22 - The Great Beast Returns

Anya smiled. She rose to fetch the next candle.

"Some legends have a hint of truth to them. Some legends are so powerful that people want them to be real. Want them so badly that, perhaps, they come true. I call this story...

THE GREAT BEAST RETURNS

Sleepovers are better in your 20s. For one, there's wine. No parents to tell you when to go to bed, or what movies you can't watch. No embarrassing siblings.

"There's no dick," Angelina said, already on her third glass of rosé.

"None of us have boyfriends. We're losers. Loserrrssss..." Megan chimed in.

"So...who wants to summon the dead?" Bethany said.

The other two women turned to Bethany. It was her apartment, and she was dressed in loose, comfortable pajama bottoms and a white wifebeater which belied her schoolmarm appearance, with the thick glasses and long brown hair. Academic texts on witchcraft and the occult crammed the bookshelves of her small apartment, evidence of an interest that went beyond her master's degree in history.

"Seriously?" Angelina said, a blonde already in her panties and a pale blue nightie. Her music degree had led to three uninspiring self-released CDs and a string of small teaching jobs. Not exactly the rock-and-roll lifestyle when you're specialty is medieval stringed instruments. "I was thinking we'd order a pizza and suck him off. That's been my dream since I was 18 and found grandpa's porn tapes in the basement, the ones on VHS. That's what old maids like us are supposed to do!"

"You planned this," Megan accused, as she poured more wine. A bit pudgier than the other two, she had squeezed her ass into a pair of boyshorts and wore a reproduction of a vintage black DOOM tee, one which emphasized her rather substantial breasts. She was a game designer, which meant she was surrounded by dudes who treated her more like a mom than a potential romantic partner.

"Guilty," Beth admitted. "I went to an estate sale last weekend, found something stuck in a stack of games. I've been spending all week researching it."

From a hall cupboard, she brought out a wooden box about two feet square. ISIS BOARD was painted on the sides in faded golden letters, and the top, which folded outward, had a star-like image. The board itself, revealed in the box, contained an array of familiar and unfamiliar letters arranged in a circle around a central planchette. Some of the characters were English letters and Arabic numerals, others seemed to be Hebrew, and there were a few Egyptian hieroglyphs around the rim.

"It's a ouija board?" Megan asked, intrigued despite herself.

"An Isis board. Similar concept, but this was based on an old design taken from a game board carved into the wall of an Egyptian tomb. See here?" Beth pointed to four small bricks that occupied the corners of the box. "These are based on the 'magic bricks' that are in Egyptian tombs. The company that made these only released a few before they went out of business. You can hardly find anything about them online."

Angelina considered this. "So, you know this is how we all end up dead in the horror movie, right? Stupidly playing with some occult toy we don't understand, letting loose a demon or spirit that rapes and kills us all?"

"Are you in?" Bethany asked.

"Fuck, yes, I hope we get a stud. Just let me pee," Angelina said as she rose to use the toilet.

When she had returned, the lights were dim. Black candles had been lit. Beth and Megan had taken their positions around the small coffee table, which had been oriented so the bricks aligned with the compass points. Angelina took her seat on a third side. On the fourth side, the women had arranged a kind of rag-dummy: a plastic skeleton dressed in shirt and sweatpants, a black silicone dildo stuffed into the front of the pants.

"What's that for?" Angelina asked.

"It's the vessel for the spirit," Beth said.

"So, are we supposed to like, ask a question, empty our minds, and let it guide us?" Megan asked.

"From what little I read, it's more like a seance. We form a circuit. Don't touch the planchette at all," Beth said, and she held out her hands. Megan and Angelina slipped their hands into hers, and then each grabbed one of the plastic skeleton hands. Maybe it was just the mood that made the hairs rise on their arms, like static electricity. "Now, we're supposed to call on a specific spirit."

"Gary Gygax?" Megan suggested.

"John Holmes," Angelina said.

"I was thinking someone who was a bit of both," Bethany said, and took a deep breath. "I want to summon Aleister Crowley."

The other two stared at her—and then they smiled. Beth had done her thesis on Crowley. They'd called him her dead boyfriend. The two women laughed, and laughed harder as Beth flushed.

"Yeah, alright," Angelina said. "Let's call the Great Beast."

"Okay. So everyone think about what you know about Crowley. Everything you know. Hold hands, and stare at the planchette. Try to hold your image of him at the forefront of your mind, and our desire will call him."

So they did. Each of them lonely. Each with their desires. Their own idea of who and what Crowley was. A part of them knew this was just a silly game, that magic wasn't real—but in that moment, as the giggles gave way, that yearning need in their soul found a resonance—a shape—and the women felt something move along their arms. Their hair began to stand on end, as if a charge built up between them.

In the middle of the board, the planchette began to move.

The women held their breath now. Almost shaking with an invisible effort as they watched the impossible happen. Without being touched, the little triangle of wood and glass crept across the board. To stop on a letter.

"U," Beth breathed, barely a whisper, as if unwilling to break the silence.

The planchette moved again.

"N," Megan said.

And so it went, six eyes locked on the board as something from beyond spelled out a message. Unseen by them, the loose clothes around the plastic skeleton filled out. The tip of the dildo began to weep a milky fluid as the veins on it started to writhe. The women were too lost in the moment to notice or care.

Until the planchette returned to the center of the board, and Bethany spelled out the message from beyond.

"Uncovering things that were sacred," she said. "Manifest on this Earth."

Something squeezed Angelina and Megan's hands. All eyes turned to the figure that loomed over the board. It was a masculine figure, in ill-fitting clothes, the plastic skeleton a morbid scaffolding for a thing of pure spirit.

When it spoke, a hot wind blew over them, as though someone had opened a window from hell.

<>

It was a distinctly British accent. Angelina's mouth stood agape. The cock leaped out and jammed itself in her face, the now-fleshy balls jammed against her throat. The laugh that echoed through the room was a demonic howl of pure glee. Desperately, Megan ripped her hand away, breaking the circuit. She grabbed the disembodied cock and tore it from Angelina's throat.

It landed, suction-cup down, on the middle of the board.

"What the fuck?" Megan said. "Holy shit. It worked. It really worked."

Bethany shook her head as Angelina coughed. Something very much like jizz, or possibly ectoplasm, drooled out of her mouth.

"No. No, it didn't," she said with careful deliberation. "We didn't get the Great Beast. I realized that when I heard the message, and that accent...I guess they were both from Warwickshire. Funny that."

"Who?" Angelina coughed, as Beth slowly rose to her feet. Both women watched as their friend pulled her pajama pants down, revealing a dark thatch of hair.

"We got Ozzy," Bethany said, as she plucked the dildo from the board. It writhed in her hand like a living thing.

"What are you doing?" Megan asked, backing away.

"The spirit can't leave until their purpose is fulfilled. We called him here. Our lust. Our need, our desire..."

Bethany planted it against her crotch, and the suction cup seemed to meld into the flesh. A strange, terrible pale light filled her eyes. Her hands pulled off her shirt, cupped and squeezed her small tits with obvious appreciation.

<>

The chuckle that came from Bethany's throat was masculine. Megan and Angelina looked at each other, and there was some strange, terrible agreement there. Perhaps it was because of friendship. Perhaps it was because, deep down, they both needed to get laid. But as Bethany stroked the cock that now sprouted from her hips, her friends began to peel off their clothes...

"Did they really summon a ghost?" Anya said. "I wonder. Perhaps they simply wanted it, needed it so much, that they manifested the culmination of their long pent-up desires. All I know is, that night the three of them passed a line between friendship and love. It would be the first night they would taste each other's flesh, but not the last. And the Isis Board..."

Anya retrieved a small triangle of glass and wood from a pocket. A planchette.

"Well, they don't need that to have their fun."

So saying, she blew out the candle.