“No guilt shall bind you. No thought restrict! Feast then and enjoy, the ecstasy of this life: But ever remember I am the wind that snatches your soul!”

The utterings of the sacred dark ritual continued to unfold under the watch of the New Moon while it concealed Dabih, as something unexpected awaited to be sacrificed upon the altar. It was customary for a human to be sacrificed every seventeen years as per the specifications of this ancient Anglo ceremony, but this year was different; for what lay, bound by brutal magick, was an avatar of Satanas and Kthunae combined.

“There shall be no severing of heads this night. This stone circle of nine, in this cruel and frosted glade which I now stand; where Lucifer himself fell from what man calls the heavens, is where I will bend time and space to my will.”

The congregation, Guardian, Master and Priestess watched on in confusion. The Mistress spoke again.

“Time is but a helical arrangement. We may only be able to progress linearly in this space, but through acausal spaces, causal time can be chosen: periods, eras, Aeons — they can all be accessed and recalled. All that is required is this…”

The Mistress stroked the six-inch quartz tetrahedron perched upon a stone related to the great pagan Chieftain known as “Arthur”, He who was At-Azoth when dragons ruled the skies.

“Lapsit ex coelis, as the Latin scholars of old are fond of saying. This beautiful piece of quartz —with its angles cut to perfection — has been unfolded into the di-tetrahedron by our vibrations, and thus those of old are primed for entrance into this world.”

Bahomay – as she was known phonetically, esoterically – approached the altar holding two sacrificial daggers in each hand that she had retrieved from the Guardian. She raised them to the sky proclaiming, “I sacrifice one of the Sun and one of Mars to reveal the first hidden pathway of old!”

She brought the blades swiftly down upon the avatar, releasing what looked like red mist with green electricity pulsing through it.

“The Emerald Dragon of antiquity! Aperiatur terra et germinet!”

A large scaled and bestial hand with razor sharp claws broke through the Earth. The green dragon slowly climbed out through the soil and gently coiled its tail around the Mistress of Blood. Athushir roared and spewed black fire. The Mistress pointed to the corpse on the altar and whispered, “feden”. Athushir slithered over to the corpse and began devouring it.

The Mistress clapped her hands and several hooded figures, not entirely human appeared, dragging a hooded and bound hermaphrodite to the altar. By then, Athushir had finished the dyssolving and was waiting calmly by a nearby tree. The assistants secured the next avatar to the already bloody altar. Initially, the hermaphrodite slipped and slid on the remaining viscera, but was quickly bound by the tenacious help.

Bahomay raised her knives again as she stated, “One of Jupiter shall now know the sword!” She plunged the blades into the abdomen of the hermaphrodite and began cutting horizontally. She cut, she sliced, until the hermaphrodite was in two pieces.

“Darkat. Dagon. Thou art free again!”, she screamed with ecstasy as an asymmetric and inexplicable creature broke through the hardened soil, accompanied by a beautiful, naked woman with darkly glowing red eyes and long black hair.

The mistress pointed to the altar once more and quietly issued the same Aeonic command: “Feden”.

Darkat and Dagon made their way over to the altar, travelling in their unique way. Darkat gracefully inserted her hand into the cadaver and started pulling out the insides, taking large handfuls of meat and gorging. Dagon positioned his form over the lower half of the corpse and began peeling it without physical contact.

Bahomay clapped her hands again. Two more figures appeared, carrying another sacrifice. The opfer was positioned upon the altar after Darkat and Dagon had relocated to the tree.

She of Blood raised her blades again.

“Now one of the Moon must be opferred”.

She proceeded through the same motions as before, this time bellowing, “I release you Gaubni, god of old!”, as she concluded the last motion.

A swarm of flies descended from the skies and formed a tall figure. The Mistress pointed to the altar, issuing the now familiar command once again. The swarm covered the corpse, stripping its flesh; then its muscle and organs; followed by its bones. The flies, now content, flew over to the large tree, hovering above it.

Bahomay clapped her hands a final time. After the next avatar was slaughtered, the sound of distant battle — the clashing of wood and steel, filled the ether. A sea of thousands of men and women locked in a cycle of death, rebirth and bloody coitus, eventually arrived at the altar. The horrific cycle continued as the corpse was absorbed into the fray, vanishing among the blood and appendages, the screams and moans. The sea of blood, death and sex, then transmuted into a pale man and woman with missing eyes and gaping mouths perpetually emanating a wail. The creatures strutted over to the tree to join the rest.

Bahomay walked over to the new, yet old legion, raising her arms.

“The Immolation is complete. Go now, my lovelies. Hunt down the rest. Return them to dormancy. For the age of the twenty-one Dark Immortals is over! Thou, the Old Gods, have returned to reclaim thou’s rightful place as the most feared and sinister species of the Nekalah, and what a glorious and bloody return it is!

Hail the Heinous Gods!”, she concluded, with a sinisterly seductive smile. Then, she collapsed.

The congregation, Guardian, Master and Priestess all rushed over to her. Her legs were trembling and her stomach was growing. The Priestess realised what was happening and immediately parted the Mistress’s legs. The Mistress of Blood screamed.

“The Dark Child is coming!”

She pushed and pushed, until finally, the child broke out into the world in a sea of blood. The Priestess caught the child. It was grey and frail. Its skeleton glowed red through its skin, and its irises were shifting between multiple colours, as if the Child was a refraction of all light. The Mistress pushed herself up from the floor and took Rubedo in her arms, carrying it over to the Old Gods awaiting eagerly.

The child was placed into the giant, scaled hand of Athushir, as the Old Gods gathered round to bestow their powers unto the Child.

Several crows began circling and cawing above the Mistress and her sinister family. More crows joined the circle, and more still, until they had descended and completely enshrouded the Mistress and her brothers and sisters. A bright light began to emerge from the torso of the child, the quartz tetrahedron, and the column of crows simultaneously. The lights shot up into the night sky, turning red in the process and combining into the shape of a triangle, which split and expanded into a tetrahedron, and finally a di-tetrahedron.

The light had to have reflected off ‘things’ concealed deep within space, ‘things’ that were now travelling through the light and down the angles; yet, these were not Gods, dark or otherwise. These ‘things’ were much more inexplicable, for the acausal is boundless and ever-breathing darkly.

Meanwhile, the River began to flow into the Red Lake again, backwards through time…