Part of my own short story that I want to expand into a novel.
Celeste opened the chapel door and shuddered as the rusty squeal echoed throughout the mansion. The sisters lay in wait for her as she knew they would, and even though she was not looking forward to the meeting in the ancient chapel, she knew she had to attend. She glanced around the room. Dust lay thick on pews and overturned chairs, and broken religious artifacts were scattered around the room. The crucifix was still split in half and hung lopsided at the far end of the room where her sisters stood at the end of a path of foot prints newly made in the dust. Here was the scene of some past terrifying battle. The stifling horror that imbued the atmosphere of the room made her skin crawl and, for a moment, she wanted to flee from the place.
She stepped gingerly into the room, avoiding the broken chalice that lay at her feet, and cringed as she watched several cockroaches scuttle away into the cervices. A pair of rats squealed as they, too scurried under a pile of tattered hymnals.
“Come in.” A stern voice rattled across the room drawing Celeste’s attention back to the far end where all three sisters were standing statuesquely by the alter. “You are on time exactly. This is a good sign. But we have no time to waste.” Beatrice stared down her long pointed nose at Celeste, making her feel more nervous than she already was. “Hurry up. We are ready for you.”
Winding her way through the maze of debris and overturned pews, Celeste moved across the room to those waiting. Looking at the alter, she shrank inside as she recalled how hundreds of years ago, human sacrifice had stained the stones to appease the hungry and evil soul that lurked in the mansion. Every hundred years, the chosen virgin had walked the same carpet to the alter as she was doing now. Every hundred years, that virgin spilled her life blood so that Michael Thurston could stay young forever. The time had come again for the meal of blood. Of human sacrifice.