The Minotauress

The inchoate mass of black and clear gunk was now not so inchoate. How did I miss that when I first looked? It seemed to take on a configuration that he hadn't noted previously: something akin to a starfish shape, and the top "arm" possessed two small protrusions, like hooks.

The Writer fixed his gaze.

All five arms slowly extended.

You know what? the Writer posed to himself. I don't think I'm seeing things. I think that slop is really moving, and with that, he made his exit and hastily rejoined Balls and Dicky downstairs.

"Well?" Balls demanded.

The Writer lit a cigarette. "There's good news and there's bad news. The good news is—there's no woman wearing black paint—"

"I done told ya she weren't there no more!" Dicky raged. "She disappeared after she cum'd all that spunk'n goo on the floor!"

The Writer looked more resolutely at Balls. "I'm in concurrence with, at least, the latter component of Dicky's statement."

Balls shot him a funky look. "Huh?"

"There is indeed an odd substance on the floor that no manner of speculation on my part can account for."

"I told ya!" Dicky cut in again. "It's my load all mixed up with some black shit in her cunt, and then it all squirted out while's I were watchin'."

"Shee-it," Balls snapped. "I don't know which one'a yawl's more fucked up in the head! Guess I gotta see fer myself!"

But before Balls could bound up the stairs, the Writer interjected, "Mr. Balls? It's my deduction that we can go up and down those stairs all night, and we won't find any answers to our questions. However, I have an inclination—er, I should say I have a hunch... that there is a more likely place in this house where we will find those answers."

Balls smirked his irritation. "Where?"

The Writer pointed. "The basement."

"The fuckin' place stinks. Why there?"

"Because, as I've said, I have an inclination."

Balls and Dicky paused. "All right," Balls said. "Let's go. Dicky—bring that dirty cum-dump and drag her ass down with us."

The Writer led the way, steeling himself against the rotten aroma coming up the cinderblock steps. Balls swore behind him, gagging. Dicky trudged down, too, with the still-unconscious Cora slung across his back.

The stench thickened once downstairs. The flashlights lit up circles of strange doors, tables, and—yes!—shelves of books. The Writer flicked his Bic to light numerous sconce-set candles, and then—

The low-ceilinged room was alive now in squirming light. Dicky, Balls, and the Writer all stared speechless at the same thing.

"No fuckin' wonder the joint stinks," Balls muttered.

"Jaysus Chrast!" Dicky exclaimed, and in his disconcertion actually dropped poor Cora on to the cement floor.

"This place looks more like a temple than a basement," the Writer noted, "and how appropriate... A sacrificial temple."

Three of the room's walls were ornamented by Doric pillars, however short, and between them were a total of six shoddy wood-plank doors hung within keystoned arches. But it was what hung in one of these arches that flagged their concern:

A naked woman's corpse.

Only the Writer dared to approach, to register details. A rive had been made from navel to throat, separating two flaccid breasts the color of oatmeal. A pair of surgical retractors remained in place on her chest, which forced the rive open, much like double doors, to expose the cardiac cavity. Said cavity was empty.

"Now that's what I call a ruckin'," Balls remarked with a crook in his voice.

"Looks like someone... sacker-ficed her," Dicky contributed.

"Indeed, her heart's gone," the Writer told them, then shined his light on various areas about the room. "And by the looks of that crucible, that crematory, and that old book on tephramancy, I'd say she was sacrificed in grand style. Look. See these ashes?" The Writer gestured the smear of ashes over the door's stone transom. "Tephramancy is an occult science which utilizes the ashes of a sacrifice victim for a variety of dark arts, including incarnation."

"You're talkin' more'a that satanic shit, like what Crafter's into, ain't'cha?" Balls needed clarification.

"Oh, yes. This man Crafter has quite a hobby."

Dicky fidgeted at the sight of the girl. "What's that big college word you just used?"

"Incarnation? It means ‘to make flesh,' in other words, Crafter solicited this tephramanic ritual to summon a netherwordly spirit or even... a demon."

Balls and Dicky stood silent.