“Hic et nunc, esto quod es,” Father Paulus continued. “Do not resist, child, and you may yet survive this night.”
My mind reeled as I attempted to make sense of what he wanted from me. He just told me: ‘Here and now, be what you are.’ I could only assume he meant for me to embrace whatever I had been genetically engineered to be, whatever creature the Oracle’s experiment had achieved when they gave birth to me.
When I was growing up in the Church, Father Paulus often spoke Latin to me in cryptic ways during training. Each time I questioned him about it, he would give me vague responses meant to force me to reflect on the matter.
The one time that marked me the most was the day he chastised me for becoming extremely angry and even violent over my repeated failures during a sword fighting sparring session. My training partner was using underhanded tactics, which pissed me off. My fire magic flared, and I nearly incinerated the idiot boy right where he stood.
Father Paulus took me firmly by the shoulders and stared at me sternly. The disappointment in his eyes cut me deeper than the severity of his tone as he spoke to me. He never raised his voice or hand to me. But as he was my world, failing him was devastating.
“Vincit qui se vincit,” he said in a harsh tone to the little girl that I was back then.
One conquers who conquers himself… It took me far too long to understand what that phrase meant.
“Only then can you embrace both the night and day,” he continued. “And when that day comes, you must be the one in control, not let the night control you. Let your heart decide how you will use it.”
He then walked away, putting an end to the training. At the time, I believed he was saying that sooner or later I would have to juggle my light side—which I had been religiously cultivating under his guidance—along with the dark side that I kept trapped but that would inevitably break free one day.
How did he know all the way back then that we would be standing here and now?
Before I could reflect further on his words and the past I was now starting to realize had been an illusion, Father Paulus joined the other three mages, each of them positioned in a way to form a large square in front of me. They began reciting an incantation I had never heard before. My skin tingled with the quickly building energy, then a magic circle formed right in the middle of the square Father Paulus and his companions had invoked.
My blood turned to ice as I recognized the summoning circle. Summoners only used this specific circle to invoke the most powerful dwellers of the Netherworld. Although they maintained the same level as they spoke the incantation, the mages’ voices seemed to amplify, filling the massive room as the rest of the cultists watched in eerie silence.
The air blurred at the very center of the magic circle, and a dark cloud began to form, turning into a swirling vortex from whence even more dark smoke emerged. It gradually took the shape of a thick, wraith-like silhouette. However, it suddenly split into two in the middle, forming a Y that then grew a set of limbs. The color shifted to a pale green hue with reddish tinges at the end. My heart skipped a beat when I finally recognized the creature that had been summoned.
A Honghadda witch.
The terrifying creature dwelled in the Seventh Circle of Hell. They were the demonic version of Siamese twins, always females. Their lower body consisted of a long tail made of greenish shadows. Their torsos were fused at the back, from the hip to the shoulders, each witch facing away from her twin. They each possessed a set of arms, with spiky elbows, and long, spindly fingers tipped by vicious claws. Their nightmarish heads sat atop stumpy necks. Red, glowing eyes peered maliciously at me above the immense mouth that took most of their faces. The spiky lips appeared sharp enough to stab through flesh and bone. They didn’t possess any visible nose, or ears. And the same spikes that formed their mouths adorned their scalp in a nightmarish hairdo.
“No!” I whispered, true panic settling in as understanding dawned on me.
The medallion of the necklace dangling on the staff was an Amulet of Reaping. They were used to imprison a soul ripped out of a body. On extremely rare cases of nearly impossible exorcisms, the Church would invoke Honghadda twins to tear out the intruder and trap them inside such an amulet, freeing the victim.
But those imprisoned souls were never freed again. As far as I knew, there was no way to reverse the process. Why would Paulus do this to me? Were the other three masked mages performing the summons with him also traitors to the Church? Maybe some of the trainers and nuns I had blindly trusted with my life?
“Father Paulus, don’t do this!” I cried out.
He turned his head to look at me. As he had donned his mask again, I couldn’t even see his facial expression.
“Carpe noctem, Daughter.Esto quod es,” he replied, then turned his attention back to the witches.
‘Seize the night, Daughter. Be what you are.’ But I couldn’t comply with such an insane request counter to everything I had been taught and raised to believe. I opened my mouth to plead again, but the Honghadda witch facing me opened her mouth impossibly wide, and I felt a powerful tug as if invisible hands were attempting to tear my spine out. Except it was my soul being sucked out of my body.
A bluish white light flowed out of me, into the witch’s mouth, only to come out of her twin’s mouth and shoot into the Amulet of Reaping, which greedily absorbed it. Pain like I’d never experienced before wracked my body. I was being torn asunder. I fought against my restraints, the weight of the collar all but pinning me down. I couldn’t even close my mouth to prevent the witch from stealing the very essence of my being.
Deep within, the darkness swelled and rattled against its cage, begging to be set free. My mind understood it was a defense mechanism. My darkness had turned into a wild beast fighting for its survival. I wanted to let it loose, but even in my agony, I shackled it and tried to silence it. The violence bubbling beneath the surface terrified me. At a visceral level, I understood that once I unleashed it, there would be no going back. I would fundamentally change in a way I doubted I would like.
Would that be worse than death?
Because I was indeed dying. My heart stuttered, and my skin tingled as a growing feeling of weightlessness spread all over me. It was the typical sensation which preceded a loss of consciousness. However, there would be no awakening from it.
Lyall’s face flashed before my mind’s eyes, and a searing pain that had nothing to do with my soul being ripped out stabbed at my heart. We’d had too little time. Even though my mind hadn’t been ready to commit, my heart had recognized him in a way that couldn’t be put into words. Through the roaring soundof my blood rushing in my ears, I could have sworn I heard his voice screaming my name.
But I was fading too quickly.
At the edge of my vision, I saw Lyall’s body glow as he once more attempted to use his powers. No! Why was he torturing himself? I couldn’t bear the thought of him pointlessly killing himself in a vain effort to save me. The countering measures of the Manacles they’d put on him would eventually cause irreversible damage that even his regeneration couldn’t mend.
“Carpe noctem, Eleni! Esto quod es!”
