“I don’t like this,” Armitage whispered, casting a baleful glance at Burkard. “I do a lot of bad stuff but I don’t kill kids.”
“She’s a whore,” Burkard reminded him. “She works for you at one of your houses of ill repute — remember?”
“Yeah, I remember. But it’s one thing to put a slut on her back and another to slit her throat.”
“I hardly plan to do something as inane as that.”
Armitage jumped in his seat. He looked over at Aleister Crowley, who was entering the room wearing only a plumed cloak. The feathers that covered his flabby shoulders were peacock and their colorful nature stood in stark contrast to the pale white of Crowley’s nudity. His penis stood at rigid attention and the tip gleamed with some form of lubrication. Armitage looked away, feeling sick. “Oh, yeah? So you just gonna get your jollies off on her while we watch?”
Crowley stopped at the edge of the table. His eyes devoured the girl’s nude form like a starving man might eye a turkey. He shrugged off his cloak, letting it fall with a rustle to the floor. He was aware of Armitage’s disgust, just as he could feel Bane’s eyes on his sexual organ. He cared little for either. “Sexual magic is one of the most powerful in this world or any other, Mr. Armitage. I do not expect one of your limited experiences to grasp what you are about to witness… but please be aware that I am not simply rutting like a beast for the sake of doing so. This is an offering.”
Armitage realized that Burkard was staring at him. “Do I have to be here?” he asked with a whine.
“You are free to go at any time,” Burkard answered. “But keep in mind that you asked to be included in this. You said that you were ready for the big time and that if there was a score to be had in your city, you wanted a piece of the action. Or am I misquoting you?”
“I thought maybe that Damned Thing would net me some cash… or at least some kinda power. I didn’t know I’d be watching some fat Limey nut-job screw one of my girls.”
Burkard reached out and gripped Armitage painfully by the shoulder. His eyes seemed to sear themselves into Armitage’s brain. “No one has got you tied to that chair. Either leave or shut the fuck up.”
Armitage nodded and swallowed, hearing the table creaking under Crowley’s weight. The man was on top of the girl now, his pockmarked ass pointed directly at Armitage’s chair. The old man’s dick and balls hug low, partially obscuring the view of the girl’s slit. The crime boss’s lips twisted in disapproval as he saw Crowley insert himself into the girl, his ass cheeks clenching with each powerful thrust. Crowley was chanting something as he fucked the girl, his voice rising and falling. Armitage didn’t recognize what language the words were in but he knew it damned sure wasn’t English. It sounded like something a lot older… Latin, maybe? Armitage wasn’t familiar enough with it to know.
Armitage heard the girl’s moans turn into gagging sounds and he craned his neck to confirm his suspicions. Crowley was choking her now, killing her even as he shot his load inside of her. When he was done, the old magician sat back on his haunches, his cock dribbling the last of his load onto the tabletop. The fat little mobster felt sick when he saw some of the man’s sperm oozing slowly from the dead girl’s vagina.
“Now what?” Bane asked. Unlike Armitage, he had warmed to the scene as it had progressed. His eyes were now alight with curiosity and something akin to desire. Armitage thought the little faggot probably got off on the girl’s pain.
“The spell has been cast,” Crowley said. He crawled off the table, knees cracking, and he looked every bit as old as he truly was. His belly jiggled and his shrunken cock had retreated into its foreskin. “In a few moments, maybe even less, an entity will take root in the girl’s corpse. It will answer our questions for as long as it can, before retreating back to the other side.”
“Bullshit,” Armitage whispered.
Crowley fixed him with a steely gaze. “You doubt my power?”
Armitage shrugged. “I’ve seen some mediums in my time. It’s all a scam. You just wanted to fuck a girl for free, that’s all. And now I’m outta pocket all the money she was gonna be earnin’ me!”
Crowley’s eyes blazed. “Watch and learn, Mr. Armitage. The world is a far stranger place than you have ever conceived!”
Before Armitage could reply, the dead girl’s head lifted off the table. Her eyes were open and filled with a luminescent yellow light. Her lips looked dry and cracked. “Who summons me?” she said and her voice was no longer that of a scared young girl. Though still feminine, the voice now sounded like it belonged to someone far older.
“I do,” Crowley declared, sparing the terrified Armitage one brief triumphant grin before turning back to the talking corpse. “I come seeking knowledge of an artifact that humans called The Damned Thing. Long have I sought this object and now it is very close. So close that with your aid, I can finally claim it for my own!”
Bane exchanged a look with Burkard. Both men heard Crowley very clearly, whether he intended them to or not. He was claiming The Damned Thing as his own, despite the fact that they had agreed to deal with its ultimate ownership after finally locating it.
The horrible thing that had taken root in the girl’s body laughed with deadly malice. “Flatterer. You think that mere words will get me to answer your questions? You must give me more than that…”
“The girl’s soul… it is yours. I have trapped it here in this room, bound it to this spot. Claim it if you wish!”
“She is no virgin this one,” the demon said with disappointment. “So much seed has been dropped into this one’s womb that it’s surprising she did not drip with every step she took!”
“My apologies. She is still very young.”
“Yes… and this snack is better than nothing.” The demon cackled again and her eyes flared brighter. “This thing you seek… I see it traveling over a body of water. To an island it will go, an unwelcoming land. The mouth of Hell yawns wide and waits to receive it… Win or lose, that is the place that shall decide the object’s true fate.”
The girl’s head suddenly fell back with such force that Armitage cringed at the cracking sound. A pool of blood formed beneath the dead female’s skull.
“What the hell was that!?” Armitage demanded, standing up. “All that for some fucking double-talk? She didn’t tell us shit!”
“She told us plenty,” Burkard said. He gestured for Armitage to sit down and the man finally did, straightening his tie in an attempt to maintain his dignity. “You are our local expert, Armitage. What place could she have been talking about? What unwelcoming island is near here?
“There are plenty of islands off the coast but none that have the mouth of Hell on ‘em.”
“Think,” Crowley demanded. “What’s the one island here you wouldn’t want to be stuck on?”
Armitage wracked his brain, trying to make sense of the dead girl’s words. When he finally spoke, he sounded very unsure of himself. “I don’t know… there’s Wolf Island. Mostly swampland but there’s an insane asylum there. I’ve heard bad things about it. Guess I wouldn’t want to end up there.”
“Master, I know of that place,” Bane said. When everyone turned to look at him, he reached up to smooth back his glistening hair. “The Main Institute. It’s where I found Carter Slade. He and one other member of the party who found The Damned Thing were both patients there. I left the other because she was deemed unimportant… while I paid Professor Slade’s way to freedom as you asked me to.”