Page 93 of Devoured
Chapter 29
In the ritual chamber, I could see Varnar pacing among his scattered grimoires like a caged animal. His usually perfect suit was wrinkled, tie hanging loose, hair disheveled in ways I’d never seen.
Time moved strangely between the realms. We’d spent what felt like weeks in the Realm Beneath. But looking at Varnar now, still in the same clothes from our confrontation, the fresh blood still tacky on the altar, I realized only hours had passed here. Maybe a day at most.
“Find something! Anything!” His voice cracked in ways that made him sound almost human. The other cultists scrambled through ancient texts, their fingers shaking as they turned pages that wept black tears. These weren’t just grimoires—they were contracts written in languages that predated human speech, each one a record of atrocities committed in the Judge’s name.
I understood their panic now. For six centuries, they’d kept the Judge bound by carefully worded summonings—he could only manifest when called through specific rituals, trapped by the very contracts his hunger had made him sign. Too dangerous to let roam free, even for his servants. The Executioner had been their go-between, their controllable tool who could cross realms at will.
But I’d consumed their god. Dissolved him from the inside with poisoned sorrow. And the binding contracts had dissolved with him. Now there was nothing limiting me. No summoning required. No contracts to honor. I could appear whenever I wanted, wherever I wanted.
Their carefully crafted control had died with their god.
“The Judge isn’t responding,” one cultist whispered—the old man I had seen with Varnar before. “Every summons, every offering... nothing.”
Of course he wasn’t responding. I’d fed him his own poison.
“Try again!” Varnar’s composure shattered completely. He grabbed a silver chalice from the altar and hurled it across the room. “Great Judge, Lord of the Damned, we beseech you! Return Dr. Alan! Take the others—Mitchell, anyone—just give me back Alan!”
The candles didn’t even flicker. If anything, they dimmed, as if the very concept of the Judge was being erased from reality.
“Please!” His voice broke. “We’ve served faithfully! Fed your hunger for decades! My family has given everything! Just give Alan back!”
The Executioner stood beside me between worlds, his massive frame radiating eagerness. I felt his anticipation vibrating through the Realm Beneath like a tuning fork struck against bone. He’d been waiting for this moment. Not just to return—but to return as something other than a slave.
Varnar spun to face his followers, and I saw real madness creeping into his eyes. “Summon the Executioner! Now!”
“Sir, we’ve already tried,” a younger cultist stammered. “We don’t have a sacrifice ready. We just sacrificed Jenkins fifteen minutes ago and—nothing happened.”
He couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, probably recruited from some Ivy League school with promises of power.
“Then we’ll sacrifice more. Keep sacrificing until the Executioner shows up.” Varnar’s eyes landed on the young man. “Starting with you.”
He grabbed the cultist and dragged him toward the altar.
“No! Please! I’ve been loyal—” the young man screamed, trying to break free.
Other robed figures rushed to help Varnar, pinning the struggling man to the stone and gagging his mouth with a piece of cloth.
“By blood and binding,” Varnar began to chant. “By guilt acknowledged and pain made manifest. We summon the Executioner. Let him prepare the way for our Lord Judge. Let him open the door between worlds.”
His words echoed off the stone as he drew the ritual knife across the sacrifice’s wrist. Just a shallow cut—enough to bleed, not enough to kill. The man whimpered through his gag, eyes wild with terror.
Ruby liquid welled up and dripped onto the altar. The moment it touched the stone, everything changed. Instead of pooling naturally, the blood moved with purpose, flowing into the carved channels like mercury finding its level. It spread outward in perfect spirals, following grooves in the stone—ancient symbols drinking the fresh offering.
I glanced at the Executioner beside me. His helmet tilted toward me in question. I nodded.
Time to make our entrance.
The blood pool in their world began to ripple. The temperature spiked so fast the air quivered like pavement in July. Sweat burst from the cultists’ skin, soaking through their robes in seconds.
“Yes! Finally, it’s working!” Varnar breathed, hope and terror warring in his voice. “Something’s coming! Everyone stay calm. Form the circle. Remember your training.”
But their training had been for controlling summoned entities—not for what was about to emerge.
I had Dr. Alan’s corpse in my claws. I’d skinned her body but left her face intact, those dead eyes staring up from a frame of raw muscle.
With careful aim, I hurled it up through the portal. The body erupted from the blood pool like something fired from a cannon, spinning through the air in a graceful arc that seemed to last forever—and landed near Varnar.
