It took a long time for Ingrid to find the right ingredients. That was how she thought of it. Ingredients. It was a simple word, clean, sterile. Much cleaner than “victim.” Or “murder.” Or “vengeance.” First she dug up the ritual. A simple invocation, a rite dedicated to the deity sometimes called Soultaker and sometimes called Arfawn. The process of gathering the implements it called for was more laborious. Nightshade and fly agaric, a sanctified knife and a bowl carved from obsidian. Simple things, but not the easiest to get without people asking...inconvenient questions. There was a reason that Soultaker’s worship was outlawed. There was also a reason that the ritual survived. But Ingrid got them, and she made the necessary arrangements, and then the only ingredient left to find was the sacrifice. The wolf did her research. It wouldn’t do to make a mistake at this stage. She’d come too far to turn back now. So she researched. She hunted. She eventually, finally, found her target. A mouse named...no. Don’t think of her name. She was the sacrifice. It would be easier not to think of her as a person. The sacrifice was a mouse, nineteen years old, female, loner. Ingrid was confident she was a virgin, which the ritual text implied was not necessary but certainly helped one’s odds. She was a college student and she always followed the same routine, which was what made Ingrid pick her. A routine made her easy to predict. Vulnerable. Ingrid watched her for two weeks before she was confident in the routine being solid. She watched for another week before making her move. She’d picked Thursday night for the ritual. It was a new moon, which was auspicious, and it was also the night that the sacrifice had a late lab class and didn’t get out until nearly twenty-two hundred hours. She always walked home down the same path, off campus and then down an alley to a nearby apartment building. Ingrid felt sorry for the girl. She had no idea what was coming. But the wolf quashed that feeling ruthlessly. In order for the ritual to work, she needed a sacrifice to get Soultaker’s attention. It wasn’t optional. And now, she’s waiting. Twenty-two fifteen. Lab must be running late, and she’s getting cold feet. Maybe the sacrifice won’t come this way tonight. A part of her hopes not. But another part doesn’t. Bad enough to do this research and preparation once. She isn’t sure she can do it again. Finally, Am - the sacrifice appears, walking down the alley. No one else in sight. Perfect. Ingrid stands in the shadow cast by a bakery, tools in hand, wearing a heavy black hoodie and jeans. She has a cigarette, though she doesn’t smoke, and a phone. Trappings to give her an excuse to be standing out here in the middle of the night. Still threatening, but less so than being obvious about her intent. The sacrifice walks up, nods, walks past. Ingrid pulls the hood of her hoodie up over her head. Drops the cigarette. Drops the phone, which is a burner anyway. Pulls the cloth out of her pocket, as she practiced countless times, getting ready. Two steps forward. The sacrifice heard the noise of the phone hitting the ground, starts to turn. Ingrid grabs her around the neck, pulls her close. She struggles. Ingrid is larger than she is, stronger. Ingrid holds her in place. Moves the cloth over her face. Waits for the desflurane she stole from the same laboratory that the sacrifice worked in tonight to take effect. One breath. The sacrifice lands a solid elbow in Ingrid’s gut that nearly knocks her grip loose, but Ingrid holds on. Two breaths. The coughing starts. Heavy, ugly coughing. Three breaths. Coughing continues, but the sacrifice’s struggling gets weaker. Four breaths. The stink of the chemical is enough to make Ingrid cough a little too. Five. The struggling stops. Ingrid waits until she is absolutely sure that the sacrifice is out cold, then hurries to drag her out of the alley and down an empty street a short ways. There is no one present, but she still makes sure to do it with the sacrifice’s arm over her shoulder, like she’s just helping a drunk friend to walk. Good enough to pass a cursory look, and who would give more than a cursory look? It’s not their problem nor their business. Damn this world. She reaches her car, unlocks the trunk, heaves the sacrifice into it. She’s starting to stir, but not quickly enough. Another hit of the desflurane puts her back under. Ingrid puts in a gag, then hoods her - more effective than a blindfold. Zip ties secure her arms behind her back, tied at the wrists and the elbows. More ties bind her feet. A strap goes around her knees. Another strap connects the binding at her wrists to that at her knees, so she can’t move hardly at all. Should be sufficient. Ingrid closes the trunk. Gets in. Checks no one saw. No one did. Breathing hard, she gets in the car, starts it, drives. The ritual site is outside the city, in the forest. The night is dark, but she drives normally, headlights on, everything is normal. No reason to pull her over. She starts to hear muffled moans from the back, then screams, but they’re very muffled. No one outside the car would hear. She puts on music, and tries to pretend it’s a normal drive. She can’t, but she tries. Outside the city, she turns down an access road in the woods. Drives out to the middle of nowhere, lights off now. It’s slow going. Finally, she reaches the marker she left, and stops the car. The screaming stops. Ingrid gets out, goes to the trunk, opens it. Pulls the sacrifice out, checks the taser in case she manages to run now that she’s out of the trunk. Pulls a knife out of her pocket, flicks it open, cuts the bonds on the sacrifice’s legs. Helps her to stand. “Sorry,” she says. “You’re gonna walk now, or I’m gonna drag you. I’d rather you walk. It’ll hurt less than being dragged.” There’s no response. Not that Ingrid really expected one. She takes the sacrifice by the elbow, and starts walking, guiding the sacrifice over the roots and rocks. There’s no path. It’s very slow going now, in the dark. The sacrifice keeps stumbling, and Ingrid has to bite her tongue not to yell at her. No need for that. No need to make this harder or crueler than it has to be. She leads the sacrifice, and hours pass. A glance at her watch confirms it to be oh-one-hundred hours by the time she reaches the site. A large, flat rock has been laid out, with the bowl and the ritual knife on it. “Here,” Ingrid says. “I’m gonna lie you down now. You’re gonna lie still. You can’t run through the forest blind. Do you understand?” No response. Ingrid shrugs, helps the sacrifice lie down on the rock. She doesn’t move. Ingrid hears crying. It makes her shudder. It makes her remember the reality of this situation. She’d say gods damn her soul, but she was pretty sure she didn’t have to worry about that at this point. Ingrid strips, shuddering some more. She doesn’t want that element of added intimacy, but it’s necessary for the ritual. She then takes her knife, the regular knife, and cuts the sacrifice out of the clothing so that only the hood and the bindings remain. There’s more crying. Ingrid is glad she put the gag in so that she doesn’t have to listen to the sacrifice beg. Finally, they’re both naked, the killer and the victim. Ingrid grabs the mortar and pestle. Crushes the nightshade berries and the amanita into a paste. Takes a small amount and puts it in the obsidian bowl. Turns to the sacrifice, still crying. “Sorry,” she says, as she takes the ritual knife in one hand. “I...sorry. Good night.” It’s not a cruel murder. It’s not torturous and vicious and...it’s not. It’s more like butchering. One cut, a deep stab under the mouse’s ear, into the carotid. Blood flows. Lots of blood. Ingrid takes the bowl, fills it with blood, mixes the blood with the poison. Takes a long drink, as instructed. Once that’s done, she takes the paint brush she bought and starts painting with the blood of the sacrifice. She’s already dead. Ingrid still hears crying, writes it off as the effect of the hallucinogenic toxins she just ingested. Continues painting the symbols of Soultaker on herself, on the sacrifice, on the stone, all in blood. Has to shove the body off the rock to make room. Shakes some more. The world starts to waver, there in the darkness. Hideous things lurk in the shadows. Nightmares and monstrosities. She keeps working. She’s seen her share of monstrosities in the real world already. She hears giggling, crying, screaming, her mother’s voice shouting horrid insults. Nothing to worry about, she tells herself. She keeps working. Finally, perhaps fifteen minutes later, the work is done. The symbols are painted. The ritual is complete. She sits down and waits. And waits. And waits. She’s not sure when it happens. But suddenly she’s not alone. A form is beside her, a figure, fluid and shifting. It moves when she turns to look at it directly, staying in the corner of her eye. It’s not a human. It’s not a morph. It’s just...a thing. Shadows and claws and brilliant green eyes. Soultaker, it seems, has decided to make her presence known. “Welcome, O Goddess of murder, of vengeance, of the slaughter,” Ingrid intones. “Take this sacrifice unto yourself and grant me a death in return. Life for life, as it has always been, as it shall always be, forever and more, fiat.” The ritual words intoned, she falls silent, and the figure smiles, wide and terrible. “Life for life,” she purrs, in a voice low and seductive and hideous. “But come. Relax. This is a good day.” Ingrid nods, not trusting her voice. Soultaker laughs like breaking windows in the city of the gods. “Call me Arfawn,” she says. “Come here.” She spreads her arms wide. Ingrid approaches, unsure, shaking. The figure now looks like a wolf, eight feet tall, made of shadow with no solid parts but her claws and teeth. And those blazing green eyes. Arfawn folds her into an embrace. arms wrapped around her, and while she looks like an insubstantial shadow, the touch is very real, a pressure she can feel on her back and shoulders. “Relax,” Arfawn says. And almost against her will, Ingrid can feel herself obeying. Relaxing. Leaning on the goddess, resting, sighing. The tension she’s carried all these weeks since it happened melts away. “I know it’s hard,” Arfawn says. “The first time always is. Dealing with what happened.” “He deserves it,” Ingrid says. It’s almost a whisper. But she knows that Arfawn will hear. “I know,” the goddess says soothingly. “But you need to let go. You need to move forward. Come here.” Arfawn steps forward, and Ingrid backs up, until her knees hit the stone. Caught off guard, she sits down hard, knocking the bowl aside. Arfawn casually shoves the mouse that was murdered in her name off the stone to the ground, and sits beside her. They sit for a moment in silence. Ingrid isn’t sure when Arfawn moves. But suddenly there’s a hand on her. Fur to fur, resting light on her thigh. She is suddenly, acutely aware that the goddess-wolf is as naked as the regular wolf. She swallows hard. “Relax,” Arfawn says again. “You need this.” Ingrid starts to say that she doesn’t, but suddenly Arfawn’s muzzle is against hers, licking. She opens her mouth on reflex and the goddess slides her tongue inside. She tastes stronger than the blood and nightshade, sweet and dark and foul and lovely all at once. Ingrid melts. Arfawn leans forward and Ingrid leans back, until she is on her back with the goddess leaning over her. The shadows gather, flow, shift. Ingrid isn’t aware of the change until it’s happened. She is on her back, her arms extended over her head. The goddess is sitting on her hips, grinding into her, holding Ingrid’s hands down to the stone. The smell of blood is overpowering. Ingrid feels a heat burning inside her. Her mouth hangs open, panting for air. Arfawn’s other hand reaches down, sliding something into Ingrid’s cunt that is cold and hard and wet. After a moment, she realizes it is the handle of the knife she used to kill the sacrifice. Arfawn slides down the blade, and smiles, and rocks. The motion shifts the handle of the blade inside Ingrid, rubbing against her, sliding. It should be cutting Arfawn, but obviously the goddess isn’t going to be wounded by her own sacrificial knife. There’s blood everywhere. The rocking speeds up. Arfawn’s hand is at the join of their bodies, rubbing at Ingrid’s clit, tweaking it with her claws. Ingrid throws her head back, eyes rolling up, gasping and panting for breath. Ingrid comes first, arching, screaming, shuddering and shaking as her body hits climax. But Arfawn doesn’t stop, doesn’t slow, doesn’t care. She just keeps riding Ingrid, grinding and shifting and tweaking that cold, bloody knife handle around inside her. Ingrid shakes and moans and screams again, and again, but the goddess has no mercy. Pleasure turns into pain from the sheer intensity of the stimulation, and then the two merge and blend. Claws have dug into her wrists, teeth are tight on her neck, breaking skin. She has never been so aroused in her life. Finally Arfawn arches, head thrown back. She howls, an eerie sound like a wound in the air itself. A gush of fragrant liquid coats their hips. The goddess goes stiff, and then relaxes. Ingrid whispers the name of her commanding officer, the one who needs to die. Arfawn smiles, and whispers simply, “Fiat.” Ingrid closes her eyes, and goes to sleep, the sleep of the truly exhausted. When she wakes, the body is gone. The blood is gone. The knife is still inside her, though. She pulls it out and sheathes it, and gets up, stretches. She is whistling as she gets in her car. She is already planning the next sacrifice. There are plenty of people in the world who need to die. She knows how to make it happen, now.