Rafael Ashwood woke up to bitter cold, and the sound of chanting voices. Before he opened his eyes, he tried to figure out just where he was, and why his head hurt so badly.

He’d been leaving the office, heading to his reliable little beater of a car when someone had called out to him. He knew he’d recognized the voice but that was where things got fuzzy. Then, nothing.

Well, that was a very unhelpful trip down memory lane.

Okay, so the past wasn’t giving him any clues, what about the present? Eyes still closed, Raf focused on what was around him. He was cold, for one, really cold. He was lying on what felt like solid stone that felt like it had made a bat with winter and didn’t like to lose. He was pretty sure he had frostbite on his back, but he couldn’t get up to check. That was because as he carefully flexed his muscles, he found he’d been bound, ankles and wrists, to the stone slab.

Well, damn. That did not bode well for his overall wellbeing, or survivability. He could also hear a lot of voices. If there had been only two or three people, he was sure he could’ve taken them out, but the chanting sounded like it was coming from a choir of voices, not just a quartet with a terrible sense of humor.

Then Raf listened to the actual words they were chanting. It was Latin. Of course it was Latin, these cult types always used Latin. Lucky for Raf, he knew Latin. Their father, God rest his soul, had made sure he and his siblings had started learning it straight out of the womb. Why? Raf couldn’t tell you, but it had come in handy when he’d gone to med school… It had become less handy when he’d dropped out. Suddenly finding a use for it here, in what he was now suspecting was a ritual dungeon of some form, was both oddly comforting, and terrifying because if he wasn’t mistaken, and he rarely was, these people were trying to offer his body up as a vessel for what they were calling a ‘Prince of the Underworld’.

Their chant had gone something like: “O princeps inferorum, te invitamus ut nobiscum in mundo supero coniungas. O princeps, te obsecramus. Dona tua nobis concede, et sequemur ut servi fidèles…”

Not good… Very not good. These lunatics were trying to bring a ‘Prince of the Underworld’ onto the mortal plane. While Raf wasn’t particularly spiritual or religious, he knew better than to dismiss what his grandmother called ‘the things unseen’. Raf was pretty sure that old witch had emigrated from Africa on a broomstick, and she’d brought all her power and mysticism along with her.

While their father had made sure they knew Latin, their grandmother had drilled Swahili into them, and while that wouldn’t really help him with his current predicament the same way Latin did, he took comfort in thinking about her. She talked about the spirits and ancestors in the same way some people spoke about celebrities or a football team, with a sense of unknowing knowing.

He tried to channel her, not his father, as he decided now was the time to take the risk, and open his eyes. Besides, if they didn’t know he was awake yet, they would eventually notice him straining at his restraints.

The first thing he saw through slitted eyes was what appeared to be a domed ceiling carved from stone. He was either in a natural cave, or someone particularity unskilled or uncaring had gouged chunks out of whatever poor rock had the misfortune of being hollowed out.

Then he turned his head to look around. The cavern was dim, illuminated unsurprisingly by candle-fire. There were people to his right and left, and with the little he could lift himself; he could also see them at the base of his feet. He was sure that if he bent his head backwards, he’d find they completely encircled him. On the floor was some obscure arcane pattern, he was sure his sister could tell him what all the lines and shapes meant, but past what he’d passively picked up from his grandmother, he hadn’t ever really been interested in the occult.

Well, he was certainly interested now, considering that he was surrounded by chanting cultists.

That’s what they were. Cultists. They alternated between having their arms up, raised to the sky with their palms facing the celling, and having arms fully extended down, backs half bent, and palms facing the stone floor. One of them was out of the circle, wearing the same black and red robes as the others, hood covering their face, and with what appeared to be a wooden dagger in their hand. These cultists were performing some sort of demonic ritual with him as the sacrifice, and Raf didn’t really like that.

Perhaps he could reason with them? While kidnapping, homicidal cultists weren’t known to be the most reasonable, Rafael was running out of other options. The restraints that bound his rms and legs were wooden, and he’d figured that maybe if he applied enough force… then… But nope. And if the ‘snap the chains and escape rout wasn’t working, perhaps it was time for the ‘let’s-talk-about-this’ tactic.

Talk now, panic later, he told himself as his heartbeat thundered in his chest.

At the far end of the room, facing his feet was what appeared to be a stone thronish type of chair. Other than the cultist with the knife, this was the only other part of the room with people not in the circle… So probably important, then. Raf leaned up as far as he could, spread eagle in his jeans and t-shirt on the coldest stone known to humanity, and probably whatever underworld denizens these nutjobs were calling upon. He was prepared to call out politely, perhaps ask for a ceasefire and renegotiation of his continuing existence, when he finally got a good look at the people by the stone chair.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

He didn’t have his glasses on him, so he couldn’t be entirely certain, but the guy kneeling beside the chair like an obedient puppy was-

“Gregory?” Raf called out.

The chanting stuttered to a stop.

“He’s awake,” “Wasn’t he unconscious?” “How is this possible?” The quiet whispers of the cultists traveled well in the otherwise silent cavern, but Raf tuned them out. His entire attention was focused on one person. His coworker, and old cubicle neighbour Greg.

“Um…” Was Gregory’s eloquent response.

“Why is he awake!” Screeched the ugliest voice he’d ever heard. As his attention shifted to the woman sitting on the stone chair, petting his coworker like a particularly obedient puppy, he realized that neither of them was wearing a robe. He also realized that that awful grumble-screech had come from one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen.

She was shouting at Gregory, her once affectionate hand became a vice in his hair as she dragged the man’s head back and to the side so she could look him in the eye.

“I knocked him out, then gave him a dose of the- the- the stuff.” Gregory seemed to struggle to remember what exactly he’d dosed Raf with, which was not reassuring, though considering his current position, not much was reassuring Raf right now anyways.

He was both glad and dismayed by what he was hearing. He’d always shrugged any chemicals off fast. From painkillers to alcohol, not much stayed in his system very long.

Still, now he knew what had happened to him, and also why his head was pounding. Despite their nefarious intentions, the cultists’ chanting had actually been quite soothing. Now that the twitchy maniacs had stopped, the headache came back with a vengeance. Blunt force trauma, and a dose of whatever drug Greg had stuck him with could do that to a person.

“What the hell Greg? What is this?” Raf asked. Gregory’s eyes shifted to Raf, but quickly flicked down to the floor.

“You had good blood,” Gregory tried to explain.

“What does that even mean?” Raf shouted. “You assaulted me because I have good blood?”

“It wasn’t assault!” Gregory insisted. His defiant expression was almost a comical juxtaposition with the way he was being manhandled by the woman behind him.

“What do you call bashing someone on the head and then drugging them?” Gregory didn’t have an answer. “Why would you do this? What even is all this.” Raf had a pretty good idea, but he wanted his theories confirmed.

“We’re gonna be rewarded Raf. The prince is gonna blow in, and we’re gonna get so much. Money, power, women.” Gregory flinched as the hand in his hair tightened. “Immortality.” He hastily corrected. “We’re gonna live forever, and rule the world.”

The stupid, simple, absurd answer made Raf want to scream. Money? Power? Immor-fucking-tality? The coward didn’t even have the guts to sell his own soul, instead he’d try and sell someone else’s. And what if the whole thing didn’t work? Then what? Premeditated murder for what? Rage began to overtake fear.

“Seriously? Money, and women? Maybe you should do better at your job. The boss is your uncle, and you still can’t get promoted. Also, women? Have you tried being a decent human being? What about, I don’t know, treating women like actual people? Turns out basic decency is attractive to the fairer sex.

“Don’t even get me started on immortality,” Raf continued his rant. “Who in their right minds wants to be immortal. Have you seen the world right now? Have we been existing in two different realities? What would possess you to want to exist forever.” Raf shook his head, the base of his skull scraping against the cold stone of what he was certain was some sort of ritual alter.

The other cultists were shuffling now. They were uneasy, and clearly agitated, and Raf thought that maybe he’d gotten through to one of them.

“Raf, it’s not personal or anything–”

“Not personal? Not personal! I’m bound to a literal God Damned alter, about to be stabbed to death by some pajama wearing lunatic, and dragged in by the guy I’ve been bailing out of the fire for years. Years, Gregory. I gave you my last hot pocket on Tuesday! Of course it’s personal.”

“Seriously?” One of the cultists turned and gave Greg what must have been a judgmental look based on how the man reacted.

“Oh, screw you, Jeremy. I didn’t know it was his last one.”

“Silence!” The lady in the chair was done. She could see her grip on the cultists slipping, and she refused to be stymied at the final hurdle.

“Shut up, all of you. You, Greg, you messed up! He’s supposed to be out the whole time. How is a Prince of the Underworld supposed to inhabit his body if he’s fighting back! This could make the ritual more difficult. Is that the kind of welcome you want to give our new overlord? Is that the first impression we want to present? He’ll know the subject is not willing, and that is unacceptable,” she crowed.

“No, mam,” Gregory responded, his head wobbling as she shook him. Her voice hadn’t become less craggy, or less screechy, but the low tones of her admonishment tipped it from annoying to menacing.

“All of you, get back to chanting. We’ll do what we can with what we have.” She sneered at the bound Rafael as she released her pet’s head from her grip. “Now,” she screeched. Then with halting, at first hesitant words, the cultists began to chant again.

Anger turned back into fear, and adrenaline flooded his body as Raf fought. The bindings were only wooden, but they seemed to somehow be fused into the stone, not just added to some anchor point afterwords.

It was excellent craftsmanship that Raf would have been interested in studying, if he wasn’t aware he was about to be murdered.

“Stop!” He shouted. “Stop,” he thrashed. His hands rubbed raw, blood spilling from the newly opened wounds in his wrists and ankles. His back burned with the cold of the stone, and his voice became hoarse with shouting out his defiance. He strained against his shackles until the chanting ended. He fought against the end even as the cultist with the blade approached. He gritted his teeth and refused to cry out, even when the impossibly sharp wooden knife slipped past his ribs and sunk into his heart.

And when he raised his head one last time, he sneered at the woman in the stone chair. She smiled back at him, the glimmer of a pure white fang just visible in her mouth. He’d never stood a chance.

Let earth be the last thing he saw, he thought, as he laid his head back and stared at the stone celling.

A moment later, his eyes went blank.

Upon an altar, amid a demonic ritual meant to swap his soul with that of an archdemon from the underworld, Rafael Ashwood died.