Across Black Seas of Infinity Ch. 08

Author's note: Some parts of this Lovecraftian tale of cosmic horror will contain dark elements and non-consent. I'm eager for feedback, so please leave a comment.

*****

Abigail drifted through a languid, amorphous space that seemed vast and dark everywhere except in her immediate vicinity. Her consciousness twisted and whirled in orbit around her naked, radiant body, burning with prismatic light but unconsumed by the wild tongues of flame. Or was she conscious at all? She remembered back to that first night in Professor Ward's office... the exaltation of the fire... the confusion as the Knife carved unfathomable runes into her skin... the ecstasy as she opened her body to penetration by unnamable forces. In this dream -- for she knew it to be so -- the fire was an inferno and her insides were stretched to bursting with power -- not just her vagina, though certainly that, but her womb, her mind, her skin, her entire being... floating alone in an endless void. No, not alone... a distant voice whispered in the dark: "Daughter, awake!"

Her dream-avatar exploded in a supernova as a heavy weight fell onto Abigail's body and her hair was viciously yanked back to expose her neck. Abigail couldn't see anything through the haze of awakening, but she twisted and jerked to escape whatever had grabbed her, and in the process clubbed something hard with the hilt of the Knife. She struggled to clear the vision from her mind and free herself from the bedsheets entangling her limbs, and finally managed to lurch onto the floor and get her feet under her. She held the dull blade of the Knife with both hands and trembled, naked, while a large man pushed himself to his feet on the other side of the bed; Abigail recognized him from Miss Taylor's office, one of the guards. His face was scarred and wicked, and the blade he held was razor sharp. The man began to circle around the foot of the bed towards Abigail, putting himself between her and the door of the lavish suite. He held his weapon like he knew how to use it, and meant to do so.

Abigail's adrenaline surged and the tattoo over her left breast stung painfully. She was half the weight of this man, untrained in fighting, and completely naked; she knew she couldn't fend him off. "Stop!" she commanded in a shaky voice, holding out the Knife. She felt a surge of energy flow through her body and the man hesitated before gripping his chest with his left hand and shaking his head grimly.

"That won't work on me, girl," he said, and kept circling towards her around the massive bed. "I'm sorry for this. It's not your fault. I'm sorry."

Maybe she should scream? He could kill her long before anyone came. "You don't work for Miss Taylor, the Eagle, do you?" she asked, trying to buy some time.

At that he smiled, stretching his scars into a frightening mask. "Yes and no. I'd give my life to kill her, but I can't. Killing you and hiding the Knife again will at least slow her down. I'm sorry it has to be this way, but you're not an innocent girl... not even human anymore... just a vessel for the Knife."

Was he trying to convince her or himself? The man came around the corner of the bed and was nearly within striking distance, but he hesitated. He wasn't eager to cut down a defenseless girl. Abigail had a sudden epiphany and threw the Knife down on the bed, spreading her arms wide, standing naked and defenseless. "I'm not controlled by the Knife," she said. The man stared. "I want to stop Shub-Niggurath and free myself from this curse," she said.

The man's eyes went wide and darted from Abigail to the Knife and back. He relaxed his posture by a fraction as he tried to interpret her behavior. "No one can resist the relics," he said. "How?"

Abigail took a deep breath and then blushed from head to toe at her nakedness before this strange man. Careful to keep her hands away from the Knife, she snatched up the white silken sheet from the bed and wrapped it around her body. How did she resist the lure of the Knife? "I have an elixir that protects me."

The man turned that idea over in his head for several seconds. "Then you must keep company with a powerful warlock," he concluded. "Who?"

A warlock? Professor Ward? Abigail shook her head. "No way. I'm planning to get out of here without being tracked home. Who are you?"

"I'm Royce," he said. He hadn't put down his knife, and was obviously weighing his options.

"Isn't an ally worth more than the Knife?" she asked. "You could kill me and try to hide it again, sure, but that only delays the inevitable. What if... we could use it to actually destroy Shub-Niggurath once and for all?"

"Drop the sheet," he said, gesturing with his blade.

Abigail blushed again. "What?"

"I want to see your tattoos," he said, as if that were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Why?"

"Because I want to see what rituals have been performed on you. Drop the sheet and show me every inch of your skin, or I will have to kill you," he said.

Abigail pursed her lips and looked away from the man as she lifted her arms and dropped the protective sheet to the floor around her ankles. The man set down his knife and approached her, focusing on the tattoo over her breast for a long while, tracing every line with his eyes. Abigail burned with embarrassment, all the more as his hot breath close to her skin began to turn her on. Eventually satisfied with her breast, he grabbed her gently around the waist with callused hands and began to turn her every which way. He lifted her arms and legs one by one, fingered through her hair, and checked between her fingers and toes. "Bend over," he ordered and Abigail did so, furious but determined to persevere. The man's rough fingers spread her butt cheeks and the lips of her bare pussy, inspecting every crevasse of her body. His fingers slid across her wetness, exploring, searching for something they wouldn't find, but revealing her arousal nonetheless. She gasped in surprise when he pulled back the hood of her clitoris and softly turned it in his fingers, and then he was finished.

Humiliated, Abigail grabbed the sheet and pulled it around herself again. "Satisfied?" she asked, breathless. Her pussy was wetter than she wanted to admit.

"You're a virgin?" he asked.

Abigail's anger and humiliation burst out. "Damn it, yes -- ok?! Are you going to murder me or not?"

Royce shook his head and held out his hands to calm her down. "Not today, relax. I'm not authorized to let you live, but I'll help you escape from here if you tell me where to find you."

"So you can kill me later?"

The man was impassive as he picked his knife back up. "My superiors will make that decision, but your proposal might be enough to tempt them. Where do you live? Tell me the truth or I'll know it, and I will kill you right now."

Abigail shook with rage and shot a look at the Knife. Why wouldn't it's power help her now? She longed to take it up and fuck this man's mind for what he'd done to her. How dare he talk to her this way? And suddenly the comforting weight of the carven hilt was in her hand. The man drew back in surprise and shifted his shoulders as if in slow motion, beginning to lunge at her with his blade. "Miskatonic University," she said in a whisper, her knuckles white on the hilt.

Royce froze. Every word he spoke, every action he made, seemed deliberate and careful. "Very well," he said. "Get dressed and let's get you out of here before Grace comes back."

Abigail sucked in her breath and slumped her shoulders. She'd live, for now, and even have some help getting home. "Turn around?" she half-begged.

"No," Royce said. He put his dagger away but continued to watch Abigail closely.

Well, what did it matter? He had already seen everything she had, up close and personal. Abigail shuffled to her backpack, grabbed her clean clothes, and pulled a new dress over her head before letting the sheet fall to the floor. Then she stepped into her panties and pulled them up. She had a bra but wasn't going to take the dress back off to put it on -- she had done the reverse many times, but getting a bra on under clothes was much more awkward than getting one off.

Royce had a hungry look in his eyes and Abigail tried to distract him with talking while she got dressed. "Do you know what's up with the ritual orgy that's happening upstairs? Is there any way we can save those people?"

"No, we have to get you and the Knife away."

"But what's going to happen to them?" Abigail asked, uncertain that she wanted to know.

Royce's face dropped. "The lucky ones will die. Hopefully none of the women get pregnant, but that's part of why we need to get you away as soon as possible. Miss Taylor believes that your presence will enhance their fertility."

"Grace told me the same thing," Abigail said, stuffing her dirty clothes into her backpack. "What about her? Do you think she would...?"

At the mention of the blonde woman's name Royce stiffened and grabbed at something on his chest again, under his shirt. "Stay away from her -- she's utterly loyal, and very dangerous. Don't trust anyone here but me, got it?"

Abigail nodded. "Sure." Of course he would say that.

Royce opened the door and peered into the empty hall. "Stay close, like I'm escorting you somewhere. No matter what you see, we're not stopping. The best way you can help these people is by getting away," he said, and paused. "When I signal, order me to return to Miss Taylor and then run from the building."

Abigail nodded again and followed him into the corridor. Instead of leading her back to the long elevator that had brought her up to the top of the Shard, Royce took her down some smaller service corridors to an interior stairway that stretched up and down farther than Abigail could see. They began descending and she quickly lost track of their altitude because the floors were labeled with mysterious sigils instead of numbers. Royce paused several times to inspect the symbols as if he wasn't sure of their route.

"Do you know where we're going?" Abigail asked, studying the string of vaguely familiar symbols on the wall. She didn't know how, but she felt like she could interpret them if she bent her mind towards it... but she turned away when a wave of nausea swept over her.

Royce looked away and rubbed his head. "The building is non-Euclidian, and sometimes the floors... move. There are a few doors along here we definitely don't want to open." And then they walked back up a few flights and Royce made a selection.

The floor they entered was divided into large glass enclosures, each containing a handful of young men or women, separated by gender. The walkway between the glass was utterly silent despite the activity raging inside the cells: pounding on the glass, wailing, screaming, talking, all completely muffled. Actually, the men were all quite docile... only the women were protesting. Pairs of white-clad medical staff moved from room to room, making observations and speaking among themselves.

Abigail watched as an enclosure containing four women was opened by a group of male guards. The women's shouts suddenly impinged on the silence of the corridor as the guards took them by the arms and carried them, struggling, to the elevator. When the doors pinged closed the hallway was quiet once again.

Abigail's stomach was in knots. "For the ritual?" she asked Royce.

"Yes, Mistress," using an honorific now that they were in proximity to the medical workers. "The ritual is the primary function of this facility and runs twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. This is the intake level, where sacrifices are processed and held until they are required on the balcony."

"How many?" Abigail forced herself to ask. The Knife buzzed with energy in her hand, eager to taste life and sex, blood and pussy, semen, screams of terror and ecstasy -- Abigail pushed the thoughts away.

"About a hundred women and twenty-five men per day, Mistress," Royce said without expression.

"And... after?"

"Afterwards the sacrifices are usually taken down to the root cellar beneath the building, Mistress. But because you're here, I understand that some changes are being made for Saturday. Please follow me," he said with veiled urgency, gesturing towards a different stairway.

But Abigail's feet wouldn't move, and it was all she could do to stifle the tears that were welling up in her eyes. How could she escape and leave all these poor people to such a horrible fate? Royce began moving towards the door, but she walked down the corridor towards the nearest medical staff.

The pair, a man and a woman, looked up wide-eyed when Abigail approached, and she spoke before they could address her. "Who is in charge of this floor?"

The woman -- mid-fifties, grey hair, glasses -- lowered her clipboard. "I'm Dr. Lomax, Mistress. These patients are all under my care. I can personally assure you that everything is on track for your Revelation on Saturday."

Abigail struggled to maintain a calm demeanor, even though she was screaming inside. "Plans have changed, Dr. Lomax. These sacrifices aren't the right... kind. All these people must be released from the building immediately."

Dr. Lomax was dumbfounded and looked to her male colleague and then Royce as if looking for confirmation that she had heard correctly. "Mistress... I think we should discuss this change with Miss Taylor...."

Abigail longed to see Royce's reaction but didn't allow her gaze to move from Dr. Lomax. "I expect immediate obedience," she said, staring resolutely at the confused doctor.

Dr. Lomax didn't budge, but the man in the white coat leapt into action. At first Abigail was afraid he was going to sound an alarm, but he went straight to the nearest white-coated staff and repeated her orders. The women hesitated, but the men moved quickly to obey. Within thirty seconds the hallway was flooded with terrified women.

Abigail shouted to be heard above the cacophony. "Take them all down to the street and release them!"

A loud, sweaty crush of bodies enveloped Abigail and Royce, and he grabbed her arm and pulled her towards the stairway. "You're insane," he growled over the growing panic. Most of the staff, male and female, were organizing the female captives to lead them downstairs, but few of the male captives had left their opened cells. "Dr. Lomax is on her way to tell Miss Taylor! We've got to go."

Royce was strong and easily dragged Abigail down the stairs, hurrying past the unnumbered floors with barely a glance at the symbols. They ran for what felt like ages, with Royce grumbling under his breath as they passed each floor. His fingers were tight on Abigail's arm, and she focused her attention on keeping to her feet as they barreled down.

Finally Royce crashed to a stop and clutched onto a door, releasing Abigail and catching his breath. "The atrium!" he gasped. "Not the best way, but good enough, considering what you've done." He straightened his clothes and tried to look normal before pushing the door open.

Cool, wet air washed over Abigail and made her nipples hard as she emerged into the ground floor atrium. A hundred feet of glass towered over her head, but the nearby surroundings were dominated by dense deciduous growth that had no business in an office building. A dirt trail branched before them, one path leading towards the rising bank of elevators visible against the glass walls across the building, and the other path leading deeper into the atrium, towards a huge black tree that loomed over its neighbors and seemed to devour the sunlight. Without thinking, Abigail turned towards the dark tree, but Royce caught her arm again.

"Not that way, you fool."

"I know..." Abigail muttered, but the pull was strong. The tree was calling to her, longing for her. Dark vines stretched from it in every direction, snaking up into the building and crawling across the forest floor. It was hungry to embrace her, taste her, join with her, fill her.

Royce slapped her face hard and kept a grip on her arm when she squealed and struggled. He pulled her towards the elevators, and as they retreated from the tree its lure weakened. Abigail quit pulling against Royce and walked with him, until he eventually released her. Her face stung from his slap, but she pushed the pain away -- it was nothing compared to what those sacrifices faced, so how could she complain? The power of the elixir was weakening, and the influence of the Knife was waxing again.

When they emerged from the treeline into the sparse, corporate lobby of the Shard there were already clusters of captives hurrying for the doors -- mostly women, but men as well. A handful of guards made vain attempts to detain them, but there were just too many fleeing too quickly. When the guards saw Abigail and Royce they hurried over.

Royce squeezed Abigail's arm and she spoke up. "All of you, Miss Taylor needs you on the summit immediately. Go!"

The guards ran off without question and Royce followed, barely sparing a glance at Abigail as he returned to the charnel house. Abigail joined the stream of captives pouring out of the lobby and then ran from the Shard as fast as her legs could carry her.

*****

The flight back to Boston was uneventful. Abigail was glad to have escaped with her sanity intact -- right? -- and to have saved so many lives. Hopefully Royce's cover wasn't blown, but why would he be suspected any more than any of the other stupidly obedient male cultists? Same with the male captives. The relics must give the women who bear them some influence over men that doesn't extend to women. But why was Royce unaffected? What about Professor Ward? Abigail's subconscious pondered these questions while her mind and body rested.

When the plane landed on Friday morning there was a single message on her phone waiting for her from Miss Taylor.

RaptorChick: "All is forgiven, my sister. By the All-Mother's Grace we will bring you home."

*****

Author's note: No direct sex in this part, but I thought the search for tattoos was pretty sexy. Sometimes I wonder if every part requires a sexual encounter or not. Please let me know what you think.

I really like the dynamic here between Abigail and the forces of evil. She has power herself, and they don't want to kill her, they want to subvert her. She sees the depth of their evil now and has clearly decided that she wants no part of it, but how can she stop them without using the power available to her?

Back to Miskatonic University for the next part, stay tuned! I'm happy to answer any questions in the comments.