The Ritual

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I decided to try something different for the

Halloween Story Contest 2022

. I couldn't decide where it best fit as far as categories. It's a long one, but there is action throughout. Erotic Horror almost seemed to work, but it didn't quite feel right by the end of the tale. I thought about several others but went with Erotic Coupling as I couldn't figure out something better.

As a word of warning, there is apparent death, blood, and violence. In addition, there are demonic creatures and some bondage in the story. Finally, there is apparent coerced consent that will be made clear by the end, but I don't want to give everything away.

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Renee -- Thirty minutes after her abduction

The entire monolithic structure rising out of a dilapidated lot on the edge of town had a metallic stench, like fresh blood. It reminded Renee of the scent when she got her nose broken while playing volleyball in high school before it swelled up and kept her from smelling much for far too long. She wanted to scream as her white running shoes slipped on a stair and were covered in scarlet, but the tight gag in her mouth and blade at her back prevented it. Quick hands from one of the demons grabbed her before she could faceplant on the disgusting surface. The fast chains around her wrists kept her from fighting back against the pair of beefy incubi walking her up some ancient-looking sandstone stairs toward the sacrificial altar.

"Come, clumsy wench. Don't make me mark you. It would be a shame to mar your pretty skin before we had a chance to play." An evil-looking man with deep red skin and what looked like a pair of yellow ram's horns with drips of ichor at the ends held a hide flap that opened into the sprawling chamber. Like all the diabolic creatures she had seen since she had been taken while on a late afternoon run, he was naked. An enormous red phallus hung limply between his hoof-terminated legs.

Renee had seen a woman get marked in the corral that they were kept in like cattle awaiting their slaughter. The blood-curdling scream the girl had given told her she wanted no part of the glowing white brand the demon carried. She kept her mouth shut. Hopefully, her chance to fight back would happen soon. She had been so close to escaping before these two bound her and marched her to what may be the last place she would ever see.

A blast of humid, musky air pushed through the scent of blood as she stepped into the fire-lit interior. Sweat, body odor, semen, and the smell of excited vagina filled her nostrils as her eyes adjusted to the darker interior. There must have been so much activity going on for the scent of sex to overcome the stench of blood. The warehouse they had been kept in before marching over here was brightly lit. Probably to dissuade them from trying anything while they outnumbered their captors. This room was illuminated by only the torches on the wall and a low golden fire that seemed floating on an at least twenty-foot diameter cauldron filled with what had to be fresh blood. Three ancient-looking stone slabs encircled the inner structure, partially overhanging the grisly pool.

A pair of dark blue incubi tended to a woman on one of the tables while a couple of succubi fastened an obedient naked man on one of the other open altars. On the first table, one incubus was fucking the chained woman while the other held a long obsidian blade to her throat. Instead of screaming and fighting back, the dark-skinned woman begged to be fucked harder. The blue-skinned demon's cock was gigantic and a darker color than the rest of his rune-inscrolled skin. The busy phallus was striped with ample feminine excitement. The one with the blade was chanting in what sounded like Latin as he toyed with her pert breasts.

Around the outer circumference of the room, there had to be at least thirty darkened alcoves. All but a couple had a single man or woman chained tightly to what looked like a concrete slab. About half of the individuals were nude, save for their shoes. All the men had erections, which seemed impossible with the terror that should be surging through their systems, but the diabolic, bat-winged women walking around and tending to them kept their anatomy standing tall. The perverse creatures seemed to have magic to them.

At other stations, incubi were licking or fingering pussies. Like the men, the captive women appeared to be enjoying themselves and not panicking. One lady was even screaming in ecstasy. "Do not let her cum. That is for those who are chosen as heralds of the dark one and only right before their sacrifice." Admonished the other of the pair of demons stood beside the short, adorable Asian woman.

Their solemn procession stopped when they reached a pair of empty apparatuses. "This is you." The red demon hissed in a bass, gravelly voice, and the shorter, midnight-colored beast with the sword at her back forced Renee onto a slightly raised platform with a poke of his blade. A metal ring clamped around her belly and immobilized her.

"The woman on the platform has almost performed her duty for our dark lord. She will need no further use of this." The devil growled in her ear. One leg, then the other, was bound in three places, around her ankles, knees, and thighs. The bindings were tight but oddly comfortable.

Trust Dae. He'll be here.

Renee tried to reassure herself. It was the only thing that was keeping her from crying. The man had never failed her, at least not when it came to something meaningful.

A hot poker was close enough to her neck to feel the heat rolling off it. "Be real easy as my colleague takes care of your arms." The shorter demon now held the brand menacingly at her throat as the red one undid the locks on her wrists. His grip was impossibly firm as he lashed her arms up and to either side of the structure. What had looked to be cement was surprisingly supple on her bindings and backside. It might have been softer than her bed back at home.

"You have been selected for sacrifice to our dark lord. You should feel honored. We need not your soul, only your blood and ecstasy. Perhaps your spirit can make it to paradise before the grand evil one takes over your measly plane." The red demon sounded as if he was reading a well-rehearsed script. His fingers were so hot that they almost burned her face as he forced her vision back to the altar with the woman. "A preview of your fate. Listen to how she screams in pleasure."

The African American woman, no older than twenty, was writhing and screaming in utter bliss. She was stunningly beautiful, with small but very perky breasts that shuddered and shook on each thrust. Her nipples looked like little chocolate morsels as they quivered; Ren wanted to taste them. "Yes! Fuck me! Fuck me! Harder! Give me all that big cock!" She begged. Her warm brown skin glistened as if she was coated with oil. After a couple minutes of fevered thrusting into her, every contour and muscle stood out gorgeously as it looked like her whole body tensed. "OOHHHH!!" Her scream of ecstasy filled the chamber.

The incubus kept thrusting into her as she climaxed spectacularly. Her orgasm seemed to elongate toward infinite before the dark-blue incubus stopped pushing. Renee knew that look; men and demons had a common o-face. "OHHH!" The beast repeatedly growled as he unloaded. The woman was still screaming in bliss when he finished and pulled free of her shuddering pussy. White semen gushed from her hairless vagina as the creature nodded at his partner.

"May your bliss and life quicken the coming of our dark lord." The brute ran the dark, evil blade across the still cumming woman's throat. He put his hands on her neck as crimson flowed through his fingers, splashing onto the altar and adding to the cauldron. It never looked like the woman understood she was exsanguinating until she stopped moving, eyes still staring at the ceiling with a blissful expression on her face. The pair unbuckled her from the platform and sent her unmoving body down the chute beside their terrible altar.

"You shall die in utter bliss and full of my seed. I will make you experience the highest level of earthly pleasure before you perish." The cruel red tormentor pressed his flaccid phallus against the nylon and spandex of her yoga pants. Renee should have been screaming, but it was as if the man had an aura about him, and she could feel herself getting wet. "You shall beg me for this cock before the end."

"The priests will prepare you soon enough and make sure you are fit to be sacrificed. Enjoy the last minutes of your life. There will be no escape." The shorter and darker terror announced, then laughed maniacally as they left her suspended on the surface.

Ren flexed her arms and legs, attempting to be subtle as she tried to find a weakness she could exploit in her restraints. She didn't need one of the cruel, tall, tortuous guards to reprimand her. Being in athletic shoes and not a pair of obscene heels like the poor gal beside her back in the corral could be an advantage if Ren could get free. No matter what, she couldn't stop the ritual without Dae.

Dae was her oldest friend. He had been there through her life's myriad of highs and lows. Though the lows seemed all too often more prominent than the highs. When she joined the marines after high school, he was always waiting at the bus station whenever she had leave. Neither had more than a foster family for almost as long as she could remember. They would end up back at the same orphanage after another placement didn't work out. He had lost his mother to a car crash and never knew his father; The woman had returned pregnant from a musical tour in South Korea. Rumor had it that his father was some sort of mobster back in Busan, but his mother never informed him of his son.

Renee didn't remember a single thing about her parents. Evidently, they were lost to heroin and meth when she was too young to remember. Her grandmother raised her for a few years before a heart attack severed the only familial bond Ren could recall. She acted out in high school, feeling the specter of addiction hanging over her head like a dagger. She never touched hard drugs, but alcohol and boys were their own addictions. No one thought they could control and contain the frequent runaway. She was emancipated by seventeen and lived in a group home until she graduated high school.

An ROTC teacher in her high school showed Renee that there was a different way forward. She spent the following four years as a marine. Always ready to go but never deployed into an active combat area. Ren had participated in peacekeeping actions but never fired her rifle in anger, only at the practice range. Military life taught her discipline and the value of hard work. Six more years as a reservist let her get a degree. Ren had been laid off recently as another recession caused the company to offshore their helpdesk and IT staff.

Dae and Renee were each burning through their savings. They were roommates trying to make a go of an online business before they stumbled into this dark plot. One of them had to be the bait and the other the cavalry. The half-Korean man's ingenuity would be much better at puzzles to get her free, and she thought she could fight her way out. Ren hadn't been expecting to be tazed and taken on her evening run, but they knew it could come at any time. She was cursing, wondering why she put on her headphones instead of keeping her ears open. A single coin flip had her playing the damsel in distress, a role she had never been in.

Three pads down from her, a group of humans in dark hoods approached a buxom blonde lass. "You are to be prepared for the ritual." The metal ring around her waist released its grip. Long daggers extended from the burgundy cloaks of the hooded men and women, then sliced the flowing pink dress from the teen's body. In seconds she was stripped down to a pair of white panties, drenched to the point of see-through with excitement. The head priest seemed to delight in ripping the last bit of cotton from her body without cutting it, leaving her without even a whisp of hair worth of modesty. She had very well-defined tan lines in the shape of a pretty bikini.

"Very nice, this should please our benefactor. One of our incubi will be by to sample you and see if you're worthy of being chosen or if we need to bleed you out instead." The odd parade left her naked as they beelined it for a still-clothed muscular Latino in the far corner to complete their subsequent creepy stripping.

Renee couldn't help watching the pair of succubi tending to the well-endowed white guy on the altar. His skin, too, looked like he had been greased before he was taken to the center of the structure. It didn't look like the unfortunate man would get to fuck one of the demonic women before he was murdered. Instead, he was getting one hell of a final handjob. Two hands were a blur on his long, straining shaft, sliding easily on the oily skin as they rotated in opposite directions. Like the woman before, one of the demons held a wicked blade to his throat while the other played. The armed red-skinned woman was also reciting Latin, though not the exact phrase as the incubus.

It must be integral to the ritual.

Renee tried to make out the phrase. When she escaped, she would need to follow any clue to stop the summoning of the dark one. It would be the only way to save the planet from a horrible fate. She hadn't believed this was real when Dae came to her one night and asked her to partner up to save the world. It would mean that her best friend would need to see her naked for the first time and do much more if they were the ones to make it to the end.

The pair had come close to being something more than friends at least a couple of times. Renee had confessed her love for the man while drunk about a year ago, but he didn't take her seriously, and she hadn't summoned up the courage to tell him again sober. When Dae fought cancer a few years earlier, Ren was sure he wanted to kiss her before going for a procedure. They were staring into each other's eyes and getting closer before a nurse shooed her from the room because it was past visiting hours since they weren't related. She remembered trying to explain that they were the closest thing to family, but the woman was steadfast with the rules. Neither seemed to want to destroy what little of a tribe they possessed. One way or another, that would end tonight.

The man on the altar suddenly started to ejaculate. His arms and legs strained against the long ropes that held him down. His semen must have made it at least six feet into the air before gravity pulled the ample rope down on his chest. "OH, FUCCCKKKK!" He cried out as he came with his eyes wide.

"Yes... All of it. There's nothing to hold back for. Empty every last drop. Doesn't it feel so good?" Clutching the man's testicles tightly, the succubus nodded toward her partner.

"Let your sperm hasten his coming." The red-skinned woman sliced his throat and held her hands against the new wound as crimson spilled through her fingers and onto the table. As with the woman before, the chap didn't seem to notice he was bleeding out as he sprayed sperm like a fountain until all went still.

The pair of women let him bleed out for a minute and then dumped him down the slide and into the dark to join the other discarded bodies.

"You could have at least fucked him before he came. They are supposed to get a choice." The succubi walked past her probably before finding their next victim. They were both completely nude and in excellent shape. Renee remembered flashes of her lesbian lovers, the first coming when she was stuck in the jungle with her unit.

"I don't fuck guys that bite me. The dark one only cares that he was ejaculating when he expired. We have it easier than the incubi. They have to make sure they both cum at the same time to complete their ritual." She licked some sperm from her hands. "That's probably why their rituals provide more magic to his summoning." They stepped through a doorway a dozen feet from Renee, and there was a blast of fire as they disappeared. The scent of burning sulfur wafted into her nostrils. It was as if she'd been seated at the table near the kitchen and bathroom of an evil restaurant with loads of traffic distracting her.

A clock seemed to apparate and hover at the top of the trio of altars, perhaps held aloft by the heat from the crackling fire. It was after sundown, about nine pm local time; Midnight was labeled as 'His Return' at the top of the circular dial. Renee looked around the room and made an actual count of the beds; thirty-six, including herself, unfortunates, were being processed by the demons.

"Are you prepared to give yourself to the sacrifice?" An incubus with cement-colored skin covered in dark blue and red runes asked the Asian woman she had seen getting pleasured earlier. The beast seemed to be awaiting consent. His giant, curved, erect cock was closer to Caucasian color than cement.

"I am. I want that cock." There was zero hesitation or screaming from the woman. A second demon released her bindings, slathered her in oil, then she followed the creature to the altar as if hypnotized. Renee took note for the first time of a dark rune drawn on the woman's stomach.

"I will have you begging for your climax and release." The demon announced as he pressed metal restraints around her arms and legs. Stirrups on the stone altar reminded Renee of a visit to her gynecologist.

"You better make me cum so good. If I have to die, make it worth it." She told him as his partner tied ropes around her hands and feet. She held up each in turn to hasten her preparation. The short-haired, gorgeous woman wanted this badly.

"I always do." The beast laid his massive cock across her belly as he felt her little breasts, then ran his claws up and down her thighs. His legs bent down as he aligned his thick penis with her wet, blooming womanhood.

"Back, foul demon!" A nude black man ran into the room with an orb in hand just before the woman was penetrated. Bright sunlight illuminated the site, and the foul creatures recoiled from it. "Thargul Togdraran, I know your true name. Unhand my wife. I demand your return to the depths of hell."

The cement-colored demon's eyes went wide as he looked absolutely terrified. He stood to full height before spinning around on his heels. "Don't think you win! One tiny woman will do little to halt his coming." The brawny incubus fled from the rail-thin naked man. The creature's dark, smaller counterpart ran with him. Both flew like they were being chased through the portal, and another gout of flames illuminated the room.

The man placed the orb on the restraints, and the metal rings sprung open. He struggled to loosen the first rope, but they sped up once she had a hand free. "Sakura, I got here in time." He helped the cute young woman to her feet. "We must get you cleansed."

"Thank you, babe. I was so close to being defiled and worse." Sakura embraced her man. Their passionate kiss seemed to show that the lass was still horny.

The demons in the chamber started to screech as they walked closer to the couple, like they were forcing themselves through burning pain emitted from the shining orb. The gentleman grabbed the girl's hand and pulled her toward escape. "I only have one true demon name. I'm sorry, all. I cannot be your savior." He held the light high as he backed out of the room.

"It matters little. A seeker will be dispatched to find you." An imperious violet-colored demon with a pair of obsidian bull horns hollered after them as he motioned in the air with a ghastly finger. The blood in the cauldron gurgled before the portal almost twenty feet to the left of Renee's station, burped flame again, and spat out a goat-hoofed naked brick-red devil with chains in one hand and an axe over his shoulder. "She's already been chosen. I charge you with bringing her back to complete her ritual."