Persephone Alcmedi 00 - Wicked Circle

power in the stones, ready to burst, ready to eject into the flesh of the fruit. The empowering fullness of energy was draining out of him, leaving weariness in its wake. Once all the apples were primed, he said, “ Modo .”
    The temperature of the room began dropping. When it had reached that of an icy freezer, he heard the crack and rumble of stone shattering—yet the statues before him remained complete. Black haze lifted from the surface of each, surrounding them like dust being shaken off a long-dormant soul. Slowly, it coalesced until the miasma, hovering over the faces of the statues, created fluid expressions upon the unyielding surface. They were not conveying a pleasant awakening.
    Six dark eyes narrowed into slits, three mouths sneered or frowned.
    The murky shadows stretched forward, reaching with dark, ominous claws for Meroveus.
    He placed the apple stems under his tongue and gathered the last of the energy he’d drawn from the Acropolis ley line into his mouth. His incantation was power laden and flawlessly intoned as he informed them he was their master. “ Ego imperare, vestri victor. Vos mos concedere vel intereo .” After commanding them to concede or die, he crushed the stems between his molars and waited.
    The specters hovered, claws aimed, but hesitant. “Concedere!”
    In midair, the ghostly forms snapped like whips before being jerked into the apples.
    Meroveus spit the stems into his palm, collected the fruit and knelt. From the velvet bag he reclaimed the necklace and a small leather pouch, with a flap that could snap shut. He set both the bag and the pouch aside. Careful to touch only the golden bands atop the stones, he freed each piece of amber and replaced them on the necklace. He scrutinized the gems; they were no longer translucent.
    This variation on the Bindspeaking spell trapped a piece of each soul he released inside one of the stones. He didn’t dare attach those pieces onto his own soul—that was tricky with a vampire at best—and he would not risk the tarnish of these wicked sisters tainting him. This gave him an access point to apply his punishment and kept him from having to physically touch the sisters. It was the best defense he could hope for. Though he would have shared this spell with Konstance if she could have saved him from having to perform it himself, it was not one he wanted others to know.
    Preparing the small leather pouch, he felt the wool-lined interior, then slid the amber pendants within. He tucked the flap of the pouch over the chain and snapped it shut. The stones were now secure: hidden in the wool-lined leather, but still suspended from the necklace. He put the chain around his neck.
    Holding the red-handled knife, he rolled each fruit to its side and cut it in half, then—without separating the top from the bottom—he set them aright with both pieces sitting as if uncut. This, if seen, would show that each apple’s core created a natural five-pointed star. That and the severed seeds were symbolic here.
    He raised the top from the middle apple and let the centermost of the three selected statues fill his sight. “I call you forth, Liyliy, shabbubitu, cursed daughter of Neriglissar. Damned bride of Belsarra-usurah.”
    Even as a dark vapor wafted up from the seeds, he lifted the top from the right-most apple. “I call you forth, Ailo, shabbubitu, cursed daughter of Neriglissar. Damned bride of Kurush.” He repeated the gesture for the left-most apple’s top. “I call you forth, Talto, shabbubitu, cursed daughter of Neriglissar. Damned bride of Ramesu.”
    Meroveus stood and retreated, putting distance between him and the black breath filling the space. A hand formed in the air and slender fingers stretched for the necklace he now wore, but Meroveus backed further away and hid the necklace under his shirt.
    For long minutes, the energy of the ley steamed up from the apples and fed the specters, solidifying them in phases. When three enormous, ethereal owls stretched their wings, their hideous hag-faces squinted at him. They screeched, and the sound shattered the glass of a pair of display cases nearby.
    Alarms sounded.
    Then their bodies shuddered and thinned, becoming nearly solid as they formed human shapes like the shabbubitum they had inhabited for centuries. But even as the flowing gowns of millennia past appeared, the fabric aged, growing tattered and gray, deteriorating like powder.
    Three women stood before him, shoulder to