The ancient iron gate groaned as Tanith pushed it open with one hand, while the other held a silver thurible, billowing a heady incense of deep, carnal oud, funereal flowers and dark musks. The moon shown high and bright as she stepped onto unhallowed ground. Tanith felt the presence of the dead pressing in already, their hands reaching out to greedily grope at her thighs, breasts, neck or whatever else they could get at. She swung the thurible, smoke curling hypnotically up into the cold, autumn sky and all but the strongest specters were kept at bay. The rest were merely whispers of fingers on her cool, naked flesh.
Tanith walked the small path from the gate and through the weedy, long forgotten cemetery. So forgotten that it had long been deconsecrated, and desecrated, even. Restless dead howled and hissed with every step she took, frustrated that they couldn't get at her and steal her life. Dead leaves crunched under Tanith's small, bare feet as she approached a small, copse of twisted, leafless trees.
Where the rest of the cemetery was wildly overgrown, this copse was blasted and devoid of anything, save the trees, whose branches reached up like skeletal fingers to scrape at the night sky. A few tombstones jutted up from the lifeless ground like broken teeth, as Tanith reached up into one of the trees to retrieve a small bag she'd stashed there a few days ago.
Tanith knew that what she was about to do, what she was going to potentially summon, was dangerous. Yet the potential for danger made her grow wet, her thighs becoming slick. Restless dead pressed against the smoky barrier, sensing her arousal and gnashed their teeth. No, she was after something else entirely different, tonight, and she would pay any price to get it. Any. Price. Tanith waved them off and they shrieked, disbanded for now, as she sat down the thurible.
The jutting, bygone tombstones were roughly arranged in a circle. An oddity, but her dreams had led her to this place, in preparation for what was to come. Tanith paused for a moment as the memory of those dark, shadowy and sexual dreams washed over her. Her breath hitch for a moment at remembered feel of her flesh being being raked, of impossibly strong, bestial hands roaming possessively over her, and that impossibly hot, sinfully textured cock that had mercilessly teased between her legs but there was never the sensation of it inside her.
Tanith let out a soft moan as her hand wandered across her pert, pale breasts. Her nipples were already puckered by cool night air and a shiver ran through her when she flicked a thumb over one. For a moment, her eyes slipped closed and she desperately wanted to feel that shadowy, devilish cock inside her. She dimly wondered if she had already met the object of her desire, and this ritual was just window dressing, a formality. Tanith had been doing this long enough to know better. It was far better to be safe; she'd seen enough former practitioners be sorry for their lack of care.
A crow shrieked, shattering the abyssal quiet of the cemetery and Tanith was jerked backed from her reverie. Her breath shuddered and her skin twitched and crawled. Something was watching her and it wasn't the cadre of frustrated dead who were swirling around and kept at bay by the smoke emanating from the thurible. Her heart pounded in her chest, eyes darting around with trepidation, but she saw nothing.
From the bag, Tanith took a large jar that contained salt, iron filings and crushed eggshells. She took a deep breath and spread it between each mossy, broken tombstone and around it so that every line was connected and unbroken. It was not a circle she'd created, but a large pentagon, whose points and sharp lines pushed the cacophony of hungry spirits further back. None could touch her now, not even a a hungry whisper of ethereal fingers across her skin. Not unless she broke the circle or invited them in.
On each of the five, faded gravestones, Tanith sat a thick, black candle. A long match flared to life, momentarily scenting the air with sulfur and mingling with the thurible's heady, dark smoke and the scent of her own arousal.
"
Ia Amelatu
!" She called out into the night, lighting each of the candles, "Gatekeeper, open the gate for me!"
The air crackled, faintly electric and Tanith felt the sensation of the magic she called forth, starting to build and caress her bare skin. The barrier that she had laid began to hum and glow a faint, ethereal blue and for a moment, the candle flared tall and bright before they shrank back down and cast sinister shadows around the copse. Tanith looked up at the sky and the moon had moved into its position, telling her it was dead time, the time in which the veil was thinnest and the dead were the most active. It was also the most dangerous time to be risking both body and soul. Fear and excitement mingled in Tanith and not for the first time. She'd learned to enjoy such a ghastly paradox and it only fed her ever-growing arousal.
Above her, the maelstrom of dead swirled. Occasionally, one tried to cross into the pentagon and it shrieked as it hit the barrier and was driven back. Confident that it would hold, Tanith knelt on dusty, dead ground and took out the last items from the bag before tossing it aside.
Tanith opened
The Book of Erebus
to a marked page, set it next to the thurible and arranged the mortar and pestle next to it. She opened up a jar, its contents brackish and questionable, and dumped some into the mortal.
The infernal, sulfurous scent of it wafted up and momentarily turned Tanith's stomach before she took up the knife laying across the book. She took a deep breath and wince as it bit into her hand. Blood trickled slowly into the powder and when it was enough, Tanith set it aside and bandaged her hand.
There was only one last thing the profane mixture in the mortar needed. Tanith spread her knees, exposing the hot, wet folds between her legs to the cool night air. She gasped at the sharp contrast and a moan escaped her lips. Tanith's fingers glided up her knees and over her thigh as her other hand went to her breast and began to kneed and play with her nipple. Her head tipped back as she reached her soaked curls and slipped her fingers down, brushing at her clit. Tanith's eyes fluttered shut, her dark hair swaying in the breeze, as she pushed one finger inside herself. She uttered choked cry as she added another finger, pushing them deep and curling them forward.
"Oh, fuck," Tanith hissed, as she slowly drew her fingers in and out a few times. "Yes ..."
She whimpered, frustrated, when she finally pulled them out. Tanith was so close now and she squeezed her thighs together to try and relieve her maddening arousal. She swirled her slick, wet fingers in the mortar, mixed it all well with the pestle.
