"Uh..." Serenity let her voice rise in pitch as she trailed off, to express just how unhappy she was with the knife being pressed into her hands. "Don't you think this is, like, a little far?"
From all around the spacious party room of the Kappa Kappa Tau sorority house, she heard derisive laughter. Regina Charles, the queen bitch of the sorority and the girl currently pressing the knife into her hands, flashed a deeply irritated look and put a hand on her hip.
"No, Serenity, I do not!" Regina made her name sound like a slur. She had a wonderful talent for that. "Don't you think that you should be a little more grateful that I'm giving you such a big role in our Halloween party, when you're still only a pledge?"
It was all Serenity could do not to roll her eyes. She knew it wasn't exactly a favor. She didn't like Regina, and Regina didn't like her. Regina didn't like anyone who didn't treat her like the queen she thought she was, and Serenity was nowhere near superficial enough for that. Frankly, she hadn't wanted to join a stupid sorority in the first place. But it was a family tradition, apparently, and being in KKT looked excellent on your résumé. She was starting to wonder if it was worth all this.
"Need I remind you," Regina continued, addressing the room far more than she was addressing Serenity, "that Kappa Kappa Tau is famous for our extremely high-profile, extremely exclusive, no-boys-allowed Halloween parties?"
She paused for applause. Drunk, girlish cheers erupted around the room.
"And as sorority president, I will not allow my Halloween party to be anything less than truly perfect!" Regina declared. "Or... Serenity, surely you're not going to tell me you don't want me to break one million Instagram followers?"
Serenity wished, very badly, that she could tell Regina what she really thought. But it wasn't worth it. She just had to get throw this stupid party, and soon enough, Regina would find another favorite victim.
"Of course not, sis," Serenity replied, forcing an insincere smile to her face. "I just... can't we use, like, a scalpel, or something?"
"Um? No?" Regina replied, appalled. "Look, Serenity, you're just a pledge, so I wouldn't expect you to understand, but Becky translated the ritual herself. And she's a linguistics major!"
There was more applause, and Becky - one of the smug-looking girls flanking Regina - smiled. She was dressed like Velma from Scooby Doo, fittingly, and in her hands was a huge, old, leather-bound book, the words within completely illegible.
"The incantation is very specific," Regina continued. "It has to be the right kind of ritual knife! And I'll have you know that Daddy spent thousands having the genuine article imported from some dusty old tomb in Scotland."
Serenity grimaced at the ancient, jagged-looking piece of black glass in Regina's hands. It certainly looked like it belonged in a tomb.
"Whatever," she said reluctantly. "Let's just get this over with."
Once again, the whole sorority cheered. By Regina's decree, everyone was there. The whole room had been decorated for Halloween, the lights shrouded and everything draped in cobwebs. Most people were in costume, but not Serenity - and not Regina, either. She seemed to think that going as anything less than herself would be demeaning. Begrudgingly, Serenity had to admit there was a certain logic to that. If you had Regina's perfect cheekbones, perfect platinum blonde hair, and perfect blue eyes, why disguise yourself?
"Then quit holding us up, and get on with it!" Regina said, smirking and thrusting the knife at Serenity. She took it, and prepared herself.
Monica, one of Regina's other cronies - dressed, preposterously, as a sexy scarecrow - held out a large chalice expectantly. It looked every bit as old as the knife. Serenity placed her hand over it, palm down, and used the knife to slice herself open.
It was only a small incision, but thanks to the knife's jagged edge, it hurt more than it should. As she watched her blood drip and drain into the chalice, Serenity once again cursed Regina's stupid idea. Authenticity was all the rage on social media, apparently. And what could be more authentic that a complete recreation of an ancient Celtic faerie summoning rite? Serenity hoped Regina choked on all those retweets.
Once the chalice was filled, Serenity was permitted to bind her wound with a strip of cloth and step back into the crowd. As she did, she caught the look of malicious glee in Regina's eyes at seeing her bleeding and in pain. The sorority queen really was a sick bitch sometimes. Serenity decided to simply try and forget about it, and do her best to blend in with the others so she wouldn't end up as the victim of any more special treatment. It was, admittedly, something of a foolish effort. She didn't really fit in with the other sorority girls. She was a head taller than most of them, for one, and not nearly as glamorous. She didn't consider herself ugly, but she wasn't a fan of the heavy makeup her sisters favored, and she kept her hair cut nice and short. At least the dyke look was popular with the kinds of girls Serenity was actually interested in.
"Now," Regina announced, stepping up to the ridiculous podium she had ordered constructed for herself. "Are we ready to get this party-slash-ritual started?"
Every single girl in the room, except for Serenity, screamed their acclaim, many of them holding empty glasses into the air. In response to Regina's queue, eerie music started rising in volume, projected from speakers hidden throughout the sorority house.
"That's what I thought!" A huge grin was spread across Regina's face, like she was drawing energy from the volume and praise. "So, Becky. The spell?"
Becky cleared her throat, and started chanting. The room went quiet as all ears strained to make out her words. She was speaking in some kind of ancient, unfamiliar language - an ancestor of Gaelish, perhaps. Over her, a few seconds later, Regina started chanting the same incantation, helpfully translated into English.
"Oh, Mab!" she cried, throwing out her hands dramatically. "Ancient queen of air and darkness! Hear our plea! On this day, the day the veil grows thin, heed our call! In our hour of need, your humble servants yearn for your rule! As summer turns to winter, bless us with your presence, mighty queen of the Unseelie court! Make of all of us your subjects, and of our humble domain, your court! And so, for you, we offer this sacrifice!"
As she spoke, Monica hefted the chalice in both hands, offering it up. Another of Regina's inner circle, Kristen, stepped up to her, and held up a small, silver mirror - kind of ironic, Serenity thought, given that she was dressed as a vampire. At the climax of Becky's chant, she took the ritual knife, still stained with Serenity's blood, and used it to shatter the mirror into pieces. Each fragment fell into the blood-filled chalice, submerging so quickly it was as if they were melting.
The moment the last of the mirror disappeared, the room went dark. Then, at the same instant, every single window in the entire sorority house opened, as if a rushing wind was blowing through the place. Serenity couldn't tell if something was being blown out, or being blown in. There were frightened little squeals from all around her as sorority sisters turned and bumped around in the dark, but none of them very serious. All of them knew this was just pageantry, after all. Regina had made no secret of the fact she had something special planned. Serenity had already decided to stay for only as long as necessary, and then bow out.
Those plans changed once the lights came back on.
