Shadows twisted across the abandoned subway walls, cast by candles surrounding the twelve figures. Kara pulled her robe tighter against the chill, gooseflesh rising on her arms. Her breath misted in the air, mingling with the acrid smoke wafting from the candles. She scanned the other disciples’ faces, hollow-eyed and gaunt beneath their hoods. Their silence rang out louder than words.
The elder stood within a pentagram etched onto the grimy tiles, hands raised in supplication. His chanting in ancient Sumerian made Kara’s heart thrum against her ribs. She longed to believe his claim that this woman had volunteered, but the wild terror in the woman’s eyes screamed coercion. Her hair matted with blood, body marked by peculiar wounds inflicting meticulous pain.
The disciples’ chant built to a fever pitch as the elder raised a ritual dagger, the handle inlaid with carvings of winged demons feasting on writhing souls. Kara’s mouth went dry, images from her own initiation flooding back. Lying vulnerable as the blade pierced her flesh, promising protection from forces whispered of in scripture. Forces she now understood were not myth, but waiting patiently to be fed.
“Stay strong, child.” The elder’s voice broke her reverie. “Tonight we summon the Chained One to walk among us.”
Kara swallowed bile. As the dagger split flesh, she found herself silently mouthing childhood prayers, fingers tight around the rosary hidden in her pocket. The beads were smooth from years of anxious rubbing, the only lingering tie to a world now lost to her.
The woman’s scream pierced the gag as oily blood flowed across the tiles. A sulfurous cloud coalesced above the altar, billowing down the elder’s eager throat until even the whites of his eyes turned black.
Kara backed against the cold tiles, paralyzed. She had to stop this, but her limbs would not respond. The woman’s body contorted, bones cracking audibly as she vibrated on the precipice between human and…something else.
Kara broke free of her trance. “Brothers, sisters, we must end this madness!” She swatted the dagger from the elder’s grasp. It rang out as it hit the tiles, speckled with blood.
The woman convulsed, back arching obscenely. Her mouth stretched impossibly wide, jaw unhinging as she spewed forth a swirling darkness. The thing that lurched up was no longer woman, but monstrosity. Skin hung in necrotic ribbons over gangrenous limbs. Its baleful shriek pierced the air, hungry and hateful.
It turned to Kara, a mess of gnashing teeth and jagged talons. She stumbled backwards, fumbling numbly with her rosary as prayers withered on her tongue. The creature loomed closer, grinning with anguish and insatiable hunger…
Suddenly the platform flooded with light, the shriek of sirens drowning all else. As heavy boots stormed down, gunshots echoed. The creature wavered, then collapsed in a putrid pool.
Kara trembled, bile scorching her throat. The elder had promised cleansing, but summoned only damnation. As blood-curdling screams echoed from above, the entity’s smile widened in feral triumph.