Nestled in the far back corner of a roadside tavern called the Gelded Gryphon, Zerafina opened the battered tome, the aged yellow page crinkling between her fingers. She had taken the steel banded tome after her former master, a warlock of no small skill, had perished in battle defending his tower from a nearby baron. It seemed that all of the dark magic in the world could not save a person from having six inches of steel thrust through their chest. Zerafina had gathered up here few possessions as soon as she received word of her former master’s demise from her small demon familiar Tidget, knowing full well how the baron and his followers would treat the local warlock’s former servant.

In addition to her apprentice robe and mystic paraphernalia, she had taken the tome from its place of prominence in her master’s library. It was her former master’s magnus opus, the life work he had had devoted most of his waking moments to completing. He had not taken the time to explain to Zerafina the details of all it contained or how to decipher its mystic code, but she did know that it contained the written record of his accumulated knowledge.

Zerafina ran her long, alabaster fingers along the dark red lettering that swam across the page. She knew that the key to unlocking the tome’s mystic formulae was to concentrate so that her mind was in syncopation with the patter of the swirling designs. She also knew that the tome’s pages were not in sequential order and had the habit of moving themselves around at their own perverse whim. Discovering which pages combined to complete which spells was of utmost importance, as her master had loved to regale her with tales of the tragic outcomes of warlocks whose ambition outstretched their ability.

If Zerafina was interested in learning all of the knowledge contained in the tome, it would take her decades, and Zerafina, young as she was, had little interest in ruining her eyes simply to become a bent backed old hag who would probably end up being killed by a bunch of ignorant farmers. No, Zerafina had once witnessed a particular spell, a spell that the young would-be witch was eager to work for her own benefit.

She gingerly turned the page, but her mind was elsewhere, remembering when her master had performed the ritual she was so eagerly pursuing.

The ritual had taken place in her master’s dark chapel, located at the very top of his tower. The chapel was dedicated to the blasphemous demons he consorted with, giving them sacrifice in exchange for further knowledge. He had but recently purchased a slave, a dusky woman with full, ripe breasts, and soft, curving hips, from a wandering band of skyrrim. The woman had been hard used by the skyrrim, but the dark lords of night were not interested in her purity. In fact, her broken spirit and submissive resignation to her fate were like honey to them, calling to them across the cold void.

The woman had been chained, hand and foot, to the basalt altar. Dark symbols of lust and bondage had been painted on to her naked body wit the blood of recently slaughtered goat. Zerafina’s master was naked as well but for a mask fashioned to represent the avatar of Nyyphus, Dark Lord of Chained Lust. The ceremonial candles had been lit, filling the air with their cloying sensual smoke.

Zerafina was clad in her acolyte robes, and her breasts were uncomfortably bound. She wore a simple white mask devoid of features to mask her sex. Her master did not want to risk Zerafina being confused as part of the sacrifice.

Her master’s chant started slowly, a susurration of syllables the meaning of which Zerafina could not comprehend. The candles burned lower, and Zerafina stifled a yawn as she shifted her stance to a more comfortable one. Her master’s chanting grew louder, more insistent. Zerafina wondered if her master hadn’t somehow missed a crucial step in the summoning as it was evident that nothing was happening.

Then she caught sight of it.

It was such a subtle shift of the floor that she thought it was a trick of the light from the candles. Then she saw another part of the floor move, well away from the first part, and then another. Her master’s chanting was growing hysterical as he nearly screeched the incantation, his whole body shaking violently. Zerafina took an unconscious step forward, and that was when she got a good look at what was moving. Each pool of movement was a fleshy tendril emerging from the base of the altar. Each was the color of soot and ended in a bulbous head the color of fresh spilt blood. Each tendril was about as thick as Zerafina’s arm, and she could only guess at their overall length as they emerged from the floor of the chapel. Zerafina watched, wide-eyed, as the tendrils slid over the top edge of the altar, watched as they slid over the naked dusky skin of the woman. The slave opened drugged eyes, shaking her head and trying to squirm away from their unwholesome touch. The chains were too tight, preventing her from moving anywhere. Her movements only excited the tendrils.

The slave opened her mouth to scream, and fast as a striking snake, the red fleshy head of a tendril pushed itself into her mouth.

Two of the other tendrils snaked up the side of the altar, encircling the slave’s full breasts, the heads of the tendrils unfolding like monstrous flowers to encase them, slowly squeezing and milking them. Zerafina felt herself grow wet, unable to look away from the unholy violation. The slave shook against her chains, but her struggles grew weaker and her eyes grew glazed. Zerafina watched as the tendril in the woman’s mouth pushed in and out. Two more tendrils slid up, starting at the slave’s calves and progressing further and further up. The tendrils tried to slip underneath the slave, but the chain’s kept the slave flush against the altar, preventing the tendrils from gaining easy access.

The tendrils withdrew from the slave’s legs, only to wrap around the chains binding the slave’s legs. There was the screeching of metal rending and the slave, her legs suddenly free snapped them shut in a last act of defiance.

Zerfaina dipped her hand inside her robes to run along her damp slit as the tendrils pried the slave’s legs apart. Zerafina shifted her own position to get a better view as one tendril pushed into the slave’s ass as the other tendril invaded her pussy. The slave moaned, her cries muffled by the thick tendril pulsating in her mouth, and Zerafina opened her own legs wider, her finger brushing over her clit and then inside her.

Zerafina’s master was nearly hoarse at that point, but his chanting had not ceased. More tendrils erupted from the base of the altar, destroying the remaining chains. Zarafina watched as the slave was lifted bodily from the altar, the tendrils wrapping around her, sliding over her flesh as the three pushed in and out of her, pulsing to their own dark rhythm as they pumped the slave full of their seed.

Zerafina bit her lip under her mask, caught in the rush of her own orgasm as the slave shook, her body convulsing through a powerful climax. The tendrils slowly withdrew, leaving a trail of slime from the slave’s ass, pussy and mouth, her breasts coated with a gummy substance that reminded Zerafina of sap from a fresh cut pine.

A dark cowled figure stepped from the shadows, ascending a staircase from the floor that had not been their when the ritual started. The call to the dark lords had been answered.

Her master gestured to Zerafina, directing her to lead the slave away so that he might discuss his affairs away from the ears of his too curious and ambitious apprentice.

In the present, Zerafina opened her eyes and stared down at the page of the time she had unconsciously turned to, her other hand buried between her legs, playing with her clit as she reminisced about the ritual.

The words were legible, the diagrams clear. She had found the ritual to call the demon.

THE END OF CHAPTER ONE