It was the caress of the midnight winds that roused Danielle from her slumber, the cold sending goosebumps rising across her naked flesh. With it came the sensation of leather holding her fast and filling her mouth, and the college student gave an oddly muffled groan. What… what happened? came her first coherent thought, the feel of her back pressing against rough wood and the ache in her arms and shoulders only adding to the strangeness. Snatches of memories flitted in and out of the fog ensnaring her mind; of treating herself to a night at Club Exodus now that exams were done; of meeting this cute goth girl with an odd tattoo and sharing some dances with her; of getting a drink and then…
She drugged me, the realization came, and the shock was enough to bring her fully to her senses, brown eyes darting about frantically as she awoke into a nightmare. Straps of rigid leather cinched tight about her wrists, ankles and throat, keeping her bound spread-eagle to some sort of table, her limbs stretched out so that not an inch of slack was available for her to work with. Worst still, the goth chick (or whoever it was who’d kidnapped her) had seen fit to strip her naked, leaving every intimate region utterly exposed. Where she’d been taken, she couldn’t even begin to tell, for the whole room lay in darkness, the meager glow provided by the candles ritually placed around her too weak to illuminate her surroundings, and from deep within, a cry of terror bubbled up, rendered feeble by the leather muzzle obscuring the lower half of her face. “Mmmpppgghh! MMMMPPPPGGGGHHH!” Her athletic body, well-toned from her time in the school’s volleyball club, strained against her bonds, yet they would not give, the creak of wood and leather seeming to mock her efforts. “MMMMPPPPGGGGHHHH!”
“Where did you find this one?”
Fearfully, Danielle jerked her head left towards the sound of the voice, eyes widening at the black-cloaked figure that slipped out of the shadows, black hood drawn up to obscure her face. “At the local club.”
“Will she serve?” a third voice asked, and terror sent Danielle’s heart pounding as four more figures stepped around the table, each clad like the first, and all women if the trim of their robes was any indication.
“Would I have brought her here if she wouldn’t?” came the insulted snarl.
A dark-skinned hand reached out from within a long sleeve, running through Danielle’e brunette locks provoking a moan of horror from the bound young woman. “She’s a pretty one. You sure we can’t keep her?”
“Don’t be a fool,” snapped a fifth speaker. “When our Master comes, he’ll be able to grant you a thousand women better than this stupid bitch to play with.”
“Mmmpppggghhhh!”
“Will anyone come looking for her?” demanded the first voice, crisp and authoritative.
“No one that matters,” insisted the second, walkin over to Danielle’s head. The hood shifted, giving Danielle the briefest peek, and the athlete fumed in rage at the sight of the goth girl from the club, the mouth she’d considered kissing not mere hours before contorted into a sneer of disgust. “She’s just some dumb jock from the university. An animal, meant to be bled for the service of her betters. In a week, no one will remember her name.”
Her howl of outrage barely contained by the gag, Danielle bucked and thrashed against her bonds like a wild beast locked in a too-small pen, fists clenching and unclenching in anticipation of wringing her betrayer’s scrawny neck. “You honestly still think you can break free? That I might have cared for you? Pathetic,” the goth girl stated, observing her naked prisoner with all the empathy a scientist might offer a cockroach being dissected under a microscope. “But I must thank you. You will be the hundredth soul we’ve given up to the Master. Tonight, we finally receive our just reward.”
“MMMPPPGGGHHHH!” Danielle screamed helplessly, enlightenment bringing only fresh horror. She wasn’t strapped down to a table.
It was an altar.
Above, a great bell began to toil midnight. “It is time,” the goth girl said, and as one, the five robed figures took up equidistant positions around the squirming college student, hands raised towards the ceiling in supplication. Four voices took up a chant in a unfamiliar language, the strange, almost unearthly sounds making her skin crawl, and above the dirge-like chorus, the goth girl made a strident plea. “Malvaroz, Lord of Night and Shadow, the Daughters of Midnight beseech you!” she cried out, seemingly oblivious to Danielle’s futile struggles. “Take this humble offering and make yourself manifest upon our wretched world! Give to us what was promised!”
The final chime rang out. The chanting of the cultists halted.
And Danielle’s blood turned to ice as from out of the midnight gloom, something answered back…