The walls were covered in books dealing in one way or another with occult religions:  Brookneckers Guide to Human Sacrifice, Bobbi’s Beastiality Bible and Turner’s 10 Steps to Daemon Raising were a few of the more interesting titles.  There were a few patrons sitting at the small round tables placed sparsely around the shop.  Near the entrance was the sales counter upon which sat the most hideously deformed cash register Kurtis had ever seen.  It looked as if it had been cast in bronze.  Most of its surface was the deep tan color of old bronze, except for the punch keys and the pull handle which caused numbers to jump up in a small dusty window and slide the cash draw open to await the cash offering,  They all shone as if brand new, polished and ready for service.

Behind this counter sat the Espresso machine and the assorted coffees.  Kurt could feel the heat radiating from its antique bulk emanating out into the room like ripples in a pond.  It produced a sound like a slow, deep breathing, punctuated by howling wails of intense agony as it was forced to produce the small cups of dark liquid.

Kurtis did find the character of this little shop bewitching, but it was the owner of the store that drew him back time after time.  A woman of no more than 30 years of age, with lustrous black hair wound tightly into a bun.  Her green eyes shone like emeralds against her pale complexion.  The long, dark dresses she wore only hinted at the curvacious figure hidden beneath.  Everything about her was enticingly mysterious, and the mystery would not let him go.  She hadn’t even told him her name, and Kurtis couldn’t find the right way to ask.  Continually choking on his words.  She answered most of his questions directly, as long as they didn’t pertain to her, with an accent that he couldn’t remember ever hearing before.

Throughout the week he found his thoughts turning to her despite his attempts to concentrate on the rest of his life.  In the middle of business meetings he would find himself guessing at the curves beneath the afghan.  Envisioning himself entwined with that mysterious woman who managed to dodge all his advances.  He lost track of how many times he had asked her out, only to be redirected in the conversation to something entirely unrelated.  However, Kurtis was only driven onward by woman’s puzzling behavior.

He went to that shop nearly every day under the pretence of liking the coffee, but he only came to watch her as she worked.  Serving espresso from the deep breathing behemoth behind her and helping the other strange patrons find dusty tomes in the stacks lining the walls.  He was caught off guard when one day she asked him if he would like to come to a meeting at the store on Saturday night.  Kurtis was elated, and he went home feeling as if he would finally see into the mystery of that nameless woman.

...

When Saturday night came Kurtis could hardly control his excitement.  He had wanted to spend the whole day there, but didn’t want to appear too anxious, so he managed to keep himself away till now.

The mysterious woman answered his knocking dressed only in a dark brown hooded robe.  She let him in without a word, sliding the dead bolt home after he was in.

Kurtis tried to think of something to say but all he could manage was a muffled "Hi."  In a way he was thankful that she only smiled back at him.  He was looking forward to finally getting to know this woman that occupied his thoughts.

The woman turned and lead him past the shelves of books into a small cubicle back room.  Kurtis was surprised at the rooms existence, he thought he would have noticed it in one of his earlier visits.  He was equally surprised and disappointed to find that there were two other people already in the room, dressed in the same garb as his mystery woman and standing in the center of a pentagram that had been brushed onto the floor in bright red, bold strokes.  The smell of fresh blood thickened the air in the room.

"What is…"  his speech was muddled more with fear now, his anticipation had evaporated.

His mystery woman spoke directly to Kurtis with her strange accent.  "My name is Tarethia, you wish to know and join me."

"What?"  was the only reply Kurtis could muster, her bluntness had caught him off guard.

"These are Jovrill." she pointed to the other robed figures.  "They have come as witness.  You desire to join with me.  I have felt it."

"I don’t get it.  You felt what?"  stammered Kurtis.  The situation was accelerating quickly beyond his control.

"We feel it.  He has desired it the required length of time.  The joining is allowed."  The two other hooded figures spoke simultaneously, with the same peculiar accent as Tarethia.

"Now wait just one damn minute here!  Nobody said anything about getting married!  I just wanted to have some fun!"

"You have desired joining, we feel it.  It is all that is required"  spoke the two known as Jovrill.

"Well maybe at one point, but this has gotten just a little too weird for me!"  Kurtis turned to leave but came face to face with a blank solid wall.  The door he had walked through earlier wasn’t there.

He spun back around to face the three, ready to demand out, but the words never made it past his lips.  Tarethia was now standing in the center of the pentagram, its lines were glowing with an unholy light.  She had dropped the robe revealing the the pale curvacious body he had dreamed about for the past few months.  She reached out with thin delicate fingers that had deceived him of their strength.

"Let me go!  You can’t keep me here!"

She drew him closer till their bodies were touching and then something happened that Kurtis would never had believed if it someone had told him.  Tarethia began to melt into him.  He opened his mouth to scream but choked as the being that was Tarethia forced its way into him and down his throat.  It encased him forcing its way into his ears, his nose, even through his tear ducts.

Then he could feel it, he could feel her.  Not the thing that was enveloping him, not the woman he had been watching, but the presence that was this entity.  The cries of his body as it was forced to stop its function grew distant to him, and he began to calm down.  He understood the joining now, Tarethia’s spirit explained it much faster and with much greater detail than all the spoken words in the world could have done.  He saw her life. He saw all the others she had joined with, and he could feel them here as well.  Tarethia, what ever she was, was as old as the earth itself, and those she had joined with were the living record of her life.  Kurtis had just become the latest chapter.