The bloodroots stopped pulsing. Some had absorbed enough energy they were as thick as a forearm. So many roots covered the room, only slivers of what lay beneath peeked through. Canary yellow latex paint, posters featuring angry women wielding guitars, pictures of the girl with her father, with her lovers, with friends.

The wall that held the painting was so thick with vines and roots it looked like a solid wall of wood. The only splash of color on the wall was a small rectangular picture of the huddling, frightened couple.

Beside the painting, among the woven roots, a darker rectangle appeared like a hole in the darkest pits of Hell.

A shoe stepped through the hole, the end of a foreleg attached to it. It hovered in the air like its owner was simply stepping from the garden path to the stoop rather than from across the vast emptiness of space and time itself.

The dark brown Oxford loafer lowered and came to rest on the floor. Presently, the rest of the gentleman followed. He looked like a man stepped out of time. Well-dressed in a fitted sack suit, matching trousers, and contrasting vest. A long black cane and a bowler hat completed the ensemble. He was young, not much older than Sam, but his eyes had seen the passing of eons.

The young gentleman looked down as if seeing himself for the first time. He brushed the sleeves of his suit with a tender caress and gave his cane a jaunty tap on the floor. He took in the room for the first time, the pencil mustache adorning his lip twitching in disappointment, as if the atmosphere wasn't quite to his liking.

“That won’t do at all.” He spoke in a rich, lightly accented proper Queen’s English. The cane tapped again, and a crisp, white light illuminated the room. Nodding, satisfied, he noticed the motionless forms of the two erstwhile lovers, his thin mustache twitched in irritation.

Though a thick pink rug padded the floor, his hard-heeled shoes clacked as if he strode through an ancient stone dungeon, for no reason other than that was the way a man’s shoes should sound. Approaching the bed, he leaned over until his face was inches away from the girl’s, like he was inspecting a curious and well-made taxidermy. He paused, his nostrils flaring slightly, as though searching for a scent. A noncommittal grunt was the only sound he made, but a faint smile ghosted across his lips, one that hinted at both curiosity and disdain.

The two young humans resembled root-bound trees, the blood-seeking vines piercing their bodies every which way. Despite being riddled with holes, pierced by dozens of vines, the skin around each wound didn’t weep. The vines were too greedy to allow such wastefulness.

The movement was so subtle the dapper gentleman wouldn’t have seen it if he were human: the nape of their necks jerked with minute flutters. The twitching shudder of a weak pulse.

“Hmm.” The spell hadn’t worked. Not as intended, at least.

He looked down at his body again, inspecting his hands like he expected them to pop off and run away at any second. With a pensive expression, he turned toward the room at large, his eyes alighting on a short table at the end of the bed. Hitching his cane under his arm and placing a hand on his bowler, he ran full tilt at the table. The movement was so erratic, so ungainly, he resembled a baby giraffe learning to run more than a dapper man in a sprint. He crashed into the table and sprawled to the floor, his hat pitching from his head in the process. Springing back to his feet with an inhuman fluidity, he laughed gaily, the sound reverberating with a manic edge.

The summoning worked! It didn’t just work, it worked better than he could have hoped. His eyes darted from side to side as he pondered the reason, and his gaze stopped on the shuddering forms of the lovers.

“Ah, love.” He approached the bed again, and he saw that the commotion had brought the two to fragile consciousness. “That explains it.”

He laughed again, spinning his cane like a baton. Two sets of eyes followed him, filled with a mixture of terror and confusion. They couldn’t speak, but he could almost hear the silent, desperate question lurking behind their eyes.

“The spell wasn’t designed to give me form. It should have taken years, but you two…” He booped the pair on their noses.

“Young love,” he said, as if that explained everything. Pursing his lips, he looked at them through squinted eyes. “True love?” he pondered. He circled the bed to the other side, the pair’s silent eyes following him as best they could. He leaned down again, inspecting the pair from a new angle.

A spicy scent like that of ants snaked its way up Sam's and Ash’s nostrils.

“I see you are confounded. How you lot escaped the caves astounds me to no end. Very well. I’m still acclimating to this ambulatory pile of meat,” he said, glancing down at himself with a curled lip. “And if I have to listen to your biological functions for a moment longer, I may just snuff you out sooner rather than later.”

He straightened, pacing like a lecturing professor. “Any sort of coitus would have sufficed for the original… spell.” He spat the last like it was an unpalatable flavor. “It’s a pedestrian charm, really, and its call for true love is… an affectation. Love, like all human emotions—lust, for example—is power. Honestly, it is the reason you lot have been permitted to live thus far. Without my interference, that power would have fueled the original blessing and there would have been bliss and offspring and rainbows...”

The man smiled, then broke into a jaunty, straight-backed little jig, his shoes clacking unnaturally loud against the floor. After another tap of his cane, his voice softened, as if he were sharing a forbidden secret with two trusted confidantes. “It was rather clever supplanting that swamp witch’s blessing for my summoning. The way you humans rut with each other, I thought it would be no time at all before my return. Alas, the painting fell into the hands of that spinster and then those wretched, celibate sodomites.”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

His eyes flicked to Sam as if the boy had said something. “To think, tying my fate to a love charm that spent seventy years in the hands of the willfully celibate. Humans are… unpredictable.” He flourished his hands in the air and chuckled.

The man—if he could be called a man—pulled out an ornate silver watch from his vest pocket, glanced at it, tutted, and snapped it closed. “Deepest apologies, children, but I’ve places to be. I had hoped to be further along by now, especially when you, young miss”—he pointed at Ash—“acquired the painting. Alas, it seems the youth of today are not as concupiscent as they once were.”

He tipped his hat to them and turned to leave, but a sound—a raw, rasping gasp like a man taking his last breath—stopped him. He turned back, his face drawing so close to theirs that they could see his unnaturally smooth, poreless skin. His pupils narrowed to vertical slits, like those of a reptilian predator, gleaming with a cold, calculating curiosity. Those terrifying eyes locked onto Sam. “Come again?” His tone was intense, more curious than threatening.

“W…” Sam’s words came out like he hadn’t had water for weeks, the root growing through his cheeks muffling the sound further. “Whhhhy…”

The man pursed his lips. "Why?" He repeated it slowly, almost thoughtfully, as though tasting the word for the first time. "Why, why, why...” He trailed off, his hand absently moving to his breast pocket where the watch lay, fingers tapping against the fabric in rhythm with his thoughts. “I suppose you want to know why all this happened.” He waved his hand to encompass the room. He waited for Sam to respond, but nothing more came.

The gentleman’s face fell, his expression somewhere between disappointment and pity. "So many mysteries in this plane of existence. So many wonders. And yet, you waste this fleeting opportunity to ask for a reason. How... human of you. Very well.

“Why am I here? That, I will not answer. Why all the death?” A smile grew on his face, inhumanly wide like a bullfrog’s. “Because of you. If you had simply fornicated, no one else need suffer. My summoning would have drained you dry, though your loved ones would have been safe.

“Oh, but how you fought!” He threw his head back and cackled. “You let morality guide you rather than your bestial urges.” He shook his head, disgusted or impressed. “Those deaths were… incentive. To provide a sense of urgency. But still you forsook your savage nature, so I had to inflame the desires of those around you. That was a costly intervention. One I was loathe to employ, but you children were just so... obstinate.”

Their eyes widened, each rocked by his words and thinking the same thing. Scotty. Mr. Pinkett. Mrs. Murray. Veronica.

The man’s hand came up and caressed Sam’s cheek. “Nevertheless, you denied me. Denied yourselves.” His lip curled into a snarl, and he grabbed Sam’s jaw with two fingers. A whine slipped out of Sam, and something in his mouth shifted with a wet, muffled pop. A rivulet of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

The man's gaze dropped to the hand holding Sam, like he'd noticed it for the first time. He released him, flexing and splaying his fingers, marveling at something the two humans couldn’t fathom. “But in the end, I suppose I should thank you. Your coupling was… unforeseen.” He shook his head and laughed wryly. “Love! Power a magnitude above what simple fornication would have provided. It not only opened the doorway, it gave me form. Perhaps I’m ahead of schedule after all.”

His dark eyes considered the motionless pair, the silvered pommel of his cane tapping against his lips as he thought. The cane rapped against the floor—once, twice, thrice. On the third tap, whatever invisible force held them in place dissipated. They slumped against the roots still piercing their bodies, the sudden weight igniting a fresh, burning agony that erupted through their limbs. They screamed—a raw, unrestrained sound that reverberated off the walls, echoing the depth of their torment.

“Ah, yes. Apologies.”

Two more taps of his cane, and the roots began to wither, their erstwhile succulence draining away. Within moments, the tendrils shriveled to resemble desiccated umbilical cords, dry and brittle. The gentleman watched them crumble to dust, and for a fleeting second, something almost like sadness passed across his eyes, as if lamenting the loss of something precious.

The two broken and bleeding humans collapsed onto the bed, silent but for the whimpering and sobs. So slow it could be measured in geologic time, Sam and Ash inched toward each other. Seeking each other's embrace even through the crippling haze of pain,.

At the wretched sight, the gentleman's lip curled in disgust. The heady, almost intoxicating scent of agony intermingled with the grotesque stench of tears, sweat, and the musk of desire. The combination made his stomach churn. Hunger and revulsion battled within him, a war of primal urges that made his skin prickle with unease. He had to turn away from the sight before he vomited. The thought of him succumbing to such a base, human reaction sent his stomach roiling even more and hot anger shot through him. With clenched teeth, he clamped down on his nausea. His voice wavered, laced with an undertone of suppressed sick.

“Though you did it in ignorance, you did me a service. I suppose I owe you a debt.” He swallowed the bile rising in his throat, turning with a forced steadiness, fortifying himself for the wretched sight before him.

Their bodies were so covered in blood and bruises, it was hard to discern them from each other. Tears streamed down their cheeks, intermingling with the dried blood. Sam stroked Ash's hair, his lips moved, but even with the gentleman's preternatural hearing he couldn't make out the words. Discounting the blood, tears, and open wounds, the tableau was a close reproduction of the painting on the wall. The painting that had acted as both the door to the gentleman’s prison and the window through which he observed this plane of existence.

A sensation like fire ants burrowing into their skin blazed across Ash and Sam's bodies. They cried out anew and held each other tighter. The sensation didn’t recede as it would if they were slipping into unconsciousness or death. Hesitantly, they opened their eyes and watched as the wounds marring their flesh began to close. A dull, wet click came from Sam’s mouth, and he felt his broken teeth slip back into place. Within moments, their wounds were gone, replaced by angry, red welts.

The gentleman took a deep breath, and though his body didn't so much as move, he seemed to shrink. Like he suddenly took up less space in the world. He opened his eyes, an indiscernible expression on his face. “That is as much as you will get from me.”

Sam spat out a mouthful of blood and pulled Ash into his arms to shield her from the stranger's penetrating gaze. They huddled into each other, weeping.

The man's heels clacked toward the bedroom door. Before he stepped through the portal, he paused and turned, a sly smile curling his lips. "I trust you will keep this just between us?" He twirled a finger, indicating everything that had just transpired. Though phrased as a question, there was no mistaking the chilling weight of the threat lurking behind it.

“I’d hate to take more from you than I already have. Live your remaining lives well, Ashley and Samael.” He bent into a shallow bow and tipped his hat. “I thank you again for your sacrifice.

“Hail, Ygg-hatep.” And with that, he was gone.