to ravish her.

Also, she’d have to ensure, through her own spells and the structure of her ritual, that the resurrected cat really was Ptah, in body and spirit. Though Talas was right to remind her that the resurrected cat could never be 100% Ptah, Clara had to try to bring him as close to that 100% as possible–97%, 98%, at least.

She certainly didn’t want the new cat to be anything like “Church,” from that old Stephen King novel. She wanted a cat to cuddle, not one to recoil from.

She immediately went to work at preparing her spells and ritual for defence, for restoring Ptah as faithfully as she could, for deflecting away from herself the bad karma for the killings, and for charming Gordon into committing them.

Her extensive study of the ancient Liput language, a ritually powerful one, allowed her to remember certain ambiguities of meaning that she could use to her advantage. She could remember them without need of consciously thinking about them, which mind-reading Lechi might pick up on and thus thwart her plans.

One such ambiguity was in the meaning of the Liput word zvarge, which could mean “container” or “cage.” She could use this word in her ritual when putting Lechi’s spirit in the body of her cat. Ptah’s body would contain his spirit, yet also cage it, that is, trap it. The nuances of zvarge could be used to trick him into thinking he’d be put into a body–pita in Liput–when really he’d be trapped in her cat…forever able only to see and hear her, and to receive Clara’s touch, but never able to control Ptah’s body.

Lechi would thus be like John Cusack’s character at the end of Being John Malkovich: trapped in a girl’s body, forced to see, hear, and sense only what the girl wants to, and never able to control her body. Clara planned to do the exact same thing to the souls of the nine decapitated people, as well as with Gordon when she was finished with him. She’d sense the longing of all of them in Ptah’s eyes, while only receiving the affection of her cat. She considered such a punishment–such an imprisonment–fitting for all those potential rapists, as she saw them.

She would be sure to say the words zvarge and pita (this second word with the accent on the second syllable, making its pronunciation identical with that of Ptah) nine times, to reinforce the completeness of the imprisonment of all those lechers, to ensure her safety…and revenge.

The nine skulls would be used to augment the protective power of her swords and daggers, making it sufficient to keep Lechi away. She’d have the spirits of the nine decapitated to act as eunuch guards, so to speak, of her body, to ensure no violation of her.

Another convenient ambiguity in meaning was that of the Liput word slivu, which literally meant “decapitated,” but which metaphorically meant “castrated,” “emasculated,” or “impotent.” Her saying of this word nine times in her ritual would also ensure no danger of rape.

Clara would say these words with no especial emphasis on them, to suggest no alternative meanings to the basic ones, while allowing the ambiguities to slip by, undetected by Lechi. She felt she was safe.

VII: Gordon

Now that everything was planned, she had to find Gordon. He seemed a rather simple soul, easily manipulated. He was easy to find, too, for all she had to do was look out her front window and there he was, standing before her house on the sidewalk, looking in, obsessively hoping to see her.

Trembling and reluctant, she nonetheless put on her best smile, went over to her front door, and opened it.

“Hi, Gordon,” she said. “Come here. I wanna talk to you.”

“Oh, hi, Clara,” he said, amazed that she finally noticed him. Smiling back, he hurried over to her. Now standing on her porch two feet in front of her, he was trembling and excited. “What can I do for you?”

“Actually, it’s what I can do for you,” she purred, “if you do something for me, that’s what matters.”

“Oh?” he asked stupidly, his erection pushing painfully against his pants.

“Yes,” she said, still smiling. “Did you know I’m a witch?”

“A witch?“

“Yes.” she dropped her black dress, revealing her frontal nakedness to his amazed eyes.

He was overcome with the sight of all of that lovely, creamy flesh. Unable to resist, he reached over with one had to grab one of her large breasts, and with the other to stroke her shaved vulva.

“Uksha leida binko!” she shouted at him, the Liput words shooting at him like bullets from a machine gun, and the magic causing an electric force field to form, protecting her body from his intrusive fingers, giving them a shock.

“Oww!” he shouted, sheepishly pulling his hands back.

“You may look, but not touch!” she said angrily. “Only when you have done what I want you to do will I let you touch me. For now, enjoy only looking, to motivate you to do my will.” She turned around to give him a view of her curves and her callipygian behind. He gazed at her milky skin, stunned at its flawlessness.

“W-what would you have me do, goddess?”

“Robaya kinestro koubra,” she said, making her dress rise up and go back on her body. “You’ve seen enough, and as you can see, I really am a witch. How old do you think I am?”

“I dunno. Early twenties?”

“I’m forty-five. I look so young because of my magic. That should be enough to convince you that my magic is real. Do you believe I’m a witch now?”

“Not the ugly kind, that’s for sure,” he said. “I’d say you’re a goddess, with your beauty.”

“Aww, you’re so sweet,” she said, smiling and caressing his cheek, which made him sigh and moan. “Are you ready to do what I need you to do, Gordon?”

“Yes, Goddess! I’ll do anything for your love!”

“Anything? Even decapitate nine people with one of my consecrated swords, remove all the flesh, hair, and innards, and give me the skulls for a ritual I need to do?”

He stood speechless and motionless for about ten seconds.

Finally, he asked, “H-how w-will I avoid jail?”

“My magic will protect you from the police,” she assured him.

“What if these people a-are too strong for m-me to overpower them?”

“My magic will give you the strength you need.”

“What if I can’t…I m-mean, what if I don’t have the…stomach to do a-all this bloody business? Cleaning o-off skulls, a-and everything?”

“My magic will give you the ability, physical and emotional, to do all of that.”

“L-look, I’m really crazy about you, Clara, but I-I don’t know if I’m u-up to killing a…”

“Shadzock abba ultika!” she said while looking dead straight into his eyes. He felt a line of energy go straight from her eyes into his.

He was shaking, his eyes and mouth wide open.

“You will do what I need you to do, Gordon. You will not flinch. You will not question it. You will obey me from the beginning to the end.” She kept her steely eyes fixed on his the whole time. “Do you understand, Gordon?”

“Yes, I understand, Clara. I will obey you.” He stood there in a trance.

“Good. I’ll go and get the sword you will use to kill the nine people.” She went back into the red room, got the sword, and returned to him. “Here it is. You will kill these nine people from our neighbourhood: Kurt Davies, Ron Sweeney, Bill Wynn, Shaun Holmes, Jim Fredricks, Phil Sulikowsky, Chris Culig, Jon Schmidt, and Ms. Adrianna Bellows. You know all of them, right?”

“Yes, I know them all. Those eight guys are all big and strong. Your magic will help me win in fights with them all? I hate them all for always watching you, knowing they’d probably have a better chance with you than I could ever have; so I’ll be glad to get rid of them…with your help, of course. But why Ms. Bellows? What did she do to you?”

“She killed my cat, which I want to bring back to life.”

“Oh, you have enough power to do that, eh?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Then, you’ll have enough power to help me kill those guys?”

“Of course I will,” she said with perfect confidence.

He smiled.

“Those guys bully you a lot, don’t they?”

He sighed and frowned, then said, “Yes.”

“Then you have all the more motive to kill them. Go.“

VIII: The Killings

That night, Jon Schmidt was parking his car in his garage. After he got out and closed the door, he heard a shuffling noise in the shadowy corner behind a stack of boxes near the door into the house. He stepped forward.

“Is that you, Ginger?” he asked, thinking it was his cat.

As he got closer, he saw a human figure in the shadows.

“Hey, who are you?” he said defensively.

Gordon emerged from the boxes with the sword.

Jon laughed. “What? That’s you, Scrotum Breath? WIth a sword? You’re gonna kill me with that? You’re so weak, I bet you can’t even lift it.” He continued laughing.

Gordon felt a surge of magical energy buzzing in his arms. That warm tingling was his cue to action. He raised the sword effortlessly to the level of Jon’s neck.

Jon was impressed. “Wow, you can lift it.”

Gordon swung the blade in a graceful arc, cutting off Jon’s head in a smooth stroke.

**************

About a half hour later, Jim Fredericks was sitting on a chair in his backyard patio enjoying a beer and listening to music on his iPod. He’d had his eyes closed for much of the time, so Gordon was able to sneak in with his sword and a large bag holding Jon’s head.

When Jim opened his eyes to reach for his beer, though, he saw a black silhouette moving in the bushes by his fence. “Who is that?” he whispered, then removed his earplugs and got up.

He stepped off the patio and walked across the grass with caution, as tipsy as he was. That human silhouette in the bushes remained unmoving.

“What are you doing on my property, whoever you are?” he said, squinting and failing to make out any details that might have identified the intruder.

Gordon remained silent and still as Jim came closer.

“This isn’t funny. Get off my property, or I’ll pick you up and throw you out.”

Jim was now right in front of the bushes.

“Come out of there!” He brushed a few leaves aside and saw a familiar face. “Scrotum Breath?”

The sword went through his gut before he could laugh his first “Ha.”

************

Twenty minutes after that, Gordon slipped through the unlocked back door of Jim’s next door neighbour, Ron Sweeney, whom Gordon saw lying fast asleep on the living room sofa. The TV was left on, at a low volume, but enough to mask any sounds of Gordon entering and approaching.

By the time Gordon was standing right in front of the sofa, though, with the sword raised up high and ready to come down, slicing into Ron’s neck, his eyes were half open, just making out the black outline of Gordon’s figure.

Ron whined and trembled at first, then switched on the nearby lamp. “Scrotum…?”

The sword had already sliced through before he could say “Breath.” His head fell on the floor and rolled a few times in the direction of the TV.

***********

Carrying a bag with three heads, our swordsman got to the house of Chris Culig about a half hour later. He was taking out the garbage, at the side of his house.

Chris reached for the lid of one of the garbage cans. Gordon was in it, his sword coming up and stabbing Chris in the chest before he could say that hateful nickname.

************

Shaun Holmes lived two doors down from Chris, so Gordon could get there and ready to kill in about ten minutes. Clara’s magic was working like a dream, for though he could hear the screams of neighbours and police car sirens, he felt a kind of force field surrounding him, assuring him that, no matter how sloppy and careless he was being with these killings, he was easily eluding the cops.

Again, the door was left unlocked, thanks to Clara’s magical influence, so Gordon was able to slip inside. Sensing, again, through her magical guidance, that Shaun was coming down from the bedroom to get a bite from the fridge, Gordon waited by the kitchen.

Shaun went in the kitchen with the light left off. He opened the fridge door and focused on all the food he saw there: chicken, a half-finished cherry pie, three quarters of a chocolate cake, etc. He licked his lips as he thought about which food to choose. Finally, after ten seconds of consideration, he chose the pie.

He took the plate of pie out, then looked up from the fridge. The light from the opened door alerted him to the presence of his killer, who hacked his head off after he gave a gasp.

The clanging of the sword against the freezer door, and the smashing of the plate on the floor, were noisy enough to rouse his wife from their bed; but Clara’s magic muted the sounds.

***********

Kurt Davies lived several blocks down the road from Shaun, but Gordon was able to get to him within about ten minutes, because he saw a drunken Kurt staggering on the sidewalk just a few houses from Shaun’s. Gordon tiptoed a few feet behind his next victim.

He particularly hated Kurt for, among many other reasons, inventing the “Scrotum Breath” nickname. Now that he had confidence in his skill at wielding the sword (with Clara’s magical guidance, of course, since normally Gordon was rather spastic), he wanted Kurt to see who his killer was.

“Hey, Kurt,” he whispered from just by Kurt’s right ear.

“Huh?” the drunk said while turning his head.

“This is for you, courtesy of Scrotum Breath,” Gordon said while swinging the sword. Kurt was only able to say the “Sc” before the blade slashed through his neck.

*************

Killing a woman would be hard for Gordon to do, even with Clara’s magic pushing him to do it.

Ms. Bellows’s house was just a few houses down the street from where Gordon had put Kurt’s head in the bag. Though slowed down with reluctance, he knew he had to get it over with, and her house’s proximity made now the sensible time to do it.

He went up to her porch and put his hand on the doorknob. When he turned it, he was relieved to find it locked at first…then he heard a click, unlocking it. Clara’s magic, for sure.

He gulped and stepped inside. She had to be in bed asleep by now. He found the stairs and went up them, as slowly and quietly as he could.

Ms. Bellows was an unpleasant woman, to be sure: cranky, often crabbing at people for some petty reason or another. She once growled at Gordon for walking on her front lawn. But did she deserve to die, and in such a bloody way?

At the top of the stairs, he was now walking down the hall to where he could hear her snoring in her bedroom. At the door and about to turn the knob, he was hesitating: killing those guys for Clara was fine, even enjoyable, but decapitating Ms. Bellows was too much.

Just then, he heard Clara’s voice whispering in his ear: She killed my cat, whom I loved dearly and who deserves to be avenged. Kill Ms. Bellows, and you can have me forever, Gordon.

He turned the doorknob as carefully as he could, not that she’d hear it over her snoring. He walked over to the bed. He raised the sword over his head.

He heard police sirens outside. His hands were shaking. He felt that force field around himself, giving assurance that the cops wouldn’t get him, but he still felt pangs of guilt over killing a defenceless, middle-aged widow in her sleep, all just over a cat.

He looked back from the window and down at her.

Her eyes opened.

She saw his dark silhouette standing over her.

She gasped, shook, and clutched her weak heart.

He brought the sword down, silencing her forever.

***********************

As he lugged the heavy bag of heads out of Ms. Bellows’s house and back to the sidewalk, amazed that the cops taking Kurt’s headless body away on a stretcher found him invisible, Gordon was shaking and nauseous over this last killing. At least there were only two left to kill now, and they were guys he didn’t like at all.

Phil Sulikowsky’s house was on the other side of the block from Ms. Bellows’s, so Gordon had to lug that big, heavy bag all the way around. When he got there, he saw Phil walking his dog, returning from the park.

They were facing each other. “What’re you doing out with that bag, Scrotum Breath?” Phil asked, then chuckled. “Hey, I got some chocolate for you.” He gestured with the plastic bag of his dog’s shit.

Gordon was so angry that he raised the sword and rushed at Phil, even screaming, knowing Clara’s magic would make everyone else deaf to it.

“Hey, what are you…?” Phil said, eyes agape. “No!”

His head spun a few times in the air, blood spraying everywhere.

***********

One more man to kill: Bill Wynn, Phil’s neighbour from across the road.

Baggy-eyed, exhausted, and emotionally drained, Gordon plodded over to the house like one of the undead.

He stood by the porch, with the sword hidden behind him, looking through the front window and seeing Bill in his living room. Bill looked back, saw Gordon, and went over to his front door.

He opened the door and said, “What the fuck are you doing on my lawn, Scrotum Breath? Get out of here.”

“Come out here and make me,” Gordon hissed.

“You telling me what to do? Oh, you’re gonna get it now.”

Bill went out on the porch with a balled fist. He went down the steps and on the grass where Gordon was. Before he could swing, though, the sword suddenly appeared and went through Bill’s gut and out the other side. Gordon’s bloody work was finished.

IX: The Ritual

Everything was now ready. Gordon had brought the bag of heads to Clara’s house. She had him run bath water over all of them, and as the water poured from the shower nozzle onto each head, she said a magical formula in Liput and waved a magic wand in the shape of a pentacle, making all the skin, hair, eyes, ears, and everything inside each head dissolve and disintegrate, and leaving only nine skulls.

Since Gordon had blood all over him, she even used her magic to clean him and his clothes. She needed all traces of the violence removed from her ritual, to ensure that no bad karma would contaminate it.

Everything was laid out as planned in the red room, around the magic circle and pentacle. The swords and daggers were fanned out in all directions, with the nine skulls at the tips of the swords (including the one Gordon had used), all along the periphery of the circle and facing outwards, to keep out any unwelcome spirits, including Lechi’s, most especially, for the moment at least.

Clara, nude, was sitting in the middle of the circle with Ptah’s body in her lap; she’d used magic to keep the corpse from decomposing and putrefying. Gordon was standing in the circle, facing her, but also in a magically-induced trance, to ensure that he couldn’t interfere with the ritual in any way.

Indeed, she was worried that the magic she had used on him wasn’t as effective as she’d hoped it would be. During the killings, he’d showed signs of reluctance and hesitation that shouldn’t have been there at all. She would have to use stronger formulas and incantations to keep him fully under her control.

After all, she had no intention whatsoever of keeping her promise to satisfy his desires in bed, any more than she did with Lechi. Their souls were to be trapped forever in Ptah’s body, able only to see, hear, and feel her passively; the cat alone would retain control of his body.

When Gordon and Lechi were to realize that they were being double-crossed, they were naturally going to try to get out of their prison in Ptah’s brain. Clara was going to have to ensure the prevention of such a danger. She knew some incantations that surely would work to stop these two would-be lovers.

Just before the ritual began, she gave Gordon a cup of hot tea she’d prepared. “Here, Gordon. Drink this.”

“Thank you,” he said, taking the cup and saucer from her. “What is it?”

“Just tea,” she said with a smile. “It’ll help you to relax during the ritual. Drink up.”

As he sipped it, she watched him, noting how he was–in spite of the trance she’d put him in–still shaken up after having killed those people. She needed him to be totally calm, relaxed, in a meditative, suggestible state of mind.

…and magic mushroom tea would do the trick.

He gulped it all down, suspecting nothing, even as he saw her lips moving, whispering a secret incantation to make the drugged tea take effect faster.

Within ten minutes of his having drunk all of it, she was ready to begin, for she could see that his trance-like state was now complete with the aid of the tea. She began the ritual by summoning Lechi, and having the god’s spirit enter Gordon’s body, feeling all of his physicality.

What is this? Lechi thought. Gordon is…under the influence…of mushroom tea. I can feel his…euphoria, and his dazedness. I told Clara…to have him…ingest her mushroom drugs…so she could better…control him…while he was killing…the nine people…not during…this ritual.

She then used this incantation–“Ud Lechi eek zvarge im atta dis Gordon”–to ensure Lechi’s caging, or containment, in Gordon’s soul, or self. There was yet another useful ambiguity in the Liput language: atta could mean self, or soul.

Lechi, already addled by the high from the mushroom tea, wouldn’t notice the ambiguous meaning of atta. The god would think that his spirit was being contained in Gordon’s self, his person, his body, rather than caged in Gordon’s soul. Lechi would think he was merely being put in Gordon’s body so he could enjoy sex with her, rather than being eternally imprisoned in Gordon’s soul. This spiritual incarceration would ensure her safety against ever being sexually assaulted.

To be sure of this safety, Clara of course said this incantation nine times, each time pointing herself in the direction of one of the nine protective swords. Her next incantation would be this: “Ud Lechi ed Gordon ed nuna hashan dis atta zvarge im pita sola chi!” That is, “May Lechi and Gordon and the nine victims’ souls be safely contained in the body [of Ptah]!” Again, she chanted this nine times in the direction of each sword.

Finally, she intoned the following: “Ud Lechi ed Gordon ed nuna hashan slivu its im pita atta zvarge solachi!” Or, “May Lechi and Gordon and the nine victims beheaded/castrated be, safely in the body/soul/self of Ptah!” Again, there was ambiguity in the meaning of these words, beyond the ambiguities already explained. Did her words mean, “the decapitated nine victims,” or did they mean, “May Lechi, Gordon, and the nine victims be emasculated, made impotent, in Ptah’s body”? Clara was hoping to slip this meaning by drugged Lechi without his suspecting; and she chanted this last incantation nine times, in the direction of each sword.

At the end of this chanting, she noticed, as expected, that Gordon was getting sluggish, enervated. He was having difficulty staying on his feet. Now Clara chanted, “Ptah, vivoka! Schlink bur ta tenki!” Or, “Ptah, come to life! Embrace the souls entering you!” And this was said nine times in the same way as before.

She looked down and saw Ptah’s body beginning to stir, ever so slightly. A tear of joy ran down her cheek. She was shaking with expectation.

Gordon fell to the floor, motionless, but with his eyes looking straight at hers, accusing her. She shuddered, knowing that not only was Gordon looking at his betrayer, but also Lechi was. Still, that same look of anger and heartbreak seemed to reassure her that those souls would truly be trapped in Ptah’s body forever.

Outside, there was the sound of the sirens of approaching police cars. Then, Gordon did something unexpected.

He got up.

With hate in his eyes, he plodded like a zombie towards her.

She gasped.

Lechi won’t be contained? she wondered.

Then, Gordon tripped, she used her magic to raise up a sword under him (the same one he’d used to kill the nine victims with, fortuitously), and he fell on it.

Now he would stay motionless.

She could hear the cops barging into her house, so she quickly wrapped a nearby black blanket around her nakedness.

“Oh, God, please help me!” she screamed as the cops came into the red room and saw Gordon lying on the floor in a widening pool of blood. “He just barged in here and tried to rape me and kill me with my sword!”

“Then why has he been stabbed with it?” a cop asked.

“He got clumsy, tripped, and fell on it,” Clara said in sobs. “Earlier today, he barged in here, stole my sword, and ran off with it. I normally use it with all these others for my rituals, but he had this crazy look in his eyes, always yelling, ‘Revenge!’.”

“That’s plausible,” a second cop said. “That’s Gordon Marsh lying there dead. I knew him. You should’ve seen how clumsy he was. All those guys whose heads were cut off, they used to pick on him. I don’t know why he killed Ms. Bellows, but the rest of the girl’s story makes sense to me.”

“Nine decapitated victims,” a policewoman said, “with one of her swords, and nine skulls lying here. The swords are for your rituals, are they? Satanic rituals, by chance?”

“Of course not,” Clara said, then lied, “they aren’t real skulls. They’re all made of plastic.”

“They sure look real to me,” the policewoman said, reaching down and about to pick up a skull.

“Ni tchah!” Clara shouted, suddenly making all the police oblivious to the skulls.

“Well, we’re going to need to borrow your sword for evidence,” the first cop said. “You’ll get it back when we’ve finished the investigation. Apart from that, I’d say the girl’s story fits in with everything else we’ve seen. We’ll need a full testimony from you as we put together the rest of our investigation here.”

“OK,” Clara said, thinking, I’ve finished the ritual. The cops’ taking away my sword shouldn’t negatively affect my magic. The souls are all safely trapped in Ptah’s body. Speaking of which…

She looked over at her cat. The body was stirring a little more. Her heart was beating faster with hopefulness.

X: The Cat Came Back

Clara had to get dressed and go to the police station to give her full testimony and help the cops finish their investigation. It took hours! Thankfully, they didn’t think any more about her magical practices than those of the harmlessly eccentric behaviour of a kook loner.

By the time she finally got back home, though, the sun was already up. She was exhausted, and just wanted to strip and fall down naked on her bed.

As she climbed the stairs to her bedroom, though, she heard something that gave her a sudden burst of adrenaline, making her run the rest of the way.

She heard a meow.

She ran into her bedroom and saw Ptah lying on the bed, licking himself and purring.

“Ptah!” she screamed with tears of joy running down her cheeks. “You’re back! I’ve got you back!” She got on the bed, picked him up, put him on her lap, and stroked him. She couldn’t stop weeping. She was shaking with happiness.

Then, just to make sure, she picked him up and looked all over his body to see if anything at all was different about him. She knew, as Talas had told her, that the cat wouldn’t be 100% the same as before, but he seemed amazingly close to that 100%, for she saw absolutely nothing different.

All of his fur was black, he had his claws, though he knew to keep them in whenever she held him, for she’d used her magic to teach him never to scratch her, even by accident. She abhorred declawing.

The only thing that seemed different, and even this, ever so slightly so, was the even greater love she saw in his eyes, obviously the result of the trapped souls of all of those in Ptah’s consciousness, those of the men–and Lechi–who lusted after her.

XI: Nodding Off

Looking into Ptah’s loving, longing eyes with soaking wet, teary eyes of her own, she whispered, “I love you so much.” Then she kissed him on the top of his head, put him at the foot of her bed, and began undressing.

She giggled as she saw the cat staring at her as she got naked, thinking, This is all you boys in there will ever have of me. When fully nude, she turned around for the cat and giggled some more. See me fulfilling my promise to you, Lechi and Gordon? The cat just sat there looking, with that caged desire in his eyes.

She lay on her back on the bed with her legs apart at about a forty-five-degree angle, with her right foot touching Ptah. She closed her eyes for a few seconds, taking a deep breath and relaxing.

When she opened them, she looked down and saw, of all the bizarre things, Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman licking her between her legs! It felt so good: Clara was getting wet, her labia were beginning to swell, and her clitoris was hardening. Oddly, Pfeiffer’s tongue felt much smaller than a human tongue, but it was still effective. Clara closed her eyes, sighed, and moaned softly.

She opened her eyes again and looked down, but now she saw Julie Newmar’s Catwoman licking her! The tongue’s size felt the same, but so was its deliciously tickling skill as good as ever. Clara was getting wetter, sighing more and more, and moaning louder.

Newmar put two fingers inside Clara, gently and slowly moving them back and forth while tickling her vaginal walls. A third finger was rubbing against her hardening clitoris. While she felt all of these thrills, Clara found that those fingers inside her felt more like one thick finger–in fact, it felt hairy, even fuzzy.

She closed her eyes again and decided not to wonder about the oddity of the sensations; she’d rather just have enjoyed them. She was fidgeting on the bed and letting out little yelps of pleasure.

She opened her eyes and looked down again. Instead of seeing another actress as Catwoman again, though, this time she saw Sister Rosalie Mason, her old grade ten teacher of religion class. This nun, with her pretty face and kindness to Clara (as she’d been enduring her father’s abuse), caused her to have a lesbian crush on her back then in her teen years; so seeing her in her habit, licking her, was just all the more enjoyable. She was soaking wet between her legs, her clitoris fully engorged, and her labia swelling.

She closed her eyes for a few seconds, anticipating an even better lover on opening them. When she did open them, though, she looked to her left and saw Ms. Bellows, standing by the foot of her bed and grinning maliciously.

Then she looked straight up and saw Gordon. He was also looking at her with a malevolent smile. Instead of tongues and fingers, she now felt a phallus moving in and out of her…a furry one, but nonetheless a phallus.

Gordon said, in the panting voice of Lechi, “You actually thought…that your feeble skills…at magic…would be a match…for my power? You did need…that ninth sword…to lie in position…with all the others…to ensure…the efficacy…of your spell. Now all of us..will enjoy you…every time you sleep!”

Clara now felt phalli entering her anus and her mouth. She sensed in them the presence of Bill Wynn and Ron Sweeney. Soon after, she felt a phallus between her breasts, with invisible hands pushing them together and wrapping them around the invisible phallus. This, she sensed, was Jon Schmidt.

The fact that these were all incubi is what kept if from being physically impossible. Next, she sensed the phalli of Kurt Davies and Shaun Holmes respectively in her left and right hands. After beginning to masturbate these invisible masses of meat, she felt two more, those of Phil Sulikowsky and Jim Fredericks, pushing against her left and right armpits respectively. Finally, the invisible hands of Chris Culig took her feet, put them on either side of his invisible phallus, and had them rub it.

None of this probing hurt; in fact, her arousal was soaring. She was sweating and moaning a high-pitched “Mmm!” with every thrust she received, them all being perfectly synchronized. Finally, after another minute, she climaxed with a scream, then they all sprayed bukkake, soaking her with come from head to toe.

The incubi all disappeared. Her eyes were closed, and her mouth wide open, the sides of her lips curled up in a smirk. She let out a long sigh. Then she opened her eyes.

Instead of seeing Gordon on top of her, she saw her father.

“I told you I’d make it good for you,” he said in Lechi’s voice.

Clara woke up screaming. Shaking all over, she needed a few minutes to calm down and feel her heart rate slow down to normal. She whispered over and over, “It was just a dream. It wasn’t real. They never had me.”

Finally calm, she looked down to the foot of the bed. A puddle of come had soaked the sheets between her legs. Ptah was sitting just behind it, with his tongue sticking out.

“A wet dream?” she whispered. “I haven’t had…one of those…since I was…in high school.”

Then she looked at Ptah again. His right front leg was soaked in her gushing. He was looking at her with those loving, longing eyes. He was purring.

“Oh, my God!” she yelled, then, “No, no. That could not have happened. Not my Ptah, no. H-he just…he dipped his leg in the puddle, that’s all! Yeah, I gushed quite a lot, and that’s how he g-got so much of his leg wet with it. That explains it! I just had a dream about those men. They’re all trapped in Ptah’s consciousness; my ritual was c-complete, perfect! There’s no way they could have got out of the mental prison I put ’em in.”

She picked up her cat and hugged him.

“I got you back, Ptah! That’s what matters. I’ve had bad dreams before. They just reflect my unconscious traumas, that’s all. I have you back, and that’s what’s important, even if you did put your foot in my–no, that couldn’t have happened! My life is complete again with you. I’m so happy to have you back, Ptah! I love you so much.”

She would spend her whole day petting, feeding, playing with, and cuddling her cat. That look of longing and love in his eyes never stopped, not even for a second. She was in an ecstasy with him right until sundown, when she would go to bed with him at the foot of it. She would fall asleep smiling from ear to ear.

To sleep, perchance to dream.

Ay, there’s the rub.