Chapter Six: The Infernal Sigil & The Covenant of Shadows
994 Words
The portal exploded inward—nearly shearing Victor’s nose!
"What fresh torment?!" Victor roared, shielding his face. "Father reposes!"
Then he saw her.
Rosa.
A glacial specter.
Her arctic gaze bypassed Victor’s disarray, spearing Leo—who leaned against frigid marble, fury still radiating like heat-shimmer.
"Locke." Her voice—dry ice on steel.
"Requires."
"Your presence."
"Immediately."
No request. Pure imperative.
Victor’s blood chilled. Retribution? Severed hands? Now? He shot Leo a terror-stricken glance!
Leo shoved off the wall—spine steel-cabled. Fury hardened his ashen face. Summons? After mutilation threats? The crypt-king’s whims shift like miasma!
"This instant?" Victor croaked.
"Now." Rosa’s lips scarcely moved.
No choice.
Rosa led. Victor followed—gut knotted. Leo stalked last—a storm contained. Corridors yawned—opulent coffins. Sentinels materialized—silent as grave-shadows.
The sepulchral chamber yawned open.
Victor peered inside. "Father?"
Leo crossed the threshold—
*Gelid decay* slammed him! Corpse-breath and tomb-mold! His every nerve shrieked ALERT!
Dimness reigned. Only the hearth’s corpse-fire danced—casting clawed, leaping specters.
Upon the gilded bier: the desiccated relic. Robert Locke.
Crimson-velvet robe—draped like congealed blood over skeletal scaffolding.
The air? Embalming fluid.
"Depart." The sepulcher-voice grated. "Victor. Rosa."
Victor faltered. "Father, I—"
*"DEPART!"* Absolute zero command!
They bowed. Vanished.
*Click.* The lock’s whisper—final as a coffin nail.
Alone.
Hearth-flames writhed—demented serpents. Air congealed to aspic.
Leo’s pulse hammered! Throat sealed! Ice-sweat sheened his spine! Ambush? Muscles coiled—primed for savagery!
Locke’s eyes ignited in gloom—two witch-lights.
His gaze drifted—slow, torturous—to his own left hand. The coffee-defiled limb.
Bone-fingers trembled. Rose—inch by excruciating inch—as if dragging iron chains.
Clawed. Mottled. A vulture’s talon.
It hooked the robe’s violet silk tie.
*YANK.*
Silk parted!
He paused—strength spent.
Gathered will—*WRENCHED!*
The robe tore open!
Revealed:
Withered pectoral. Rib-cage relief map. Liver-spotted parchment skin.
And—
*There.*
Centered above the heart—
A sigil.
*Living damnation.*
Fist-sized. Seething.
Ebony so profound it swallowed light—yet deep within, putrid amethyst luminescence pulsed. Sickly. Visceral.
Its edges? Cauterized necrosis. Rot-flesh bubbling. Moving. Micro-vermicular squirms beneath the epidermis.
Form? Chaos incarnate. Thorns? Talons? Flayed digits sutured into a Gordian knot of agony. Coiling. Consuming itself.
Worst—
Its core thrummed.
*Lub-DUB.*
*Lub-DUB.*
A cadaverous drum. Each beat made the corruption convulse—parasites tunneling beneath skin. Each spasm exhaled glacial miasma—reeking of sulphur and damned souls!
"Christ!" Leo recoiled—visceral revulsion! Nausea surged! This wasn’t disease. It was entity. Eldritch cancer!
*BWOOOOOONG—!!!*
Not bells. Hell’s own klaxon detonated in Leo’s skull! A thousandfold louder than death-whispers! Screeching! Torment! Malice!
Gelid darkness—tangible—slammed his psyche! Ice-picks stabbing frontal lobes!
"Ghh—!" Leo clutched his skull—staggered! Spine cracked against marble! Vision strobed!
Locke watched—flame-light warping his necrotic face. No empathy. Only... appraisal. A mechanic testing a tool’s tensile strength.
"...You... perceive..." Locke’s voice—a death-rattle laced with perverse triumph. "...It... metastasizes..."
A skeletal digit trembled—descended—toward the sigil’s epicenter.
Contact.
*HISSS—!*
A tendril of living shadow—needle-thin—lashed from the mark! Wrapped his finger! Rime-frost bloomed on parchment skin!
"Unngh..." Locke convulsed—corpse-grey. Life flickered.
Simultaneously—
The psychic shriek in Leo’s mind skyrocketed! Soul-rending!
He felt it—that shadow-tendril—aware of him! Gelid! Viscous! Intelligent malice spearing toward his life-force!
*"BACK!"* Leo’s soul roared! Primordial fury detonated!
*HMMMMMM—!!!*
Not sound—force! A psychic wildfire—incandescent rage—erupted from his core! An astral bulwark!
*SCRREEEEE—!!!*
Mental feedback—scalding acid on nerves!
Agony!
But—the invasive shadow recoiled! Vaporized!
Locke jolted! The frost-tendril dissolved! His eyes—suddenly, terrifyingly alight—locked onto Leo! Starving jackal scenting fresh kill!
"...Confirmed..." Locke exhaled—ecstatic, diseased. "...You... repel... its... vitality..." He stressed "vitality"—obscene mockery.
Leo sagged—drenched in cold sweat. Neural pyre still smoldered. Vision tunnelled. That defense—instinctual, desperate—had bled him dry.
Verdict: No illness. A sentient curse. Demonic symbiote.
Locke’s gaze devoured Leo’s depletion. His lips twisted—a rictus of effort.
"Salvage... me..." Not plea. Ultimatum. Deathbed decree.
"...Excise... this... malignancy..."
"...Not... superficially..."
"...Root... and... core..."
His tremoring hand gestured—the mausoleum’s grandeur, then beyond—Misthaven’s shadow empire.
"...Your... recompense... limitless..."
Leo dragged a ragged breath. Wiped blood from his bitten lip.
"Lies!" He spat—ribs aflame. "That... thing... feasts on you! Drains you dry! You’re dying! Desperate! So you shackle me! Dangle baubles! Want me to bleed for your rot?!"
"...Covenant..." Locke corrected, sepulchral calm restored. "...Not... petition... Pact..."
His right hand rose—agonizingly—pointing.
There—materialized beside the bier:
A low table.
Upon it:
A document.
Binding of cured dermis—dusky, reptilian. Emblazoned center: the Locke crest—thorned scepter—its edges limned in dried-blood crimson.
Locke’s finger stabbed toward it. Command absolute:
"...Sign..."
"...Salvation..."
"...Your... survival..." His abyssal pupils pinned Leo. "...Refuse..."
The death-mask rotated toward the hearth’s frenzy.
And—
The lips... parted...
Again.
Slow. Inevitable.
A c***k in reality’s floor—revealing hell.
"...It... consumes... you... first..."
Flames surged!
The room became a strobe-lit nightmare:
Locke’s face—a gargoyle contortion.
The dermal contract—pulsing like a heart.
The sigil—throbbing.
*Lub-DUB.*
A subterranean drumbeat.
Pounding Leo’s last nerve.
- Writer
