Page 36 of An Immaculate Deception

I examine myself, searching for wounds or cuts. Did something happen in the night without me noticing? Was something done to me while I slept? I don’t believe I slept for very long. I feel my body, searching for wounds, but I find nothing.

I slip on the chemise, restless. Why did he leave me here alone? Suddenly, I gasp in horror. The table before me, with the tarp covering it…A hand dangles from beneath the tarp. Long feminine fingers. Round pink nails. Blood drips down from it onto the floor. The front legs of the table are coated in blood.

For a moment, I am paralyzed. My thoughts are jumbled. I remember now glimpsing this dangling hand last night, but my mind didn’t register it fully. But this table is where I stabbed the wax and mud doll, an effigy of me.

Only…I don’t see the doll anywhere now.

I was wearing a blindfold. I never saw the doll even then. I only touched her straw-like hair.

Oh God. My blood turns to ice as a terrible realization strikes me: There never was a doll.

What I stabbed was…

I turn away from the table and scramble desperately for the exit. I move so fast that I slip on the blood-soaked floor, and then I’m crawling on all fours, scrambling for purchase. Why did Doctor Lobo leave me here alone with that thing?

I make it to the far wall, where I remember entering last night. But there is no handle or knob to turn. I see the outline of the doorframe, but I don’t know how to open the door. Yet he left, so there must be a way out. My hands move frantically around the frame, feeling the texture of the wood and seeking a secret latch of some kind. The boarded-up window is all the way on the opposite side of the room, so it is dark and I can hardly discern what I am looking at. A terrifying thought occurs to me: What if the mechanism to open the door has been purposely removed?

What if I was left here on purpose?

I open my mouth to call out, then something stops me.

I hear my name. From beyond the wall, voices.

“…Examination bears positive results,” says a male voice I don’t recognize. It isn’t Doctor Lobo’s voice. It is grave and serious. “…Successful execution of one of the most difficult spells of ritual magic in the tradition. We commend you, Lobo.”

Spells? Dread runs through my spine.

Another male voice says, “Your application of mesmerism on the subject was highly effective. The sex act, as well, seemed to enhance the effect of the mesmerism, as you predicted.”

The subject…me? These men were present last night? I shudder as I think of the shadows moving in the distance. A line from the book comes to mind: Members of the inner circle must bear witness. And the annotation beneath it, in Lobo’s own handwriting: Witnesses have been notified.

No. This cannot be happening. I press my ear to the wall, palms up against it.

“It will be recorded in the Book of the Golden Cross…” His voice lowers and I cannot make out the next sentence. “…Your initiation ceremony into the inner circle will be held at the next full moon. Where then you will receive your new name.”

Doctor Lobo murmurs something I can’t hear.

My mind is running in circles. The heavily underlined and annotated passage in the book depicted nine ranks in the order, and specific rules for how to advance within the ranks. It said that in the final level one enters the inner circle, attains the highest rank of Magus, and all the ancient secrets are revealed. This has been Lobo’s goal all along. But for him to advance within the ranks, certain spells must be executed, spells of dark magic no doubt. Were demons summoned last night? There was no circle around the pentagram. I remember seeing both depictions in the book: a pentagram with a circle around it and one without. With a circle around it, it is a spell of banishing and protection. Without the circle, it is an invocation.

Let the ancient spirits guide you, he said.

“The only problem now,” says one of the male voices, “is what is to be done about the subject. Your blindfold idea didn’t work. It fell off.”

There is a terrible silence. Now I know for sure they are talking about me. I don’t remember at what point the blindfold fell off, but I remember glimpsing red everywhere, shadows, the dangling hand.

“You noticed it, didn’t you?”

“It is why I left her there,” says Doctor Lobo. Hearing his voice now almost startles me. “My hope was that the blindfold would stay on. I gave her a light sedative. I’d planned to move her to a room upstairs and she would wake up never having seen…” He trails off.

The thing on the table. Never having seen what lies on the table.

“…None the wiser.”

There is a pause in which I wonder if my hearing stopped.

“That is unfortunate,” says a male voice.

“Lobo.” The elderly voice carries a note of warning. “She cannot leave that chamber.”