<strong>Time is meaningless to a thought, to an idea, to a vice. There is no future, no past, only a constant and simple desire to fulfill a purpose. Such is the life of the divine, and the damned.</strong><br/><br/>At first there was ...  nothing?  No great flash of light, no impending doom cast about the room with billowing clouds of black smoke and the roll of deep drums. No Adonis laid bare and beckoning her with honeyed words and promised pleasure.  There was simply no noticeable change, nothing but a quiet room with salt on the floor and a hopeful woman. The candles Tegan  had lit flickered once as she finished her incantation, their corona of flame seemed to shrink, still lit, but just barely dimmer now. Time began to pass, the star and circle remained empty.<br/><br/>There was a faint hint in the air, rose petals and sand at first. The air grew warmer in the October night, slowly building and hard to notice, until the first bead of sweat rolled from the back of the neck. More scents joined the first; leather could be made out, and a coppery smell as well. Then a new scent joined the others, and it grew stronger with each passing moment.  It was the smell of flesh, bodies, the smell of relenting when in the arms of another, the throes of release to passion. They eddied about Tegan, slowly building around her until she could not turn without a new aroma assaulting her.<br/><br/>In a cylinder made by the star the air began to thicken, grow hazy and heavy within the dim candlelight. It became hard to see through the circle to the other side, the miasma of aromas was strongest here, and seeped into the room, permeating the environment around Tegan. Still there was no flash, no great announcement that her spell had worked. It may have all been a dream, a wish, that what she had done had worked.<br/><br/>It began quietly, a sinuous and creeping sound that crawled out and to her body from the circle. It moved over her as if looking for entry, testing the flesh and muscle through her skin with invisible hands, exploring her shape and form in a manner far to intimate for a first meeting. The words wrapped around her neck, covering her with a scarf of sound as they finally grew loud enough for her to hear. It sounded, at first like Latin, a pause, then German, another pause, finally something she would have been able to make out:<br/><em><br/>“What Language do you speak?”</em><br/><br/>Each word rolled about her, echoing in the small room as it asked her such a simple question.<br/>