The soul sighed, it evaded through the man, "To the left…"
The man turned to the left. Magna covered his mouth and nose. 'Please don't find me…' he brought his feet closer to him. The man bent down coming to the boxes, he gawked at the shards of glass with leaked fluid. "Fucking imps, I swear to---"
He sniffed the air. "What the fuck is that? Smells like onions," he gagged. He faced the girls in the cage. "What's with that one?"
"She's hungry!" Katelynn defended. "She needs food."
The man shook his head and paced towards the cage. "I'm not falling for that again. The last one bit my ass and that's how I got here."
"I'm so sorry you're a dumb ass…" taunted Katelynn. "When do we get bathroom breaks. I don't feel great about pissing in a cage for animals. I'm a hum---"
"Shut up!" he demanded. "I know you, that white girl that likes traveling." He smirked, "Want some liquor? Vampire whore."
Katelynn scowled, her nose wrinkling. She looked at Thankful, "What are you planning to do with us? Her?"
"Fuck y'all up." He parted from the cage and motioned to move the cloth. His head glowed as the soul traveled through him, burning bright. He narrowed his eyes, "I'm sick of you trying to make me a puppet. What's over here?"
//Stay…//
Magna thought in his head, he could push the machine he hid behind over. He looked under the coverage. It was bolted to the ground. //What is this?//
The man slapped himself in the face, "Stop it!"
//Obey me…//
Magna took hold of his brother's head, blood seeped out the lips and eyes were void of color. The man swirled in place trying to control the spirit. "Where is that damn amulet."
//In your pocket//
He scratched the side of his pants; he felt the amulet but no seam. "Are you using Triks as a ball of light!"
//Release me…//
"Fuck this!" his legs didn't follow orders, He lifted his heel, he froze in place. He stumbled, falling to the floor. //Release me…//
"The She Clan is supposed to be the strongest… your souls are worth money!"
//So, you made a deal with the grim reaper… that wasn't smart.//
"No…" he smirked. "We made a deal with the white devil"
The soul grew in his waistline, his sides turning red. He scratched at the floors. Fire puffed from his throat. He heard the crackling of his bones, his chest plate expanding. His body lit up a bright white, the light dimmed and passed through his head. "I WON'T LET YOU TAKE MY BODY."
//Why not? You took mine. And I don't want yours.//
The soul swelled and dipped in size, he hollered straining his throat. The sensation in his torso felt as if is body was split open. A tear appeared by his breast, it stretched from the middle to his midsection. As one showed up, another appeared at his hips. The soul glowed, heat rising in the room, his body splitting apart and his blood marking the floor. He erupted, his entrails all over the basement.
The soul flew to the ceiling. "Magna?"
Magna Carta leaned against the machine, his eyes fluttered at a leg that bounced off the wall and landed in front of him. "WHAT THE FUCK!"
.
.
.
"I can show you the way out." Said the soul. Magna reached his arms out, "Dolly?"
"I'm gone big brother… but not completely. I'm hanging on by a thread." Magna blinked his wet eyes. He drew his lips in. "What happened?"
"Motherfucking Chauncey Vansant," screamed Dolly. "He's a fucking hypocrite! They're fucking right-handed."
"Right hand?" chimed Katelynn. Magna turned his gaze to Skaare. His eyes widen, "Crow?"
Skaare swiveled her head. "I don't know, and I don't have fucking eyes. Fuck my head hurts!" Magna Carta jogged to the cage, "Crow! It's me! Magna." He shouted. "What did they do to you?"
"Bruh…" she tilted her head back. "I'm being super cool about this, but I think I'm drunk…"
"Drunk?" he rose into question. "You know better than to commit cannibalism."
"They gave me something. Forced it on me." Katelynn moved over to her and moved her head in Magna's direction. "You have to find the key to the cell. It's probably not in the basement." Said Katelynn. "I can break it…" offered Dolly. "Hold tight. Cadpra."
The bodies in the room heard the cage clank. Katelynn got up and pushed the cage open. Magna rushed in and picked Thankful off the floor. He slapped her face and shook her from her daze. "Come on Thankful baby, come back to me." She made no sound. Her eyes were fixed in a direction. "Thankful!"
"come on Skaare!" beckoned Katelynn. "Girl, sit the fuck down." Skaarecrow stumbled to stand. She used the bars to support her. "You ain't shit, leaving me here."
Magna left Thankful's side to help Skaare exit the cell. "Hey! Girl! Find me a rope!"
"I have a goddamn name."
"Cool. I'll learn later. Get me a rope." Said Magna. "It's ok Skaare, hold my hand." He took his sister's hand and led her out of the cell. Katelynn looked around the machine Magna hid behind, she caught sight of the body. "Who died…?"
"Charcoal… the green beans cut him with a chain saw." Spoke Dolly.
"And you didn't help," Magna waved his hand in the air. "It happened in front of me. Magna… listen." Her soul grew, inside of it, she cast an image in front of him. The image showed his family, The She clan. One of his uncles, his mother's husbands; he laid flat with a bullet wound to the chest. His children called for him, a tall man, shroud in black rose a gun to the two dark-skinned children. Offing them both in the head. The cloaked individual turned around and went up the steps, calling, "Where is she?"
Magna gawked at the vision before him. "I think this is something," mumbled Katelynn. She went behind the machine covered up and pulled on a stray tie. She yanked it, a tower of junk crashing to the floor. Heads, eyes, a jar with a heart and body parts. The cover over the machine fell off revealing the death it represented. A crucifix-like structure with drills attached to the arms and body of the cross. Around the top of the crucifix, a device meant to keep the head still.
It laid lopsided in a broken tractor. "Is that a Drainer?"
"Wow… what an insult." Katelynn rubbed her back as she backed away from the torture device. "They keep the Drainer in the basement?"
"That means they take everything above ground. It's not like nightwalkers."
Katelynn rose her head to Dolly's soul. "But… It's a cult. Right?"
"Not if the Drainer is below and—" Dolly paused her words, she floated over to the sheet on the ground. Her soul tossed it at Magna. "Cover up!"
"Hide in my pocket!"
"Or my big ass titties, I don't care sis." Stated Skaare. "Or my eyeballs."
"Will you shut up about your goddamn eyes." Barked Katelynn. "For someone that can't see, your mouth is working to take up for the lack of sight."
"Oh, go get yo period licked." Skaare sneered. Katelyn took the rope with her as she hid in the crook of the wall with a set of boxes. Magna hissed at Thankful's body still in the cell. He pushed Skaare back inside and told her to lay down as if she was hurt. "What are you doing?"
He closed the cage behind him. Dolly's soul wandered into the nest of Skaare's bosom. "I sense a man coming—No, foul behavior." She spoke. "It's imps!"
"Guys I'm over here…," uttered Katelynn in a hushed voice. At the time, they didn't care either way. Magna laid on Thankful's shoulder. "I have no fucking purpose. I'm just sitting here without eyes."
The basement door swung open, a large green man with a snub nose and durag wrapped around his head came down the stairs. "It's loud." He said. He walked towards the cage with Thankful, Skaarecrow, and Magna inside. "One's missing," he opened the cage door and waved his hand. "Get out."
His tone was so emotionless, gruff. Magna stared at him, he lifted from the floor and carried Thankful bridal style. "Where are we going?"
"Ballroom. The Ritual is happening."
.
.
.
The imp carried Thankful on his shoulders and tugged Magna and Skaare behind him with a rope. They wore a dark-colored muzzle around their faces. The hallway had a rolled-out red carpet with a zigzag pattern and white lines on the edge of the fabric. The black painted walls with wide strips designed horizontally along the wall. Passing through the passageway, Magna gazed at the big picture frames. A beast in one picture with four arms and one eye in the middle of his face. His claws reaching in the direction of a light casting below him.
He passed another of a dog with human muscular legs, it slob at the mouth and had red bulging eyes. Its mouth was black and several teeth on the left jawline digging out of its maw.
The next picture with a blue frame. It was easy to make this one out, an angel with broken wings and seven spinning halos above its head. Its limbs long and piercings along its torso. Magna couldn't ask a thing, before the Imp put the muzzle on them, he put a block of wood in their mouths. He mumbled at the situation. The imp turned down a wall with space, a large door with a golden shine.
The imp pressed inward, behind the door, a wide spacious ballroom. The chandeliers are in the shape of a giant skull, the lights hanging from it mimicking drops of blood. In Skaarecrow's head, she thought, 'Not a fucking masquerade.'
In the ballroom, 18 bodies were strapped to the wall and 30 in body bags on the gleaming floor. As they walked in, a vampiric statue was on the balcony. On the sides of the wall, statues of gargoyles were chained to the floor. He couldn't see below, from a high view, an outline. It traced the thirty body bags and in between a line of roses. Magna stepped across a rose sketch. The ballroom floor had a medium circle in the middle that expanded bigger to the edge. In the inner circle, the crucifixes lined up, five in total.
'They're going to drain us?' thought Magna Carta.
Behind him, his sister shook. She bit down on the block of wood in her mouth. Slobbering and tugging at the rope. Piss ran down her knees; she cried, liquid masking her face as her muffled words hit no ears.
The imp unleashed Magna and guided him to the crucifix by his arm, still holding on to Skaarecrow. "There was two." He spoke. "Where?"
Magna shrugged; the imp cocked his head to the side. "I'll kill her."
Did he speak in longer sentences? Either way, he wrapped the rope around his hand and hoisted Magna onto the cross. As if he was like clothes. Magna's back hit the sticks, one stabbing him in his left and right shoulder and two more striking his lower back. He winced in pain, the device around the neck clenched his throat. Roads of blood escaped down his chest. "I should have removed the mask first. That's ok, I'll do it to you." He twisted his attention to Skaarecrow. "Vamp? Half-breed?"
She sank to the flooring and jostled along the polished ground. The imp yanked the rope forward, pulling her towards him. She wrestled with the line; he beat her over the head until she was knocked out cold. "I hate worms."
He turned back to Magna squirming at the hooks in his back. Below the cross is a clear bucket. "The tubes catch it and drains below." His smile curved, "I just need to pull the lever to squeeze you dry." Beside the cross, near the lower left bottom, a lever that was connected to a hammer that stretched out across. "I pull this, and I can have a drink… maybe more."
Magna's eyes enlarged. He wiggled his toes, he looked at the hammer in front of him, below his feet. It was set up like a reverse catapult. He couldn't struggle out of this. Were the other bodies squeezed like grapes? Is that way they were in bags? Who were they?
Why was this a thing? They were going to drink him.
The lever went down to the floor, Magna didn't even have time to close his eyes. The impact shattered his skull, blood squirted out his ears. His eyes mashed and his nose broken. The container was flooded with red water.