The Forbidden Rite

CONTENT WARNING

This chapter contains adult themes, sensual and erotic intimacy, occult ritual elements, and references to violence and vengeance. Reader discretion advised.

ACT I

Ximena’s Private Confession

—from the margins of her Book of Quiet Names

I never meant to give him my name.

Cassilda Song was supposed to be enough—a veil, a frequency, a lure made of pixels and rumor. A cyber-witch does not survive by truth; she survives by interfaces. Handles. Masks. Names that can be burned and replaced.

But Gabriel Cross did not want power the way the others did.

They always come hungry. They ask for domination, for erasure, for the right to make the world kneel so their fear can finally sleep. Gabriel came bruised in places no ritual circle ever touches. He came asking for safety. Not invincibility. Not conquest. Safety—for his block, for the women whose eyes had learned to measure exits, for the children who slept too lightly.

That is how I knew he was dangerous.

When he said the spell name back to me—Ximena—I should have corrected him. I should have laughed and let the illusion stand. Instead, something old and Adamic stirred, something that remembers when names were not labels but doorways.

So I let him believe it was a spell.

And then I told him the truth.

I have never given my true name to a man. Not in London, not in the cathedral ruins, not to the British occultist who saved me from the Yellow King and taught me how to survive the echo. Names bind. Names seed lineage. Names make children where there should only be outcomes.

Gabriel did not reach for me when I told him. He went still. Hand to his own chest, as if checking whether the truth had struck a vital organ. That restraint—that reverence—was the moment the Egregore chose him.

When I kissed him, it was not hunger. It was recognition.

Slow. Deliberate. A claiming without ownership.

His breath caught when my palm slid beneath his shirt, not in demand, but in confirmation—you are here, you are real, you are not alone in this. I felt the tremor then, the one that told me he did not crave death or oblivion. He wanted the night to stop taking from the innocent.

I have bound many men to spells.

I have only ever nurtured one.

When he climaxed, the surge was not pleasure alone—it was architecture. The Egregore Skin did not descend like armor; it remembered him. Wove itself from his need to protect, from my refusal to consume him with rage. He passed out thinking he had been scammed by intimacy, by a pretty lie wrapped in code and candlelight.

I let him wake alone.

That part is important.

The Skin must be chosen again in solitude, in fear, in the moment when the city bares its teeth and there is no witch in the room to save you. When he felt the neighborhood flare—wrong, predatory, hunting—I spoke only enough to guide, not enough to command.

Listen.

Now breathe.

This is the gift.

He will think the revenge is his.

It is not.

The revenge belongs to the Egregore—our child, born of restraint instead of corruption. It hunts those who feed on the powerless and leaves them hollowed, alive but unmade, unable to remember how cruelty once felt natural.

Gabriel believes I gave him a spell named Ximena.

The truth is darker and far more intimate.

I gave him me—not as a weapon, not as a master, but as a witness.

And in return, he became something the city had been praying for without knowing the words.

If the King in Yellow is watching, let him understand this:

I did not create a monster.

I refused to break a good man.

ACT II

The Name He Thought Was a Spell

The message came just after dawn, December 26th—the city still quiet, bruised from Christmas night.

CassildaSong:

You asked for protection.

But what you are asking for is retribution.

Are you prepared to be known by what answers?

Gabriel Cross stared at the screen, jaw tight. The name Cassilda Song glowed faintly against the dark mode of his phone like a sigil pretending to be a username.

He typed with the blunt urgency of grief.

Cross:

They killed him. My Friend.

I don’t want mercy.

I want my block sealed.

I want them to feel fear.

The reply came slower this time, as if measured against something older than servers or wires.

CassildaSong:

Then you are not asking for a charm.

You are asking for a bond.

The room felt warmer. Or maybe tighter. Gabriel leaned back against the couch, rubbing his face, exhaustion crawling under his skin.

Cross:

What’s the spell called?

There was a pause long enough for doubt to creep in.

CassildaSong:

You already typed it.

The air shifted.

Not metaphorically—physically. The lights hummed. His chest tightened, breath shallow, as if someone had stepped too close without making a sound.

Her voice came next.

Not through the phone.

“Ximena.”

Gabriel stood.

The room was the same—his apartment, unwashed mug, jacket on the chair—but she was there in the way shadows gather where light refuses to stay. Not fully formed. Not fully absent.

“I thought that was the spell,” he said hoarsely.

She stepped closer.

“No,” Ximena said gently. “That is my name.”

Her presence was feminine without being fragile—dark hair like spilled ink, eyes catching green where they should not. She smelled of rain on stone, incense, something intimate and human beneath the occult gravity. " Come to the St. Michael's Cathedral...midnight." The enchantress vanished just as seductively as she had appeared. Gabriel Cross sat in amazement. He couldn't believe it. How far grief and anger had taken him. Just a month ago he would have spoken against the arcane, not to mention agree to meet a stranger at an abandoned Cathedral. Especially not the infamous St. Michael's Cathedral. Known for its occult history, but at this point, Cross no longer cared about what he used to think. He was taken by emotions beyond his measure.

ACT III

The cathedral’s shattered stained glass bled fractured rainbows across the stone floor, each shard of light trembling as if the air itself were alive. Gabriel Cross stepped inside, every muscle taut, pulse quickened—not from fear, but from an anticipatory electricity that coiled in his veins.

At the center, Ximena waited. Cassilda Song, the Cyber Witch. Her presence was magnetic, a living shadow wrapped in midnight silk and whispers of fire. Darkness seemed to bend toward her, curling around her like obedient serpents. Her eyes caught his, molten and inscrutable, and he felt the cathedral itself leaning closer, eager to witness what was about to unfold. “You don’t grant names lightly,” Gabriel said. His pulse thudded in his throat. In total disbelief how far he had taken his obsession for revenge.

“I have never granted it,” she replied.

She reached out—slow, deliberate—and placed her palm flat against his chest. Heat bloomed instantly, spreading under his skin, his breath catching at the contact.

“You are Adamic,” she continued, voice low seductive yet stabilizing. She slid her hand under Gabriel’s shirt caressing his flesh. Moving from his abdominal, to his chest. “And you do not crave death. You crave safety. Order. A place where no one is taken again.”

Her fingers pressed, feeling his heartbeat. Feeling him.

Gabriel swallowed. “I don’t want to lose myself.”

Ximena’s mouth curved—not a smile. A promise.

“Then you won’t.”

She leaned in. Their foreheads touched first. Breath mingled. Her other hand slid beneath his shirt, fingertips tracing skin warmed by grief and anger and want. Gabriel shuddered—not from lust alone, but recognition.

When she kissed him, it was not hurried.

It was claiming.

Her lips were firm, unyielding at first, then softening as he responded. Gabriel’s hands came up without thinking—one at her waist, the other at her back—pulling her closer as the room dimmed around them, shadows thickening like velvet.

Power moved between them, coiling, intimate. The kiss deepened, slower, heavier, until Gabriel’s knees weakened and Ximena steadied him effortlessly, her mouth at his ear.

“You never wanted hatred,” she whispered. “You wanted safety. To give and receive it. Give me yourself. That's the price. Consent to be changed.” She said kissing him once more. As shadows coiled around them. Ximena’s embrace of Gabriel grew to almost be nurturing. Healing. A surge of passion and darkness. But not lust. Something ancient. Almost familiar and calming.

The world dissolved.

After

Gabriel woke in his bed.

Alone.

Daylight cut across the ceiling. His phone lay on the nightstand, dark and silent. For a moment, shame crept in—You got scammed. Grief made you stupid.

Then he felt it.

Awareness.

Not sight. Not sound. Presence. A pressure at the edges of the neighborhood—wrongness crawling through brick and alley. A woman nearby. Fear. A door slammed too hard.

His skin tightened.

Something unfolded around him—from him—like an invisible second body sliding into place. The Egregore Skin did not look like armor; it felt like resolve made flesh. His senses sharpened. His breath steadied.

Ximena’s voice brushed his thoughts, intimate as a lover’s breath after confession.

This is the protection.

This is the revenge.

And now—you are not alone.

Gabriel Cross rose from the bed.

Outside, someone screamed.

And Shamballah answered.