An Offering

"God! Help me, anyone! Please, God!" the woman shrieked as she writhed and jolted in her chains.

"Shall we begin?" asked the masked man. His assistant, his face covered in a dark veil, nodded obediently, handing the High Priest his dagger, the sharpest that Russian brutality could offer. She pulled against the chains, screaming as the masked man lifted the dagger over her. Blood and bile spilled out of her onto the marble altar, spattering with a sickening noise on the floor. Her screams soon died, and her movements ceased.

"Hear me, Lord!" the masked man yelled, pressing on the hilt of his dagger and cracking upon the woman's sternum.

"Oh, sweet Lord, hear my prayer!" He reached into the newly opened hole in the woman's chest cavity, wrapping his bloodstained fingers around her still beating heart. The muscle sputtered and gagged as he squeezed, its tendons tore like fabric, and Abaddon raised the woman's very soul in front of her dying eyes.

"I have listened, my Lord! With this, I honor thee!"

A symphony rang in his ears, a demonic screeching that grew louder, louder, LOUDER.

"I am here, my Lord, I am here!"

The notes twisted and bent in his head, a concerto of strings and flutes, rising, descending in pitch, cutting out and then returning, slowing and accelerating. His arms quivered, and the heart fell from his hand. The demons pressed against his skull, his eyes tried to fly out from their sockets. His bones were possessed with an otherworldly force, energy escaped his body, bolts of electricity cracked between his temples.

"Almighty Lucifer! Where have you gone for all this time? Adonai's agents ravage and defile your soil! The Jew-lovers pray before idols, and they rally behind their false prophets! Lend Russia your strength. Lend Russia your vengeance. Oh, Morning Star, give me your instructions!"

The roar of clarinets were the lies of the apostles, each trumpet blast an angel's curse, but through the degenerate noise a lone voice still hummed from below. Abaddon opened his eyes, his gaze turning to the heart on the floor. The spilled blood told of the paths ahead, every drop a warning, every smear an instruction. It all became clear, it was not spirits of the underworld but rather the Shepherd of Sin above who must consecrate the new era. The burden of duty pressed on his spine. For how could any one man found a new Babylon?

And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.

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