A piece of magic

The altar itself looks like it came from a movie. It's a heavy slab of stone with grooves carved in it to gather blood, and metal rings that still hold pieces of decayed ropes. A skeleton is a perfectly fitting addition to this piece of furniture, but what makes me faintly nauseated is knowledge that this isn't some stage prop.

It was a real person, once. Now all that's left is a heap of dusty bones, connected by remnants of sinew and muscle. I spot a couple of bones lying on the floor nearby, so it must've been messy.

What I don't see anywhere is the skeleton's head.

Zeke moves towards the altar, the magical ball of light following his movements. The monster stops to hover over the skeleton, his face inscrutable.

"Here you see it—the centerpiece. The ring chanted their prayers and offered the sacrifice, but it didn't go as they planned, oh no… What you see in Willow Creek now are consequences of that fateful day, Maya."

I step closer. The old corpse without a skull is quite low on the scale of unsettling, and after Zeke's welcoming nightmare, I think I got some tolerance to gore. No, actually, that's a lie. I can hope, but if I think about it again, I realize that being desensitized to gore spells much worse things for my psyche.

Still, this skeleton and this altar make me feel like I'm standing near a powered Tesla coil. Their presence is tangible and makes my hair stand on ends. Is that how magic feels?

"Do you mean that there's a curse of some sort over Willow Creek, Zeke? I suppose that simply destroying this body or burying it won't lift it."

"There's no other curse than the creatures who populate this place, but you won't defeat them on your own. You will need me, and for that, you must free me from this cage. A reverse ritual must be performed. I know every word of it—but a certain detail is missing."

I glance at the skeleton again and point out the obvious. "The skull. The entire… former sacrifice must be here?"

"Yes, my Maya." Zeke's face flashes with dark anger for a moment before he hides it behind a palm. When he drops his hand a second later, his face is once again as smooth as the surface of a pond on a windless night. "It was taken by the remaining members of the ring of worship and kept as a trophy since then by their ancestors. You know the building—the one you have escaped today. This is their new place of gathering, and where their current leader keeps his… knickknacks. Another reason I will tear off his arms and legs before hanging him on his own large intestine."

The entire grotesque threat was said so nonchalantly that I need a moment to realize what Zeke meant. Then I have to force the compulsion to imagine it away from my head.

Zeke wasn't joking. I make a step away from him and grab my left wrist, seeking calm in the image of a snake. Calm as a python… Wise as a viper. Wise enough to not provoke a monster, wise enough to get as many answers out of him as possible.

"Alright, the local sect gets another point of creepiness. Now the count is, mhm… two to two." I'm glad to know that I can still make jokes. Jokes and bottling emotions up, my two favorite ways of coping. "So, you need me to steal the skull from the nests of these psychos, bring it here, and that's it?"

"I will also need your ability of a Lock. You will not be a participant in the ritual itself, but thanks to your presence, I will be free to channel all the power I need for it."

I shake my head. "You must've mistaken me for Catwoman. I escaped only thanks to luck! How will I steal anything?"

Zeke shifts, circling the altar again until he stands right in front of me. He raises a hand towards my chest, and I stagger back—or try, because something presses into my back, forcing me in place. I gasp, my heart going into overdrive as I helplessly watch another cryptic show. For a second, Zeke's palm lies in the center of my chest, right over my solar plexus, before both he and the tentacle behind me move away.

I feel like I just spent several seconds being unduly stressed over nothing. Wasted an opportunity to slap Zeke's hand away and still didn't understand a thing.

"You will open the path for my power, my puzzled Maya. I will act through you, cleaning your path of obstacles."

Suddenly, the metaphor with a hole and a tentacle appears to have a much more literal sense. "Will I grow any of these?" I point at the few writhing tendrils of darkness that Zeke has casually spread over the floor.

"Not exactly. You will see."

"Wait a moment, buddy." I make another step away from the monster. "I didn't say I was going to help you. And what would you do if I won't? You throw around gruesome death treats like comments on weather and send very disturbing dreams. I don't think it's wise to let creatures like you roam around, Zeke."

It was probably unwise to say this, but… I feel like this entire story grows bigger than just myself. This means I have to know that I don't doom people besides myself to death by helping Zeke. I have to know just how much of a monster he is.

To my relief, he doesn't seem immediately aggressive, or even angry. He merely tilts his head and stares at me with the bottomless onyx eyes of his.

"You are so brave, so courageous, my beautiful Maya… You shake, but I can see your determination." Zeke smiles, and I swallow, because he's right. I *am* shaking, but I have to push through. "So few people have anything like it. You truly wish the best, don't you? It's a dangerous road to take."

"You didn't answer me, Zeke. You know, no matter how you threaten me, I can change my mind as soon as I get out of your zone."

"And so impatient. Do not fret—I will not threaten you. I won't need to. But you have to learn how to open the keyhole for me, anyway, my fragile Lock. Because, more than anything, I need you *alive*."

I breathe out. Here we are on the same wavelength—I also want myself alive.

"Alright. Tell me more about all this Lock stuff."