The man in the garish coat looked down at the counter in his hand. The joint was full again. "Sorry- no more room, can't upset the fire marshall." He put the rope across the entrance.
The auburn-haired girl pouted. "But you let my friends in!"
He looked around, didn't see anyone else in line. "All right you. Ten bucks." The teenager handed him two fives, and he lifted the rope to let her duck under.
"Hemmm, nice ass," he muttered to himself under his breath as she slipped past the curtains to file by the pickled punks. He liked those freaks- they let him run his show solo; have the marks walk around the museum until he was ready for the main event.
Ah, the main event. He'd been pulling in quite a take these last few shows, and he was pretty sure it was because of the Living Mummy. She really made for a good blowoff- even more so than the Human Torso had- and he didn't even need to remember to feed her. A few more shows like this, and he could take a break for a bit.
"But- in another location, of course. No sense in taking risks." He closed the front entrance, locked it, and wiped the chalk circle from the door, then turned to the sarcophagus containing his prize.
She really was a good one, this one. Even as a mummy, he thought she was beautiful. He enjoyed rubbing the lotion over the leathery skin to keep it supple. And when she came alive, well, the moaning and wiggling got every man in the audience up on stage for a close look- he could charge as much as he wanted, and they'd still pay. What had been her name? "Cathy? No... Cassandra." He almost felt bad keeping her dessicated except for the brief time she was writhing on stage under the bandages. He did miss having conversations with people who weren't marks, but the risk was too great, as Rana had proven.
"Maybe it's time to make another exhibit again, one that can't run." He licked his lips. "I bet that red-head would make a fine Living Torso... if I can corner her after the show." He looked back to his captive mummy. "Well, first things first," he said, and closed the lid of the cabinet, then stepped around, and tilted back the handcart the sarcophagus was sitting on, wheeling it behind the curtains, up the ramp, onto the stage.
---
He'd given the pitch so often, it was almost automatic. He looked over the crowd as he spoke. Hemmm, some of these faces look familiar. That was a bit unsettling. He was pretty sure there were one or two that he really should remember- why did they look so familiar? His eyes rested for a moment on that red haired teen. She winked.
He finished up the pitch, and began the climax of the act- plunging the needle into the coffin, slowly pumping the mummy full of juice again. The crowd looked eager, even more so as the moaning started coming from the sarcophagus. He emptied the juice jar, and swung open the sarcophagus, then pulled out the bag to collect the money from the marks wanting a closer look. They began filing across the stage- including the red head, well, well, well. He smiled as she stepped up. "You- have a freebie, dear. Would you like to stick around afterwards? I might have something really interesting to show you." He flashed his smile, and she smiled back.
"I, uh, sure," she started nervously. "Sure, that sounds interesting. Say, could you tell me how that pump works?"
He smiled. It looked like he'd have his Living Torso soon, after all. "Simple air pressure, pumpkin. If you want, I'll let you give it a try when I suck the juice back out, how's that sound?" He caught some unusual movement in his peripheral vision, and turned quickly toward the sarcophagus. Some blonde woman was too close, and getting touchy-feely. "Hey, you, back away! No touching!"
Someone grasped his hand with a firm handshake, forcing him to turn. "Hello, nice to meet you," the handshaker said, with a sparkle in his eye that reminded the man in the red coat of another carnie- why did he look familiar?
The garish man turned back to the sarcophagus- that blonde was still leaning in too close. He spotted a gleam of metal- she was trying to cut the bandages with a razor! "Stop!" He pulled himself straight and put his full force of will into the word. Everyone froze. The blonde woman reeled, stepping backwards, and the pocket knife fell out of her hand. "That's it! Sorry, folks. Show's over!" Why was that man still shaking his hand?
"Yes, I'm afraid it is," said the man with the firm grip. The red headed girl plucked the money pouch out of his hand before he realized what was going on. He took a second look at her. It was the ponytails- they made her look a lot younger than she really was.
She strode towards the back door, calling out, "Refunds at the exit!" His spell over them broken, the marks started filing out of the room.
"Wait, you can't-" He tried to pull his hand away. It wouldn’t budge. He looked down. That man was still holding him tight, and somehow, a pair of silver handcuffs now linked their wrists together. He looked up, and recognition dawned.
"Now I remember you," the man in the garish coat said. "You're that charlatan with the kinky magic show- yeah, the Magician. What are you doing here?"
"Me?" He smiled. "Simply taking an interest in a fellow showman."
The garish man hissed. "I saw your show before. You're a fake- all mirrors and props. You might have had the marks fooled, but not me."
"I've never claimed to be what I'm not- unlike you, a monster claiming to be a man."
The blonde had picked up her knife again, and cut his mummy free. Cassandra fell forward into her arms as the bandages dropped away. The room was mostly empty, only a few stragglers left. They crowded around his former exhibit. Easy enough to influence a group he thought. I can still save this, if I can get away from this Magician.
He regarded the Magician, and smiled. Just a look, a glance would be enough. Looking up, he pleaded, "Please, I'm asking you, can you loosen these?"
"Sorry, but no."
The damn man avoided eye contact! How could he have known? Well, there were still other options. He thought back, and remembered the incantations he’d learned long ago. He hadn’t needed them in, how long had it even been? What language had they been in, even? Binding and... “לתת לי חופש” he uttered, the Words of Release.
Instead of opening, the handcuffs grew warm. He leaned forward, turning his right hand, and spotted the seal around the lock, glowing red. Proof against demonic magic. He muttered a curse in the same language as the incantation. The seal flared to bright yellow, and smoke began to curl up where the cuff touched his wrist. As I thought…Time for more direct methods.
The garishly dressed man twisted his hand out of the Magician's grasp and pulled hard against the cuffs. The seared skin tore off his thumb, and slick black ichor flowed out, coating the metal and his hand. The digit popped out of joint, and he pulled his arm back, slipping free. Quickly, he clenched his right hand into a fist, and his thumb slipped back in place, while, with his left hand, he drew the dagger from behind his coat and lunged forward, to hit the Magician with a stab to his kidney while he was off-balance.
The Magician dropped, instead, and the lunge went high. He stood just as quickly, grasped the garish man's left hand at the wrist, pulling the dagger past his body and locking the garish man's elbow against his chest. “Miles. We have a problem,” the Magician said calmly, but firmly, towards the group clustered around Cassie. “Girls! Get them out! Follow them out the back door!” The other man in the group blanched, mouth open in shock and confusion.
“That’s an epic understatement!” cried the one the Magician had called Miles, white as a sheet. “He’s using Incants...the Seal stopped them, but Demons aren’t even supposed to… How did he even get out of- I have no idea what’s going on! Just try to kill him!”
---
Despite her increasingly panicked searching, eyes roving to watch her own restrained body and as much of the back room as she could see without the ability to turn her head, the first sign Marisol had was a touch on the bare sole of her left foot. Just a flick, a tiny streak of moist warmth. She instantly jerked her foot back, straining against the manacle, and involuntarily let out a high-pitched squeak that made her hate herself.
Something had licked her, but overriding her revulsion, even overriding the mild ticklishness, was a need that latched onto her mind uncomfortably. More than she’d ever wanted the perfect pair of shoes, more than she’d ever desperately craved a second slice of cheesecake despite needing to maintain her performance figure, more than she’d ever wanted to bed a man, or woman...she wanted more. She wanted whatever-it-was to taste every inch of her, to consume her with the bliss she’d felt in that all-too-brief moment.
At the same time, she knew it wasn’t her choice, that she would not have wanted this before, would have emptied her stomach if she really thought it would happen. She would’ve closed her eyes in despair, but the Demon hadn’t healed her head or hand, and had no eyelids to shut. A pair of tears rolled from the outer corners of her eyes, leaving streaks in the smears of dried blood on her cheeks.
Then a warm wetness spread up the sides of both feet, curling around her ankles, and she could see...they were pinkish-red, textured like tongues, but thick and long, extending beneath the table. She gasped, and instantly knew more than her feet were now wet. She made a frustrated noise as her hands pulled at their manacles when they’d instinctively moved to touch herself, to participate.
Instead she could only moan as additional tongues emerged from below the table, lapping at her knees, the curves of her hips, her navel...and yet more, curling around her arms, her breasts, flicking at her nipples, caressing the stump of her neck, cauterized with tarry demon-blood.
“Fuck...fuck you,” she gasped weakly, trying to resist, trying to stop the conspiracy of her body and mind against her self-determination. “Oh, fuck me...yes...ohhhhhh,” she whispered, as she failed. “I need more…please…” She knew this wasn’t her, it was the Demon, it was what he’d done to her...but lacking his physical presence to crystallize her hatred, she could only feel self-loathing at her own weakness.
A score more tongues emerged from beneath the table, but they had not immediately come for her body. Instead, the thicker cables of flesh wrapped around the table’s legs, its crossbeams, the manacles holding her to its surface. They tightened, coiling like snakes, and then flung outward with incalculable force. The table literally exploded along the cardinal directions, and Marisol’s body remained suspended, the tongues already on her tightening their embrace to support her weight.
Some part of the assistant that clawed desperately for sanity tried to make sense of what she was seeing, but the angle between her head and body did not allow her to see the source of the tongues. But somehow her frustration was transmuted by the Demon’s dark alchemy, and she heard herself say, “Oh...yes...please, let me see you...let me watch you take me…”
Tongues flashed out and wrenched her severed head and hand out of the clamps that held them to the small table. There was searing agony as they tore free of the short spikes that lined the clamps, but then it was all gone as her hand and face felt the heavenly…no, that’s not right, but...caress of the tongues, supporting her, tugging at her hair, slipping into her mouth deliciously, the rank slime they were coated in like sweet nectar.
The tongues lifted her head and rotated it forward, letting her see. Below her suspended body there was an...opening. Not quite a mouth, there were no lips, no teeth, simply a collection of tongues emerging from all sides of a dark shaft in the dirt floor, maybe fifteen inches across. Her severed hand was withdrawn into it, and she could feel the countless touches of them, varying in size and length, but as it plunged deeper, more and more curled around her already-battered fingers and squeezed.
As her hand completely pulped, she screamed, loud and long, a perfect blend of agony and bliss, and her heartbeat began to falter.
---
The garishly dressed man looked down. The ichor flowing down his right wrist was starting to emit smoke- not really black, so much as it actually absorbed the light around it. It wrapped around his arm, flowing like a thick liquid, reminding him there was so much more he could do. I’ve been in this body too long…
The stabbing pain in his chest refocused his attention.Hemmm, might not be in it much longer… he mused, looking down at the Magician’s fist, holding the hilt of the knife. The blade had sliced neatly between his ribs and pierced his heart. Good thing I don’t actually need that… He looked back up at the Magician’s face. The man was impressive, for a human. He’d only lost focus for a second, and hadn’t even felt himself be disarmed.
Another surge of pain washed over his mortal body as the Magician twisted the knife hard before pulling it out, simultaneously using his elbow as a lever to push the both of them apart. He felt his knees weaken and buckle- even with supernatural strength, there was only so much damage this body could take. He watched the oily smoke leak through his fingers clutched to his chest, washing down his arm, and his vision narrowed to a tunnel. Then he started laughing, though it sounded like a death rattle. Smoke poured from his mouth. If the body won’t work for you, work it yourself.
Still laughing, G’rsh detached from the old carnie’s mental pathways and seeped into the demonic smoke that infused his body. It pushed the smoke- it pushed itself- into the body’s arteries and veins, forcing the blood out through the ragged hole in its chest in great pulsing gouts. G’rsh felt the last few sparks and chemical reactions pop and sizzle in the brain of the meat, then fade away. It laughed again as it felt the instinctive urge to consume the fleeing soul of the dying- this meat’s soul had already been consumed, slowly, exquisitely, and very completely over the last eighty or ninety years.
Suffusing this corpse, rather than possessing it, the demon used its raw force of will to make the meat move. Wrapping itself around the muscles through the empty blood vessels, it forced the frame to stand. Forced a limb to lash out at the Magician, hurling him away- just for long enough- it only needed a few more moments to get complete control of the flesh around it. It felt the thing’s bones shatter- Too fast, too strong- but it didn’t matter. The meat only needed to serve long enough to find a new host, and it didn’t matter if G’rsh had to puppet it around like a marionette made of ground beef in a burlap sack; a new host was only yards away.
G’rsh knew it was in some ways weaker in a host. It was bound by the upper limits of the host’s strength; it took on many of the host’s traits, its psychological ticks and foibles, linked to the host’s mind and soul; but the host made it powerful, too. Without a host, it became physically stronger, yes, but more instinctive and hungry, more easily fooled… Along with the host’s psychological weaknesses came its strengths. Its drives, its knowledge, some measure of the spiritual protection all mortal flesh provided, its force of will… And that old, weak, lustful, but clever carnie had been an excellent judge of character. This Magician person who was backing away now, he would be a superb host.
G’rsh was already fighting its instincts. It wanted to reach out and possess the closest, weakest host. While in its natural form, it was mystically vulnerable, and the meat puppet it was wearing now was, at best, a temporary measure, a minor mystic shield. A living host linked it to this world, making it near impossible to bind or exorcise. It needed a host, now, to protect itself, and the strong-willed soul of the Magician would take so much time to possess, leaving it vulnerable for so, so long. Cassie, she’d be much easier, having already been traumatized for quite some time...
Then G’rsh laughed again, reminding itself, Their world has no magic. There wasn’t a single person born to this world still living that was capable of using the Rite of Binding. It redoubled its efforts, flowing over and around the meat sack carelessly, pulverising bones, swelling and stretching skin to asymmetric, monstrous proportions, as it advanced on the more suitable prey that even now was trying to rise, trying to still fight it physically.
(To Be Continued…)