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Copia’s hands shake a little on the collar of your ritual robes, the brilliant white and gold of the outfit sparkling in the candlelight light shining stars. you smile up at him, far more at ease with what’s about to happen than he seems to be— he’s breathing fast, biting his lip as he arranges your robe, looking for all the world as though he’s about to start hyperventilating in a few moments.
reaching out, you run your hand down the back of his hair, careful not to disturb the ritual paint so carefully decorating his face. it isn’t skull paint, of course; your Cardinal has yet to earn the honor of wearing papal skull paint, still merely the temporary frontman until a replacement for Terzo can be sorted out.
but with any luck, this ritual will change all of that for him. it’s what you’d gathered here to do, in the middle of the night while the rest of the Ministry was sleeping. it’s why you’d stolen the robes of a sacrifice and painted his face with runes and sigils of the Dark One, signs that you hoped would provoke the devil into helping the two of you.
your Cardinal wanted to be Papa, and you wanted to help him with that goal more than anything else in the world.
stepping back from Copia, you survey the supplies you’d gathered over the course of the last week. no one had noticed a few sticks of incense going missing from the storage room, nor the disappearance of one of the shrouds they used for virgin sacrifices. there were plenty to go around— you’re sure the one you’re wearing now won’t be missed.
the athame rests on the altar already, its handle pointed towards the divot where you were to lay your head. Copia’s got the book of ritual in his hands, turning the pages frantically as he searches for the one you’re set to carry out here tonight, the one that would grant him the power and authority he so desperately craved.
you’d do anything to help him. including agreeing to be his sacrifice, though you were not so much of a virgin these days.
all around you, the candles you’d lit flicker like fireflies, covering everything in a warm glow. despite what you’re there to do— a ritual dedicated to the devil, one in which blood would be spilled and drunk— you feel a gentle glow inside you as well. Copia was your world; and judging by how nervous he seemed as he flicked through the pages of the book, you meant just as much to him.
“it’s going to be fine,” you insist, sitting on the edge of the altar. the cold stone beneath your bare thighs makes you shiver, the robe that you’d taken to wear only covering down to around your hips.
“I just— I want to make sure this goes perfectly, cara mia, it should— you are, eh, spilling blood for this, after all, it needs to not be a waste—“
“it won’t be,” you assure him, laying one hand on his shoulder. Copia leans slightly into your touch, his own ritual robe fluttering about him. it was a simple thing, black with a hood, nothing like the elaborately decorated robes that Papas wore during ceremonies.
but with any luck, that would change soon.
“alrighty, okie dokie, lets… get this started,” Copia murmurs, and you nod. you shift so that you can swing your legs up onto the altar’s surface, moving to lay your head down into the divot on the stone. from here, you can look up at the ritual room’s ceiling and the painting of the Leviathan staring back down at you, the creature cresting a tumultuous sea with its fangs bared down towards the altar.
reaching up over your head, you draw the ritual robe up until it’s bunched around your neck and then slip it all the way off, tossing it to the side so that it won’t get in the way of what you’re planning.
Copia brings one of the candle holders close to the stone edge, the black and blood-red candles newly lit. but you’d given them enough time for small pools of wax to form beneath their flames.
he grabs the tallest one, a black pillar, and, with the book open in his other hand, begins to chant the conjurations in Latin as he starts to let the wax flow down over your chest. you shiver immediately when the warm wax hits your skin, the burn slight at this distance from the candle.
it feels strange, the wax layering over your top surgery scars. you didn’t have much feeling in them, nor in your nipples that the doctors had to reattach once the surgery was over. its like distant warmth, the idea of it but none of the true bite of the candle’s flame.
careful as he draws the forms and figures of the sigils on your skin in the wax, Copia works methodically to paint your form in runic markings in wax. you lie as still as you can, feeling the warmth of the wax as it fades into your skin.
“you can lower the candle,” you tell him, careful not to breathe too much or move as you talk. “that way you have more control over where the wax is falling.”
“but it’ll be hotter on your skin if I do that,” Copia murmurs and you shake your head, chancing a shrug now that he’s not actively pouring wax over you.
“I don’t mind. I like the warm feeling of it. maybe we should be playing with these in our alone time…”
“cara!”
his voice doesn’t hold true chastisement and you laugh quietly, worried that if you make a noise too loud someone will hear that the ritual room is being used. it wasn’t entirely forbidden, what you were doing— people held personal rituals dedicated to Satan all the time. but some in the higher clergy would definitely take umbrage with a ritual designed to give Copia more power.
they were the ones who would lose it, after all, if that were to come to pass.
he moves on from your chest with the wax once you’re thoroughly coated, heading down over your stomach with the candle. it feels different, the wax on the delicate skin there as opposed to your surgically-altered chest, and you can’t help but shiver against the altar. he stops what he’s doing immediately, pulling the candle away from you.
“are you alright?”
“i’m fine, i’m fine, it just— feels different,” you say, shrugging a little. “feels more intense on my stomach, where I don’t have scars.”
Copia nods, hesitantly reintroducing the candle to your skin. he continues to pour more wax over you, outlining large, sweeping runes in the black coloring. they’re the hottest candles, you know, the concentration of dye in them causing them to burn hotter than the rest of the colors.
for long moments, neither of you say a word as Copia works. you can’t help the occasional whimper that escapes as some of the wax pools in places, puddling in the dips of your hipbones and your bellybutton. those puddles stay liquid for longer, imparting more of their heat to your body.
finally he seems to finish with your stomach and you look down the length of your body, studying the different shapes and signs that have been formed. most of them are unreadable to you, drawn from the book Copia’s holding, but you can see the sign of the devil printed across your stomach, as well a sigil of power painted across your chest.
it’s neat work— you can tell how badly your partner wants this to work, how badly he wants it to be his ticket upwards in the Ministry. Copia returns the candle to it’s holder, chanting from the book in Latin as he makes several passes over your body with the athame.
you feel the wax heat up with every movement of the knife: not enough to burn you, but definitely enough that it feels as though it’s been freshly poured yet again. it’s a sign that the ritual is working, that the Devil himself is taking notice. when Copia’s finished chanting, you stretch, careful not to let the wax flake off.
“I can feel the power starting to flow through the runes,” you say and he smiles as bright as the sun, lighting up the entire room for a moment with how relieve he seems to be.
“good, good! you are doing so well, tesoro, so good for me. I am almost finished with the wax and then we can move on.”
he selects the red candle from the holder next, and mentally you steel yourself, bracing for the feeling of wax in your most intimate of places. he hovers delicately over your cunt for a moment, seemingly doing the same— you can tell he’s worried about hurting you because he raises the candle higher again, though it gives him less control over the exact location where it falls, in order not to burn you.
then the wax falls, splattering over your thigh, and you cannot help but jump a little bit at the sensation. Copia pulls back immediately.
“does that hurt?”
“no, it’s just— it’s sensitive,” you say. he bites his lip before tentatively scattering more of the wax over your flesh. you arch your back into the pain, enjoying the way the heat plays out over your skin.
he begins his slow, methodical movements yet again to draw out a sigil that frames your cunt on either side with lines your thighs and curls that slant inwards. closing your eyes, you take a shaky breath: even though you’re enjoying the heat, it’s been a lot to take in one session.
and you’re not even finished with the ritual after he finishes painting your thighs and cunt. the athame stills rests in its holder, unused— but not for much longer.
finally, he does what you’ve been anticipating, and somewhat dreading. the wax pours directly over where your clit still rests in it’s hood and you jump on the altar. it seems that Copia was expecting this because he pulls the candle away almost immediately so that you don’t disturb the sigil with your movement. putting it down for the moment, he pets over your leg with his now free hand, soothing you back to the stone below.
“still alright?”
“yes,” you murmur, feeling the way that your body throbs in response to the hard shell of wax that now coats your clit. once he’s sure you’re ready for it, he returns to his work, connecting the lines on your thighs over your cunt. there’s wetness seeping from between your lips, making it a somewhat slippery glide.
you can’t stop small noises from escaping your lips as he works, the heat on such a sensitive place nearly overwhelming. eventually he finishes though, setting the candle aside to look you over.
as the last of the drops of wax falls into place, you feel the sigil thrum with power. there’s something palpable hanging in the air around you two as you stand there, a presence that wasn’t there when you began the ritual. it’s hard to say whether it’s really Satan there, watching the way you two proceed, or whether its just your imagination.
Copia moves the candle holder away from the altar to prevent any accidents from happening, flipping the page in the book. now he grasps the handle of the athame and sets the book he’s been working from down in a holder.
“are you ready for the next part, cara mia?” he asks, and you nod, entranced with the way the knife’s blade reflects the dim candlelight, glinting in the shadows.
“i’m ready,” you murmur and Copia nods, the look in his eyes turning serious as he places the blade down against your skin. in a careful movement, he scrapes the edge against the hardened wax on your chest. you hold your breath as you feel it move over your sensitive skin, waiting for the moment the knife bites into your flesh and draws blood.
it doesn’t come— he’s wielding it expertly, using the athame to carve the wax away from you. in their place, when you look down at your body, you can see reddened lines left behind in the shapes of the sigils, places where your skin started to react to the wax. they’re thick and strong, definitely more so than simple heat would have created; there is a demon here, you know now, one that’s lending its power to complete the ritual.
it takes a while for Copia to scrape the rest of the wax off of you, flecks raining down on the stone beneath your that you’ll need to clean up later. for now, you hold still, letting him carve around your clit with careful precision to free it from the wax cocoon.
his gloved hands come up to swipe the pieces away from your cunt, roughly moving over you, and it makes your breath catch in your throat.
“almost,” he murmurs to you. “just need to get through the worst of it, si?”
“I’m ready,” you tell him, voice quiet in the darkness of the ritual chamber. Copia nods over you, taking a cloth and running it over the blade of the athame to get rid of the remaining wax clinging to the metal.
once it’s clean, he turns back to you. you can sense his nervousness, his desire not to harm you, and you give him a reassuring smile. you’re here of your own free will; you want to help him achieve his dreams, and if this is how you can do it, then do it you will.
finally he lowers the knife to your chest, blade-side down, and begins to trace the red lines that decorate your skin due to the demon’s power. using them as guidelines, Copia begins to carve the runes and sigils into your skin that he’d spent so long dripping in wax.
the pain blossoms beneath your skin, thick and fast, and you feel the heat of the wounds surge through your body like an electric shock. Copia is careful with how he works, using only the point of the knife to dig into your skin, gentle to not go to deep.
it makes your breath hitch in your throat. its far harder to remain still and calm through this process, though Copia is going as fast as he can given the circumstances. you have to fight not to flinch away from the knife.
blood runs over your body, pouring from your wounds. pretty soon, Copia’s hands are slick with it and he has to stop to wipe the handle every now and then, trying to keep his grip tight and controlled.
“still doing alright?”
“managing,” you gasp out, rolling your hand to flash him a thumbs up.
the stone beneath you has grooves carved into it, channels into which your blood flows. you feel it moving beneath you, sliding down and into the little funnel at the edge of the altar which leads to the chalice Copia had prepared. the sound of blood dripping into the cup can barely be heard over your gasping breaths— it’s taking everything you have to let him to continue to create the runes in your flesh.
skating the knife over your chest, he moves down to your stomach to trace the lines left behind by the wax. you squeeze your eyes shut; nearly over, you remind yourself. nearly at the end, and then this will be over. Satan demands a sacrifice and you’re making a large one of yourself right now, holding still like a lamb to the slaughter.
you trust Copia with everything that you are, and there’s a large part of you that revels in the pain: but it hurts all the same, and you know that’s the point of it. he doesn’t linger long, finally skating over to the tops of your thighs to finish the carving.
luckily he doesn’t need to connect your clit to everything else— that would be a step too far, even for you. but Copia draws the lines and then steps back to admire his work, hunting for any place where he might have missed. when he doesn’t find any, he nods to himself.
coming around to the head of the altar, he smoothes your hair back from your sweaty forehead.
“talk to me, tesoro. how are you doing?”
“it hurts, but i’m… i’m doing okay.”
“thank you,” Copia says, and it sounds as though he’s speaking from the bottom of his heart. “I could not have done this without you, my heart. you have made possible things I can only dream of.”
“just make sure it works, huh?” you joke a little and he nods, seemingly taking the words to heart despite their joking nature. he grabs the chalice from where the blood has been running into it, toasting it above your frame before he raises it to his lips.
Copia drinks deeply, fully, from the cup. as he pulls it away, you see the shine of red on his lips sparkle in the firelight.
he walks to the head of the altar and tucks his hand under your head to help you raise it from the stone. you go easily enough, allowing him to support you as he brings the cup to your lips.
as you drink, you feel it— power thrumming through you and the bond that’s been created through your spilled blood. you can feel Copia next to you as a shining beacon, where all the power of the ritual is coalescing.
a little woozy, you smile dazedly at him. he gives you a proud look and leans in to press his lips to yours, letting you taste your own blood on his mouth.
this will work. you know it.