HSA-904: Ossagalitha

Violet took the small, brightly wrapped package in her hands, "I think it's a book." She grinned at Tanner, who shrugged and dropped down on the sofa beside her. She peeled away the pink and purple paper as carefully as she could. Violet didn't like ripping paper, though she never found a use for it and ultimately it went in the bin. As expected, the folds and tape moved away to reveal a small book. She held it up to the light, "God, its beautiful."

"I hoped you'd like it," Tanner said. "Didn't have a clue what I was doing, but I went to that antique bookshop you're always raving about."

"McCondrin's? Tanner, I could spend hours in there."

"I know," he put his hand on her knee. She sat cross legged, cradling the book between her hands, not yet opening it. Instead, she ran her fingers gently along the spine and edge. "The shop keeper lady helped me find a few things you might like. I kept the list, but this one stuck out to me. All the others were all random. One was about the bee cycles of middle France between 1740 and 1760, which I guess were important enough to write a book about."

Violet opened the book carefully, and her smile faltered slightly. "It's empty?"

"Yeah, this one is a journal or something. They had a small collection of them bought off an estate a few years ago. Pages of each one are slightly dyed with different colors. I got you the purple one cause...well, Violet."

"Babe, it's gorgeous, but I could never use it." She didn't even like handling it without gloves. Whether real or not, the tinge of purple in the pages filled her head with the scent of lavender. The cover took the room's light into its dark, red leather while sparing a little for the quarter-inch sized, octagon cut amethyst set into the leather at the midpoint of the front cover. Violet moved her finger over it, surprised to feel its coolness. "I wonder if that's a real gem."

"Shopkeep lady said it was. Each of them had one. The set, I mean. One had an emerald, one a ruby, and so on. I have a card that goes with the book. Tells all about the history and stuff. I didn't want it to fall out, so I have it at my apartment. I'll bring it next time, or you can get it when you drop by. Short version is that some duke or whoever had these made for his artist daughter, but she never used them."

"Why not?"

Tanner shifted slightly and took a sip of his wine. "Eh, well, she died. Or disappeared or something. Had one of the books on her when she went, apparently. Duke whoever locked up the others with the rest of the girl's stuff, and it got shuffled around from collector to collector. And now you have a dead girl's diary. Happy birthday!"

Violet pursed her lips. "The thing about collecting old books it that they all belonged to dead people. Even a few murdered ones. Adds to their mystique. I do wish it was marked in some way, though. It looks so amazingly clean."

"Oh, it is. Turn to the one page before the last."

She did. On the page, in an old and half faded ink, was written "Ossagalitha". "Oh," Violet said, considering the preciseness of the script and the strangeness of the word. "What does that mean?"

"Dunno," Tanner answered. "Different word in each book, same spot. Shopkeeper said it's nonsense. I googled it to be sure, but doesn't turn up anything. She, the lady at the store, says it might have been a cipher of some kind. The owner wrote down the key for each journal, but never got around to writing anything else."

Violet smiled. She liked the small mystery. "Thank you, I love it."

He shrugged. "Thought it was pretty. Like you."

"Shut the fuck up. Gimme my wine."

***

The book spoke to Violet on its first night in her apartment. She didn't hear its whispers, but they seeped into her dreams turning them to nightmares of a black place. When she woke up in a cold sweat, she clutched at Tanner's snoring body for a moment to compose herself. As the dreams faded, she blamed the wine for her uneasy feeling, and went back to sleep.

She spent the following day with Tanner, lazing around the apartment watching television together. Violet loved her boyfriend. She knew this because of the stinging feeling of loss when he finally went home to his own apartment. They lingered by the door, pawing at each other and giving half-hugs. It had been a perfect birthday weekend, a fun night followed by a day of serenity and comfort. From that the world at large pulled them back. Tanner's apartment shaved off forty minutes from his commute, otherwise, they'd have moved in together already. For the moment, it worked better to live apart for the week, meeting in midtown for lunch and dinner. Violet survived it by knowing they'd be together on the weekends.

With her boyfriend gone, the press of her own responsibilities took her. She cleaned, shoving the two days of garbage down the chute. She showered, changed the sheets, started laundry, and a half dozen other small tasks that cropped up while she was lost in Tanner's aura. With all that finally done, Violet went to her desk, retrieved the book, and sat down to admire it. As she gently touched the outer cover, she looked around her apartment, wondering where it would best be displayed. Some of her collection stayed in a special box, each volume inside a polyethylene bag. Those only came out on special occasions. She'd shown them to Tanner, and he pretended to be interested. Others sat around on the shelves, at a glance no different than an airport bought paperback. Yet, each of her collection had a specific spot to accommodate it. She cleaned them regularly and made certain to rotate their positions from time to time.

The journal, Ossagalitha as she'd come to think of it, was in remarkable shape considering its reported age. She wanted her own, trusted specialist to evaluate the book before she took any official steps in its preservation. Tanner certainly meant well, but it wouldn't surprise Violet to learn that a clever shopkeeper sold him some novelty book with a fancy story behind it. The main impediment to this idea was the reputation of McCondrin's shop. They'd have sooner shooed him out of the place than sell him a knockoff. Still, she had her doubts. It wasn't beyond possible for McCondrin's to be fooled, especially by something so niche.

With gloves on, she began her own examination. She turned through the pages, admiring the feeling of the paper. The cover's stitching was unusual, and bejeweled covers were rarely so simplistic. Perhaps the set made more sense together. I wonder how much Tanner paid for this. He'd refused to tell her, but from the look in his eyes, the gift hadn't come cheap. The dye in the pages intrigued her. She lowered her face to the book, inhaling slowly. Lilac? Any kind of scented infusion would have worn off a century ago. Maybe it was the wrapping paper.

As she raised herself back up, she looked again at the page. For several seconds, Violet's thoughts clogged together in a jam of confusion and disbelief. The page had words on it. They gleamed in fresh, purple ink, as though written moments before. The vibrant color contrasted with the dullness of the paper, almost glowing from a light somehow behind them. The script was identical to the word in the back of the book, and it read, "Lilac? Yes, and lavender, depending on my mood." Except the words transcended the journal. As Violet read them, she heard them as well. A lilting, feminine voice that seemed to drift into one ear and out of the other spoke from the page.

As her senses returned, Violet pushed back from the table, toppling over her chair and looking around for the source of the voice. Seeing no one, she attempted to fill in the impossible with the plausible. A trick book with some kind of camera and paper thin display that could create words on the page based on what she was doing. Obviously then, the voice did come from the book, but a hidden speaker. Tanner had given her a gag and not gotten to see it pay off. Somewhat more calm, she approached the table again. The page no longer said anything about lilac, but instead displayed a number "12". At the corner, Violet saw page numbers.

Overwhelmed by curiosity, she turned to the twelfth page of the journal. As she touched each page, she tested it for some hidden circuitry or light, but found nothing. As she laid out the directed page, new words appeared. Each letter scrawled out in a shaky and unsure fashion before resolving into a perfect script of gleaming purple. The page read, "Notes and ritual regarding the first invocation. Prepare a circle wide enough to comfortably fit your body, preferably of powder rather than paint as this allows more measured flow of energy. Within the circle write the name on sheet of paper. With this journal placed safely outside of the circle, press a finger of your left hand against the gem. Press a finger of your right hand against the name."

In large part, Violet was a woman of logic and reason. She received a good education that spent no small amount of time thoroughly dispelling notions of myth and superstition. At the same time, she loved books more than many, including her boyfriend, would consider reasonable. She loved them enough to believe they had power unto themselves. In a library, no matter how small, she could feel that presence. In the larger ones, the presence became a gravity that threatened to pull her over into something more than simple paper and bindings. In her own small collection of antique and precious books, she found artifacts and relics of ancient power, invested by those who owned them before her, those who treasured them. And so, despite a world of technology and reason mere inches away, Violet fell easily and quickly into a simple idea.

"Magic book," she said aloud. Her heart thumped with excitement. "But magic books are dangerous. They're always dangerous. This spell or whatever it is will summon something. It'll steal me down to hell and let some succubus take my place." Yet, her mind settled on the word "first" on the journal's page. If this is the first invocation, that means there's more than one. So it can't take me to hell on the first one. I could try it. See if its real. And if I'm sitting in a circle of salt with nothing happening, I'll take it to my grave and thank Tanner for the gag gift by flicking his right nut.

She gnawed at her bottom lip as she considered her options. Finally convinced that she would only have to be embarrassed in front of herself, she grabbed the journal and headed to the kitchen. Not wanting to make too much of a mess, she measured out how big she would need a circle to fit herself. Salt seemed the logical choice. She poured out a ring, making sure not to leave any breaks. With the book placed on one side, she took a sheet of printer paper and wrote Ossagalitha. She did not pause to question how she knew that to be the name the spell described. She took it to the circle, placed it in the center, and knelt beside it. With a deep breath, she placed the tip of one finger on the sheet of paper. Slowly, she reached over and pressed her other hand to the gem on the book.

***

Violet wanted to scream. Her throat tightened, and adrenaline coursed through her veins. She widened her eyes to see, but it seemed as though all the light in the whole world, or perhaps more, was falling away into a stifling darkness.

As soon as it began, it stopped. She was in her apartment and a piece of paper was burning under her hand. Driven back to reality by sensory demands, she snatched her hands away as the page curled into a smoldering ash. Violet looked around, wondering if some hideous demon would emerge from around the corner, forcing her to cower in the safety of her circle. Instead, movement underneath the crumple ash drew her attention. Something wriggled beneath the small pile. As it moved, it flicked away the bits of burned page, growing upward a little with each movement. Grotesquely amazed, Violet swept away the rest of the ash and peered at the curious thing attached to the floor of her apartment.

"A tentacle?" she said. The thing stuck out from the floorboards. It stopped growing at roughly a foot long. "A tongue?" Neither possibility settled the unease in her stomach. One side of the thing was ridged with hard nodules while the other was flat but with small indentions that resembled taste buds. "Fuck, that's so fucking weird." She bent as close as she dared to examine where it attached to the floor. It didn't break through the wood or seem to interact with the floor in any way. The thing emerged from the fabric of existence at the point where the floor began. As she neared it, the thing undulated and a thick sheen of goo suddenly oozed from various pores on its body. Globs of the slime rolled down its sides, pooling at its base as it resumed its wriggling pattern.

Violet's cheeks flushed. The spell said the circle should be big enough for me to fit in it. The scent changed to lavender and filled her head. The floral aroma clouded her senses as her skin tingled and an odd compulsion took grips on her. Understanding made her squirm, almost in rhythm with the tentacle. As she wondered how she could get rid of the thing, the answer forced its way into her head. Give it what it wants, obviously. The flush on her skin seeped deeper into her body. She looked at the ridges and length of the bizarre appendage and considered the implications of doing what the spell wanted.

She reached out and touched the side of the tentacle with one finger. It responded, coiling back from the jab before going rigid and still. It's waiting, she thought. The wet slime on her finger tingled as it absorbed into her skin. Probably shouldn't have touched it. Her hips moved instinctively as she looked at the thing jutting up from her floor. The wine had prevented Tanner from anything too special on her birthday, and she'd worked up a bit of a charge lying around with him the whole day, casually eyeing the limp bulge in his shorts. Combined with the pungent, invasive aroma of the magical tongue, Violet's body needed only a few suggestive thoughts to respond. She was wet and curious with a wriggling tongue waiting to serve its purpose.

Her embarrassment couldn't overcome the gnawing need building inside of her. She stood up, careful to remain within the circle, and pulled down her pants. After a few more seconds of deliberation and a wary eye at the door and windows, she pulled down her panties as well. Driven by an obscene will that she did not entirely understand, she straddled the wriggling thing and lowered herself down to it. At first, it continued its rhythmic gyrations, but once it touched her inner thigh, the thing seemed to change, coiling itself as her knees positioned on either side. The thing moved up once again and pressed fully against her naked pussy lips. For a brief second, Violet realized the obscenity of her choice, but those anxieties vanished as the thing thrust inside of her with a squelch of its own goo.

The yelp of surprise stuck in her throat as the thing wiggled its way between her lower lips. She grunted in frustration at the feeling of the slippery thing fumbling around as it crammed more of itself inside of her. The insides of her thighs were coated with the bizarre goo, and she could feel it being secreted inside of her pussy. With a grunt, she shifted her hips, and the thing reshaped itself into the original ridged form. The hard bumps rubbed at her inner walls as the tentacle explored her insides. Violet gripped her knees and jutted her ass out, hoping the thing would push deeper. And it did, flicking its whole length within the tight confines of her squeezing canal. She raised herself up, somehow pleased by the wet slurping noise of the thing sliding out of her, before pushing down, cramming the vile thing in until her hips ached from the stretch. Her mouth lolled open, and she drooled as an incoherent pleasure gripped her mind.

The tentacle throbbed inside of her, vibrating one side of its length and then the other. Each movement and jerk pushed her closer to an edge of orgasm or madness. Violet struggled to understand how she'd come to be humping a magical worm stuck out of her floorboard while pleasure cascaded through her head. Pleasurable aches throbbed across her body, particularly her breasts. She wanted them to be touched. She wanted the thing to touch them. More of the strange fluid gushed inside of her, oozing out over her pussy lips. Without prompt, she reached between her legs, scooped up as much of the weird jelly as she could and smeared it across her mouth. It tasted like the whole of reality smelled, like lilac and lavender. Her ass bounced faster as she chased completion. The thing inside of her pulsed to match her rhythm as it continued its probing search.

Violet's breath quickened. Her muscles clamped down on the invader, and she prepared to cry out in pleasure. The tentacle sensed her nearness and pushed its final goal. Curving inside of her, it pressed on the network of nerves inside of Violet that caused a massive, earth shattering orgasm to rip through her. She bucked and jerked from side to side, yanking her head back in a howl. Seconds became minutes and minutes felt like eternity. Eventually, the tentacle slithered out of her, allowing her to crumple inward. Moments later, she groaned and tipped forward into a dead sleep.

***

Some hours later, Violet stirred from new nightmares. She woke disoriented, knees pressed into gritty salt, and naked ass cold and wet from her coupling. The journal remained on the opposite side of the circle. She took it up immediately, opened it to the middle, and said, "More."

The words appeared in the same strange script, resolving into a bright purple. "To become an acolyte, create a circle seven feet and four inches in diameter. Within this circle, write upon the ground the name. At the circle's edge, place the journal and with one hand fully upon the book, read out the name."

Violet's body throbbed with a peculiar energy matched by an uncomfortable emptiness. She could still feel the slickness of the tentacle on her inner thighs. The memory of its unrelenting probing dominated her mind. She did not pause to consider whether she was going mad or if another path could be taken. She didn't think to call for help or even to question the book's instructions. The idea of going another hour without the pleasure of that thing again threatened to steal her sanity. With a wide sweep of her arm, she scattered the small circle into nothingness, hopped to her feet, and went to work.

She chose to follow the instructions exactly, not for fear of something horrible happening if she didn't, but of something good not happening. With a measuring tape and a bit of string, she measured out a decent circle of the correct diameter. She one again poured the ring with salt, and used a black marker to write "Ossagalitha" on the floor. This time, she stripped out of the rest of her clothes, wanting nothing in the way of her pleasure. As she raked the t-shirt over her breasts, she thought they seemed different. Puffy and sensitive. For that matter, her ass felt different too, a little more buoyant. Such changes didn't bother her. Perhaps they would make her more appealing to Ossagalitha.

Addled and desperately horny, she slapped her hand down on the journal, middle finger resting on the oddly cold gem, and whispered, "Ossagalitha".

Again, the world faded. Light vanished into whorls of darkness. Violet felt as though she had suddenly moved an incredibly far distance to be near something that abhorred her presence. In that maddening darkness, she saw things moving, squirming, writhing. She saw faces screaming, either in ecstasy or terror. Her eyes widened to adapt to the darkness, but it felt as though her eyes, her pupils, and the whole of her head might rip in half to observe even a sliver of light. The name reverberated in that horrible place until it drove back into her ears, sending her flying back to her small apartment.