She was glad that Ric was here. She would not have had a chance to beat back these creatures and complete the ritual. Meri shot a quick glance at the wolf-woman. Or was Ric's presence provoking a larger resistance? It mattered little. With her's and Ric's protections, not to mention Ric herself, nothing would be interrupting what she had come here to do.
She had to focus. The spell required all of her concentration and she was letting idle thoughts distract her. The runes surrounding the alter glowed impatiently at her. Meri's voice echoed off the walls as she started reciting the words. "By my House and honor do I pledge this boy...."
Johnny didn't know how long he'd been sitting or even how long he'd been walking before that. He had decided to sit not from tiredness - his legs didn't hurt in the least, though he knew they should have - but because walking didn't seem to do much good. His surroundings were the same since he'd started moving.
The boy rested his head in his hand and his arm on his knee. He wanted to get back to Meri, he just didn't know how. It didn't help that this place was starting to scare him a bit. Well, not scare exactly - he wasn't afraid of anything! No, sir! - but he didn't like being here. It was just...creepy. It didn't help that he was alone in this unending mist.
Meri drew a small, ornate dagger out from beneath her robes. She made three quick cuts on her wrist, letting the blood fall to the rune at her feet. As she made her way up to where Johnny was laying, the runes were slowly changing color from a bright blue to a dull red. She raised the boy's limp wrist and made similar cuts, letting a little of his blood flow to the ground where it broke into multiple flows to snake around the alter and touch the runes closest to the boy. The runes started glowing brighter until they were nearly blinding.
"...I offer our blood to seal the boy to the ancient pact..."
Something was wrong. Johnny idly scratched his wrist as he looked around at the fog. Nothing had changed that he could tell but he felt that it had grown more menacing. It called to him. It was like an itch at the edge of his thoughts. He felt that, if only he could concentrate hard enough, he'd could barely hear it.
Even if he couldn't hear it clearly, Johnny knew what it wanted. Blood. Johnny could feel the fog's craving for blood. It was pressing on his mind; he could feel the need echo in his chest. The boy's breath quickened. What was going on? He looked all around him. What. Is. Going. On? Meri was nowhere around to comfort him, to calm him down.
Still holding his wrist, Meri placed the ring on Johnny's third finger. "...and I give the souls of the damned as an offering to bind this boy to his path."
Johnny was curled on his side, sobbing from fear. He could feel it pulling at him from the inside. It seemed like he would explode at any moment. Why wasn't Meri here to help him, to protect him? The fact that he was here alone with this thing scared him more than anything he could think that could be done to him.
Then it stopped. The pressure was gone. He could hear it at the edge of his thoughts; he could feel it, albeit distantly, but it wasn't threatening to tear him apart anymore. Johnny opened his eyes and lifted his head, aftershock-sobs hitting him every now and again, to see an older man in fancy clothes kneeling over him, smiling. "You poor boy." Johnny jumped up to hug the man, grateful that he wasn't alone here anymore. The man returned the hug and whispered in the boy's ear. "Please forgive me, this is going to hurt."
Johnny screamed.
Meri's part was done and she sagged a little. Johnny's eyes were open, completely overtaken by a sickly white color with just a hint of red, as was his mouth, ripped open in a scream of agony though he remained silent. Now that Meri wasn't concentrating so much on the ritual, her brain registered the sounds of battle that had been going on. She watched Johnny as he started flowing a few inches where he had lay. Things would be over soon.