Rite of Kaah

Rite of Kaah

"Ughhh--I can't believe I'm doing this." Sheila Curtis groaned as she lowered herself onto the stone shaft. Her friend and colleague Tracy Winton sat beside her, holding a smear of butter. The smell of tequila hung in the air between them.

"Lie back and think of science, honey." Her friend chuckled.

"Easy for you to say!" She retorted. Closing her eyes, she bent her knees, sinking down until she felt her naked ass rest on the cold stone of the altar.

---

Two weeks earlier...

The two women were third-year graduate students at the University of Michigan's program in Meso-American Archeology, specializing in Mayan history. Tracy was looking beyond the politics, and religion that featured so prominently in the historical records to understand how normal Mayan women dealt with their civilization's collapse, and Sheila was interested in how the same events put stress on patterns of family relationships. This wasn't the first time either had spent their summer doing research in Belize, and both could manage conversation in the local Indian tongue. So they had decided to travel farther upland than most expeditions. They planned to avoid large and well-known cites to search for stories of smaller, undiscovered ruins, which they hypothesized might be more likely to tell the story of everyday life than massive temples or palaces would be. Their advisor had been skeptical, asking them to help with his own dig, but he had eventually let them go with the understanding that if they didn't find anything, they would work for him next summer.

By late July, they were getting frustrated. They had hiked for months through the mountains, heard countless hours of legends from local Indians, but nothing significant had turned up. Staying overnight in the village of Guacamollo, they listened to an old lady tell her story of a mysterious temple in the jungle, just as they had heard so many times before. The lady's dialect was barely understandable, but she seemed to be saying it had something to do with a death cult that had been popular in these highlands. In the morning they debated writing it off as another old wives tale; but then again, they didn't have any better leads, so they decided to head out in the direction the old lady pointed.

Two days later, they were thoroughly lost. Their GPS unit would tell them which way was north, but that couldn't help them with the woman's instructions. The thick rain forest canopy blocked out the sun and stars so they couldn't get any clear idea of which direction was which.

"Now what do we do?" Tracy asked.

"Does it matter? We didn't really know which way we were going before." Sheila said tiredly. "At least Rachel isn't here to see us." Rachel Vinson was a classmate of theirs, a bitchy blond who'd wormed her way into their mutual advisor's good graces with her spectacular tits. Everyone had an opinion on whether she'd slept with him yet, but no one knew for sure.

"Ah well, let's just keep walking until we find somebody." And walk they did, along a stream that tumbled into a narrow valley. It must lead to the coast somewhere, they reasoned, and in the meantime, it made for beautiful scenery and clean water as they walked.

It was Tracy who found the entrance first. In the heat of the day, they came to a waterfall that fed a small pool. The water was crystal clear, and refreshingly cool. Cupping her hand to drink, Sheila smiled.

"You up for a quick dip?" She asked.

"Sure, why not?" The two quickly shed their packs, sitting on a large boulder to unlace their boots and peel their socks off. Taking plastic bags out their packs, they carefully put their gear inside, then stripped off their clothes.

Tracy was tall and slender, with long legs and B-cup breasts. Her hair was tied back in a long ponytail that swung from side to side as she moved, leaving her oval face uncovered. Her shorter friend was a shepard to Tracy's collie, with powerful curves rather than willowy lines. Where Tracy's hair was dark, Sheila's was a dirty blond color. After months of hiking together, they had left any modesty in the other's presence long behind and neither bothered to wear a swimsuit.

Sheila dived in, her friend right behind her. The chill of the mountain stream jolted them at first, but as their bodies adjusted it was a welcome change from the jungle heat. Predictably, they ended up standing under the waterfall, letting it pound away at their sore backs, when Tracy slipped, falling backwards. Sheila laughed, then bent her knees, poised to dive into the water with her friend's inevitable retaliatory push. When it didn't come, she turned around, ducking her head through the curtain of water to make sure Tracy was alright.

Falling water made the sunlight dance and sparkle off the wet rocks behind the falls. The water actually dropped off a ledge of rock, underneath which the water had hollowed out an area big enough for several people to stand. But there was no sign of Tracy. Worried, Sheila looked around, wondering if her friend had been hurt, when suddenly her dark head rose from the water with a gasping inhalation of breath.

"Sheila! There's something down here!"

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. You've got to check this out." Tracy said excitedly, reaching out to grab Sheila's ankle.

"Hey! Watch it." Sheila said, struggling to keep her balance on the wet rocks. More carefully, she crouched down and hopped into the water alongside Tracy. There appeared to be a channel of deeper water between the waterfall and the hollowed out ledge. Taking Shelia's hand, Tracy said,

"Take a deep breath, then swim with me. It's dark, so just reach out ahead and feel your way along."

Not knowing what to expect, Sheila complied. Once underwater, she felt Tracy grasp her waist, then push her forward. Before she could react, she felt her hands hit stone, and then she understood. Even without looking at it, she could tell from the feel that it was worked stone. Someone had carved this and put it here. Kicking back, she surfaced alongside her friend.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"You bet!" The two girls wrapped their arms around each other in an exultant hug, squeezing their naked breasts together, until Sheila stepped back, slightly embarrassed. She hurried back to their packs to retrieve a waterproof flashlight, while Tracy dove to investigate what she could.

Their find turned out to be even luckier than they had thought. In centuries past, the waterfall had flowed at a different angle, until part of the rock face collapsed, pulling the water off to the side. The tunnel, which had formerly been accessible through the waterfall, was now buried, but the same collapse had opened up the side-wall of the tunnel, then almost blocked it completely. Only a small opening remained, hidden under water behind the new waterfall. No wonder the place had been long forgotten, they realized. A nerve-wracking but mercifully short swim under the rocks led to the original tunnel, carved out and braced with worked stone walls. Once there, they could surface on the inside, where the air appeared to be still breathable.

At last! Each of them felt the excitement of discovery as they turned their flashlight down the tunnel. The chill of the subterranean air brought goose bumps to their skin, but neither thought of turning back for clothes now. Holding the flashlight, Shelia stepped forward, cautiously playing the beam on all four walls as they went. It revealed a host of insects that scurried away from the light, but after two months living in the jungle, they barely noticed.

Ten paces in, the tunnel abruptly turned left though an archway, then swung in a gentle curve back to the right. Once past the archway, the two noticed that the walls had been carved in intricate murals, bearing the distinctive pictures and glyphs of classical Mayan civilization. Too awed to talk, the pair walked forwards in silence.

Sheila's light paused for a moment on a particularly strange series of pictures. It seemed to show a man and a woman, standing next to a square block, from which rose a spike of some sort. Adjacent was a picture of the two, each sitting on a similar block, with no spike visible. The same spiked block featured prominently in other carvings as well. While they all bore the well-known stylistic features of Mayan carving, neither could recall seeing anything quite like it.

After another thirty paces or so, the tunnel turned sharply rightward, passing though another archway. The thin beam of the flashlight revealed a larger cave beyond. It was hard to tell without measuring, but it seemed like the tunnel had curved them around to the backside of a circular chamber. Stepping over the threshold, the two looked around. A large carving dominated the far wall, of a dancing skeleton, head thrown back and limbs akimbo. Severed eyeballs hung by strands from a collar around its neck, and each hand held a dripping heart.

"Cizin." Tracy whispered. "This is no fertility shrine, that's for sure."

A small block of stone sat on the ground near the middle of the chamber. It was no more than three feet high, carved out of the local limestone. There were two curving indentations on the top, and from between the depressions rose a spike of stone. It was black obsidian from the heart of a volcano, carved into shape and sunk into a block of limestone for god-knows-what ancient rite. Obviously this was what the pictures outside had described. The spike was smaller than the carvings had suggested, no more than five inches long and an inch in diameter. The tip was gently rounded.

As they approached, they could see a web of fine lines carved in the spike. The pattern seemed to radiate downwards from the tip, rippling back upon itself until it vanished into its limestone setting.

"Have you ever seen anything like it?" Shelia asked.

"Never." Tracy replied. Somehow it didn't seem right to speak any louder than a whisper. She reached out gingerly to touch the spike. Impossibly, it felt warm and wet; she could feel lines brush her skin as she slid her finger down its length. Tracy was the first to snap out of her reverie.

"We need to get more light in here and study this!" She whispered excitedly. "Let's go back and get out stuff."

"But how can we get it under the rock?" Sheila asked, still mesmerized by the spike. What were the lines for? She wondered.

"Simple. We'll just put the stuff in plastic bags and transfer it over little by little." So they did. First their hand-cranked lantern, a modern one that would stay lit for an hour on just ninety seconds' cranking and free them from the chore of carrying batteries, Sheila's digital camera, and their notebooks. Knowing that animals would carry off whatever food they left alone for long, they eventually decided to bring all their gear inside, piece by piece. By the time they were done, it was dark outside.

Too excited to be hungry, they gathered their gear in the round chamber, then ventured back to the passageway to examine the carvings. Both knew that whatever answers they could find would lie here, carved into the walls.

But answers proved elusive. By the time their adrenaline gave out late that night, they had learned little. It was tough, only being able to view a small part of the long mural. Heating water over their backpacking stove to make dried soup and munching on the bread they had bought at Guacomollo, they wondered what they would find. Exhausted, they finally unrolled their sleeping backs on thin plastic sheets to sleep for the night. It took two more days before they finally pieced together a coherent story from the mural. Even then they knew they had probably guessed wrong on some of the glyphs that didn't appear in the list they had brought with them from America.

---

The crucial insight was Shelia's. The pictures didn't seem to fit together in any linear pattern, until she noticed that they made up two distinct stories. The two stories were intertwined, as though the carver had alternated between the two, but there didn't appear to be any connection between the two until the very end. That was when the weird stone block surfaced.

The block only appeared in one of the two stories, the more "normal" one. They guessed that one depicted everyday village life in the area. To their mutual excitement, it seemed like just what they had been looking for. Now if they could only date the carvings they could place the scene against the larger context of the Fall. The other one looked like an allegory. In it, winged beings, reminiscent of the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, flew in the skies, and animals of all sorts ran between the buildings. That much seemed clear. But what they couldn't understand was at the end.

Obviously, a man and a woman from the "normal" village sat on the stone. Then they vanished in the presence of two jaguars. The carvings suggested that somehow, the two had passed over to the allegorical village, but what that meant was unclear.

---

Tracy hypothesized that the stone was a kind of executioner's block, where people were killed, then their souls were taken to Xibalba, land of the dead. Sheila didn't agree, pointing out that there didn't seem to be any reference to death in the passage. Death played a large enough role in most Mayan carvings, why leave it out here? Cizin, they knew, was the Lord of the Underworld, but could he be symbolizing a different kind of transitition?

"Wait a minute. They sit on the stone, right?"

"Yesss..." Sheila replied curiously.

"They sit on the stone with the spike. So what happens to the spike?"

"Huh." Shelia frowned. She hadn't given that much thought. "It disappears behind the figure in a two-dimensional carving?"

"It disappears all right, but I bet you're wrong about where it goes." Tracy said.

"Where--you mean--do you really think?" Shelia was taken aback.

"Wait. That explains the depressions on the stone too! That's for your butt!" Tracy said excitedly, then covered up her mouth and blushed. Both girls were silent. Sitting on a stone dildo? What was up with that?

"Wait a minute." Sheila said. "There's a man there. See, they actually carved his penis so we can be sure. So it can't be what you're thinking."

"Hmm...so why is his...thing hard, huh?" Tracy said, thinking it through.

"What?" Shelia hadn't given it much thought before. "So we don't miss that it is a man? I don't know."

"Because that spike is up his butt!"

"Aww, gross!"

"I know, but seriously--"

"'Butt' seriously?" Shelia grinned.

"Shelia..." Tracy groaned. "But--" They both laughed. "Don't you think it makes sense?" She persisted. "I say we try it."

"Sit on that thing? I'm not even sure I want to think about it." Shelia replied with a grimace.

"Hm. Alright, let's call it a day and deal with it tomorrow, huh?"

Tracy didn't give up, though, so the next day they talked it over, and decided they'd spent too long finding this place not to give it a try. Anyway, if nothing happened no one would ever have to know what they did. They drew straws to see who would try it; when Shelia drew the short one Tracy felt a secret disappointment, but she was careful not to let it show.

They recovered some butter and tequila from their packs, and while Tracy rubbed down the spike, Shelia got seriously drunk, chugging the tequila straight from the bottle.

"All rrready?" Sheila slurred

"Lubed up and ready for your sweet little ass, dear." Tracy smirked.

"Aww, do I have to do this?" Sheila protested, but she was already pulling down her pants. Naked from the waist down, she approached the stone, where Tracy sat. "Wait a sec! You remember that story, about how Cizin tricked visitor into sitting on a hot griddle? What if this is a trick, like that?"

"Shelia." Tracy remonstrated. "It's a story. A thousand year old myth. Relax. See?" She put her hand on the cool stone.

"But--it just seems--" Shelia shook her head. Something felt wrong, but she couldn't put her finger on it.

"That's it, now just squat down here." Tracy ignored her protests and put one hand on her partner's hip, guiding her down to the unseen spike. When Sheila was most of the way down, Tracy slid around to the back, where she could see it poised at Shelia's pink asshole.

"Ever done this before?" She asked.

"Are you kidding?" Sheila retorted. "Have you?"

"I haven't had a dick up my butt, if that's what you mean."

"But--"

"Enough stalling. Let's do this!" Tracy interrupted, holding Sheila's hips and pressing her down onto the impaling spike.

"Uhhh. It's huge!" Sheila groaned when it was finally buried inside her.

"That's right. Just stay like that and see what happens."

The two girls waited in silence.

"Feel anything?" Tracy asked, finally.

"That's...uhhh...a stupid question, I feel this giant pole in my butt!"

"Well, yeah, but anything else?"

"Uhhh...no...I don't think so."

"Hmmm... maybe have to, you know, move" Tracy said, face reddening.

"No way, I'm done here." Sheila said, slowly straightening until the spike escaped from her asshole with an barely audible slurp. Letting her body to the floor, Sheila continued, "Well, that was anti-climactic."

"Aww, Sheila." Tracy groaned at the pun.

As far as the two girls could tell, nothing happened; disappointed, they returned to their work translating the symbols. Unbeknownst to them, though, events had been set in motion in a different world.

---

It had been three days since she sat on the stone. Tracy had gone out to warm in the sunlight, but Sheila thought she heard Tracy calling her name. She yelled in response, but only heard the same voice repeating her name. Listening closely, she thought it didn't' sound like Tracy, more like a male voice. Curious, she turned towards the cave entrance, but as she did, her sight dimmed, a gray darkness enveloping her field of vision, constricting it to a pin-prick of lamplight, and then nothing.

For a long moment, Sheila hung suspended in darkness, heart constricted, then the world grew solid again. Stunned, Sheila looked around. She was in a small room, with a low slanted timbers overhead. Smoke swirled upwards in the shaft of bright moonlight that came through an opening in the stone wall, and the sharp outline of light on the wooden floor made a brilliant contrast with the dull red embers that smoldered in braziers around the room. Hanging over it all was an overpowering scent, of burning leaves, and cloves, and--marijuana?

The figure standing in front of her added to the incongruity. It looked a boy trying to look like a man. He looked like one of the indigenous Mayan-descended indians, with dark skin and black hair. His small head perched on top of flowing black robes, whose wide shoulders and waistline suggested extensive padding, and his upper lip bore the kind of thin growth of hair that only fools its owner. On hand held a knife, the other hand was tight against a spreading stain of blood on his robe.

"Hail, demon spirit from the Underworld!" His pronouncement would have been more impressive if his voice hadn't broken halfway through it.

"Huh?" Was all Sheila could manage. In a twist of irony, the sense of reality that alcohol steals had suddenly returned, only to find itself caught in something even weirder. This was apparently not what the boy expected to hear, but after a moment's gawking, he closed his mouth, swallowed audibly, then continued:

"I, Butz Chan the Potent, have summoned you by the Rites of K'aah Maaskab and by the power that gives me, I c-c-command you to serve me loyally until I shall see fit to free you." His words were rushed, like someone nervously repeating a rehearsed speech. Sure enough, a thin book lay open on a stool next to him, partially hidden by his voluminous robes.

"Butts?" Four years of Ivy League education at Bryn Mawr and three years of graduate school in Ann Arbor produced no more than a dumbfounded look. Disconcerted, the boy repeated himself.

"I, Butz Chan the Potent--"

"Butts-what the what?" Shelia interrupted. "What the hell is going on?"

"Silence!" The boy yelled, his voice cracking again, then turned around quickly to shoot a furtive glance at a corner of the room, where a deeper darkness suggested a stairway leading downwards. In a lower voice, he resumed:

"I command you to be silent, demon xchuupal!"

"This is just too weird for me." Sheila said, ignoring the boy to peer around the room. This time, she finally noticed the floor around her feet was covered in intricate geometric designs and unknown symbols. What the hell? If she didn't know better she would have said that she stood inside of a pentagram, or pentacle, or whatever it was called. She was about to step outside when the boy's voice snapped her out of her reverie.

"Tze-i-p'a-pu-..."

She looked at him curiously as he chanted a stream of nonsense syllables--until the pain hit. Her world dissolved into agony as she felt something like a giant hand inside her body, twisting and pulling and ripping her insides out of place. Too stricken to even scream, she could only collapse into a fetal position on the floor. When the pain stopped, she heard the boy's voice through her tears.

"Do not make me use the Worm of K'atu again, demon! Listen and obey!"

What was happening to her? No dream had ever carried that terrible pain. Too weak to do anything except lie still, she listened and tried to understand. What did the boy have to do with all of this?

"I, Butz the Potent, have summoned you by the Rites of K'aah Maaskab and by the power that gives me, I command you to serve me loyally until I shall see fit to free you!" His tone was different this time, less nervous, almost imperious. Still she remained a silent ball on the floor.

"Rise!"

She didn't move.

"Tze-i-p'u--"

"Alright! Alright. I'll get up. Keep your pants on, kid." Her brain was functioning well enough to suspect what might happen if she let him finish that chant. Rising slowly, she patted the chalk dust off her clothes. How many times had he erased and rewritten that stuff on the floor? Odd. She felt fine now, and even a few experimental pokes at her tummy didn't produce any pain.

"Sheela Maree Coortees, with the power of your true name I command you!" Her name sounded strange coming out of his mouth, like someone pronouncing a foreign language. Now that she thought about it, this whole conversation had the flavor of a different tongue, but then what was she herself saying? Speculatively she tried speaking English:

"Hickory, Dickory--"

"Silence! Do not befoul this air with your demon tongue!" The boy demanded. This time she picked it up. It was definitely something different, but somehow she understood it perfectly. This was getting weirder and weirder by the minute. Not that she hadn't seen some strange things in her field research, but this took the cake.

"Do you understand the power I have over you?" The boy asked. Sheila said nothing. Were those pillows on his shoulders or some kind of football pads?

"Tze-i-p'u--"

"What do you want, kid?! First you tell me to shut up, then you ask me a question--do you want me to answer or not?" She asked angrily. "And quit it with that 'Tze-i-" routine, alright?"

The boy unconsciously stepped back in the face of her anger, his brief period of confidence over.

"I am Butz the Potent, and I have summoned you, Sheela Maree Coortees, Spirit of the Underworld, to serve me." He seemed to be trying to convince himself more than her.

"Listen kid, I don't know what you think is going on, but I am a grad student, not some 'demon spirit' or god knows what-else."

"Do not think you can trick me, demon!" The boy warned. "I have read the great books of demon summoning by Yax Kuk Mo and Pacal, and I know your devious ruses."

"Devious ruses?! You idiot! Do I look like an Demon to you?" She looked down at herself. Shapely, but hardly devilish. "Aren't Demons supposed to have horns or flaming bodies or something?" She demanded.

This encounter was definitely not going as young Butz had planned. The books were clear. When first summoned, the creature would try and frighten or intimidate the magician into letting it free. The authors agreed that a good dose of the Worm of K'atu would fix that. Once the demon understood who was in charge, it would try and plead for its freedom. But this particular demon didn't seem to be cooperating on either point. He had never heard of a demon pretending that it wasn't a demon. What would the point of that be?

"And frankly, I serve my advisor already, and that's more than enough for me." She added.

"Advisor?" The book had promised that the Ritual of K'aah Maaskab would summon a heretofore unknown demon into the world to attend the conjuror. The boy's brows knotted. "Who is this 'Advisor' and what rank of Mage be he?" He asked nervously. Poaching another magician's captive spirit invited a highly unpleasant response.

"Rank? Mage? What are you talking about?" She began to understand what the symbols on the floor were supposed to represent, but did the boy actually believe what he was saying or was this some kind of elaborate joke?

"Tell me of this Advisor you serve. Now!" His voice cracked on the last word.

"Rank? He's a Full Professor at the University of Michigan, which is about as good as it gets, kid. Mage? I guess you could call it that--pulling money out of thin air from government grants, damning graduate students to oblivion with a word." She could see the boy's hands start to shake. Weird. Did he think she was serious? Did he have a clue at all?

"Where is this university you speak of--Meechi-what?" He asked, stumbling over the English syllables.

Sheila arched one eyebrow. "You haven't heard of the University of Michigan? It's just the best university in America." Putting her hands on her hips, she continued, "I guess those aren't football pads under your robe if you haven't heard of Michigan."

Totally befuddled, the boy stood and stared at her. His first demon summoning was not going according to plan. Over the last several centuries, it had become very difficult to pluck a wholly new spirit from the Underworld, and even the greatest mages had been reduced to recycling spirits freed by their previous master's death. This had made the magical profession quite a bit more dangerous for its senior practitioners; even worse for an ambitious young man like Butz, it meant that he would have to wait for years or decades before he could amount to anything.

---

Cast into despair at the thought of being condemned to an eternity of second-class status as a student at the Arcane University of Copan, he had been wandering the corridors underneath the university library, half-hoping to meet one of the fanged spirits that featured prominently in student folklore, when he found the book. The underground room had once had shelves lining both sides, but something had pulled them down years before, spilling their contents across the floor to gather dust.

For some reason he had stopped, and leafed through some by the flickering light of his torch. He discarded the first three quickly, seeing little of interest. The fourth one, however, caught eye. Supposedly written by the Archmage Chope, who had personally been brought more than a dozen spirits into the world, it purported to be an explanation of how he had done it. Why was this here? He wondered. Only at the end of the book, after describing the Ritual of K'aah Maaskab, did the author mention the cost it would extract from the conjuror.

Terrible though it was, Butz didn't hesitate for a moment. Conjuring a new spirit would make him a star overnight. He could name his price. A brighter individual, or one not blinded by ambition, would have wondered why such an obviously useful book had been discarded, but not Butz. Taking the book back to his room and hiding it, he began to prepare.

Skipping his classes to sneak down to the market to meet merchants, he traded the cantrips he knew, fixing tack and the like, for the ingredients. One by one he had assembled them, hiding them away where no one would find them. Finding a site had been easy--the university had shrunk over recent centuries, and numerous towers stood unoccupied around the far edges. Sweeping away the spiders, he had claimed the pinnacle of one such for his conjuring circle. Months of preparations should have led to the greatest success of his short life. Could it have all been a lie?

"You are bound in service to this Advisor?"

"Yes, I guess you could say that."

"I-I-I must think on this." He said, trembling. Shelia could see sweat breaking out on his brow. Shelia eyed the boy. Why was he so upset at what she said about her advisor? What was he afraid of? Deciding to take the initiative, she took a step forward, only to smash her forehead against an invisible wall.

"Oww!" She yelled, rubbing her head. Holding out her other hand gingerly, he felt a circular barrier, just at the edge of the lines that surrounded her. What was this? Like some kind of devil in a pentagram? What the hell was going on?! Then again, she decided, maybe she shouldn't use that particular expletive anymore. Her stumble seemed to give the boy renewed confidence.

"You lie, demon!" He said fiercely. "I should have known you would try to trick me. If you served another you would have already warned him to strike at me. No more of your lies!"

"Hey, I'm not lying. Scout's honor and all that." She said.

"Scout's hon--enough! You will listen and obey or I will punish you."

"What is up with you? What is all this punishment stuff? Can't we just--"

"Silence!" He yelled.

Angry, Shelia pressed her lips into a line.

"That's better. Listen and obey."

Shelia said nothing.

"This is my command. You will swear to obey it or I will strike you down again and again until you do."

Shelia liked the sound of this less and less. The boy reached behind him to take a single sheet of paper out of the book. He read from it, pausing after each sentence to look up at her.

"One. You will obey my every command to the best of your ability, whether or not you are inside the Circle of Chope or not." Not likely, Shelia thought.

"Two. You will protect my life to the best of your ability, even to the expense of your own existence." As if!

"Three. You will immediately report to me any attempt by another magician to conjure you." Huh?

"Four. You will always appear to me in a form that it pleasing to my eyes unless I command you otherwise." Well, kid, I hope you like what you see 'cause that's what you get.

"Do you hear and obey?" Still Shelia said nothing.

"Answer me!" He yelled again, sweat running down into his face.

"What do you want, kid?! First you tell me to be quiet, then you want me to talk. Then you tell me to be shut up, then get mad when I don't talk. What is up with you?!"

"Tze-i-p'u--"

Shelia tried to interrupt him, but he didn't stop, mouthing the syllables with a fixed look on his face, staring past her. Once again he felt the hand ripping her guts apart, pulling her muscles off the bones, for far longer this time. When the pain stopped, she found herself curled up on the ground again, her whole body trembling. Never again. Whatever it took, but never that again.

"Answer me." He said, more quietly. The sneer was back.

"I-I heard you." This time it was her voice that trembled.

"And will you obey?"

"Y-yes." What else could she say?

"Swear it!" He insisted.

"Huh?"

"Swear it, demon!"

"Okay, I, uh, swear it."

"Repeat the oath, swear to my commands."

"The whole thing?"

"The whole thing! Now!" He said.

"Alright, alright." Her body seemed to recover quickly, like before, and now the pain was no more than a memory.

"I swear--"

"Don't think I'll fall for your tricks, demon. I know you must use your true name!"

True name? "I, Sheila Marie Curtis, swear to--what was it? Obey your commands, defend you--"

"Enough tricks! Word for word, repeat what I said."

"Word for word." She said, and stopped. Sheila had been a kid long enough to know how to handle that one. When she saw his face twist, though, she hurriedly continued,

"I, Sheila Marie Curtis, swear to obey your every command to the best of my ability, regardless of whether I am inside the Circle of...Chope or not. I swear..." She managed to finish the oath. As if a promise under duress meant anything, she thought.

As soon as she finished, an immense sigh of relief gushed out of the boy and his shoulders sagged. When he looked up, she saw a glint in his eyes that she immediately distrusted.

"Do you have any idea how much this means to me, xchuupal?" He asked.

"What, that you could get a girl to talk to you?" She retorted.

"Oh. A joke." He hesitated. "No, my days of frustration are over. Right now, in fact." He licked his lips and ran his eyes up and down her body. Sheila didn't like the direction this was going.

"Remove your clothing." He commanded, staring at her chest.

"In your dreams, pervert!" She snarled. But as she said so, she felt a strange tingle run along her nerves. At first it was no more than a sleeping limb waking up, but it quickly grew stronger, becoming an electrical shock, mild at first, then increasing. Panicking, she looked up at him.

"You swore an oath to obey me. This is what will happen whenever you try to break your oath." He said, a smug smile on his face.

"You bastard." She whispered, but reached for her t-shirt. The moment she did the pain stopped instantly. Glaring at the boy, she slowly pulled it off, exposing the black sports bra she habitually wore on a dig. Even under the tight fabric it was clear that her tits were worth a look.

"All of it..." The boy's voice quivered with excitement.

"What, you've never seen a pair of tits before, kid?" She asked scornfully, but he never noticed, too entranced at the thought of her naked chest. When she unsnapped the hook and dropped the bra, her nipples sprang free, sitting proudly atop Sheila's large tits. Though not as huge as some girls, they were perfectly shaped, smooth semi-circles without any hint of sag.

"Woah--" The boy's eyes widened. "I--I--Oh. Oh. Oh!" Sheila saw a tremor run through his body, then another, and another. His hands went to his own crotch and his head bent.

"Oh my god, kid, you shot off in your pants just because I took off my bra?" Shelia mocked the boy, who stood huddled in his robes. "At least you're wearing black so it doesn't show too much."

She laughed, but only until he looked up at her with a wild mix of lust and anger. His teenage hormones were in overdrive, telling him to worship her body, but his pride was furious at the humiliation.

"Silence, Demon!" He growled. "I--I--" He stopped. What should he do now? What was he going to do about these clothes? First he would--no. There would be time for that later.

"Go away. I will summon you again when I want. Until then, be ready to serve me. Begone!" And with that final syllable, Shelia's world dwindled to a tiny pinprick of light at the center of her vision, then even that disappeared. She was alone in a gray netherworld, with neither sight nor sound nor touch. Another long moment of darkness, then she felt the comforting touch of stone underfoot and electric light.

"Tracy!" She yelled, running towards the exit to tell her partner what happened.

---

Two weeks later, the two were leaving the American embassy when they ran into Rachel Vinson. Sheila had just legally changed her name to Sheila Mae, never again would she be called by the name Sheela Maree Coortees.

"Hey, you two! I thought you were out in the jungle? Didn't find anything, huh?" Rachel said, oozing false sincerity. Sheila bristled, but Tracy interrupted before she could say anything.

"Actually, we--can you keep a secret?" She asked Rachel, knowing that Rachel would lie.

"Of course, Tracy, what?"

"We found a virgin temple--didn't look like anyone's been there."

"Temple?" Rachel asked, a predatory look on her face.

"Some kind of underworld rite, we think, just a couple days north of Guacamollo, it was--get this--under a waterfall, like something out of Indy Jones, you know?"

"No kidding! Straight north?"

"Something like that, along the river north of there, but you can't tell anyone, okay? Shelia has to make a quick trip back to the States...for personal reasons, but then we're going right back there."

"Right, of course."

"Okay, we'll see you later then." As the two turned away, they saw Rachel scribbling in her note pad, and Tracy winked at Sheila.

"Wonder what your friend Butz will do when he sees her tits, huh?"

Laughing, the two disappeared into the crowded street.

The End

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