removed the necklace that was hanging about his neck. The dark stone that dangled on the end of the chain spun in the air like a pendulum, sending off tiny flashes of crimson whenever it was touched by the room’s light.
This was the crystal to which the journal had been referring.
The Bloodstone.
He stared at it now, wondering as always where his ancestor, Sebastian had obtained it. Years earlier he’d shown it to several prominent jewelers. None of them had been able to identify the type of stone or its country of origin. Ever since, it had held a particular fascination for him and he’d often gaze at it for long periods of time, attempting to unlock its secrets.
What he did understand was that it was the stone itself, not the ritual or its flowery incantations that would allow him to communicate with the beast his ancestor had known as Moloch.
He held it up to the lamp, shining the light on its ruby surface. Deep inside the stone, he thought he could see movement.
His eyes narrowed as he looked closer.
There! Something had shifted position deep within its depths.
But what?
While he yearned for the answers, he knew they were really not all that important. Only what the stone would allow him to do was.
He leaned over the desk and reread the vital line in the journal.
'…reach out with the very essence of your soul and call forth that which you desire.'
At first, the line had confused him. How does one reach out with the essence of his soul? But after a time he came to realize that he was seeking a deeper meaning than necessary, that the words needed to be taken in the literal sense. Medieval writers had seen the mind and the soul as one, so the passage was actually referring to the mind. Thus reaching out with his soul really meant reaching out with his mind.
He believed that somehow the crystal channeled his thought patterns, much the same way as an antenna will channel radio signals.
All that he had to do to reach Moloch was think about him.
It should be that simple.
He’d tried it before however, without success. His failure with the stone and his inability to find the hidden vault had caused him to dismiss the entire legend of his ancestor’s winged familiar as so much fantasy.
But now that the vault had been found, he was convinced that the journal’s contents were true.
Maybe it was my doubt all along that prevented the connection.
The discovery of the body in the basement of Stonemoor had added fuel to the flames of his beliefs, and after getting all the information from Caruso that he could, he decided that there was only one possible explanation.
The journal was true; the beast did exist.
And with the death of that vandal, it seemed to have returned to the world after hiding itself for so long.
Not that he cared about the fool who had been killed, that wasn’t important. What was important was the fact that at last he’d be able to prove the family legends that had intrigued him all of his adult life. The end of his search was finally in sight.
His fingers itched to seize the power in their bony grasp.
He first learned of the beast’s existence when he’d found the journal years before, hidden in a niche in the fireplace in one of the mansion’s unused rooms. Upon reading it, Hudson scoffed at the information it contained, but later found himself irresistibly drawn back to its musty, yellowed pages again and again, his mind alight with the possibilities he saw there. It was in the journal that he also learned of his ancestor’s pact with the Beast, and the awesome powers it employed for him. Dreaming of possessing such knowledge for himself, he set about to learn if what the journal contained was true.
Tonight he would finally know.
It was time to begin.
Holding the crystal in one hand by its slim gold chain, he moved to the center of the room.
On the floor at his feet rested a number of objects. Considering what he was about to do, he decided to take certain precautions.
Blake was not a deeply religious man and never had been. When he was younger he scoffed at the idea of God and his army of heavenly hosts. Likewise, if there was no God, then there was no Satan, and no demonic army with which to corrupt man from the salvation that supposedly awaited him.
As he’d grown older, he discovered the power that a religious leader can hold over his followers, particularly religions of a darker nature. He joined one after another, studying the craft, learning from those above him before ruthlessly replacing them, taking their power for his own. All those years had slowly but surely convinced him that there was some truth to what the leaders preached. He had become convinced that there was another realm of reality separate from our own, which could be tapped into with the right methods. It didn’t matter what you called it; the supernatural realm, the astral plane, the Other Side, whatever. It was there. Waiting to be made use of. Of that he was certain. Once he made this concession, it was only a short step to believe that this other realm was populated by beings of which we have little knowledge. Hudson felt it was through encounters with creatures from the Other Side that led man to invent religion. After all, what is religion but the attempt to explain that which man fears and doesn’t understand?
Although he still scoffed at the old rituals with their trappings of mysticism and their elaborate schemes to protect the summoner from the very powers he sought to invoke, he did not abandon them entirely. After all, what if there was some validity to them? Could he take the chance and leave himself vulnerable to the very creature he sought to summon and harness for his own use?
No.
That would be foolish and Hudson Blake was anything but a foolish man.
He replaced the crystal around his neck so that he would have both hands free. Shedding the long, black robe he was wearing, he carefully folded it and laid it aside. He took up a small clay bowl in both hands and moved to the open floor space immediately in front of the French doors.
He held the bowl upright in front of him at arm’s length as if in silent supplication, remaining that way for several long moments.
Lowering his arms, he dipped his left hand inside and took up a handful of the fine white salt that filled the bowl. He knelt on one knee and slowly began to let the mixture fall from his grasp to form a smooth, unbroken line on the floor. Once his hand was empty he repeated the process, inching backward as he went, bit by little bit, until a circle eight feet in diameter was laid out around him.
Satisfied, he stepped out of the circle, carefully avoiding making contact with the powder so its integrity as an unbroken circle would remain intact, and returned to the small pile of objects a few feet away.
Bending, he picked up a small cage and a leather wrapped parcel of considerable length. A large black cat lay curled inside the cage and hissed warily as he lifted the cage, watching him with liquid green eyes that accused without words.
Blake grinned.
He hated cats. Always had. He went out of his way to use them in his rituals, taking a sadistic delight in ridding the world of as many of the foul little beasts as he could. With the two objects in hand, he reentered the circle, again carefully stepping over the boundary, and moved to the center, setting the cage at his feet.
He unwrapped the second object, tossing the covering it had been wrapped in outside the circle. The sword swept free of its scabbard with a soft reptilian hiss, and the sound of the steel scraping against the leather sent the blood quickening in his veins. This was the part of the ritual he liked best, and so he waited a few minutes, letting the anticipation he was feeling build until it was a raging river surging against the mental damn of his will.
When the time was right, when his excitement had reached the proper fevered pitch, he straightened and raised the weapon aloft.
Naked, with the moonlight rippling across the silver blue steel of the blade and a light breeze stirring the edges of his hair like the touch of unseen phantom fingers, Hudson Blake began to sing.
The song started as a low murmur, the sound of the wind whispering through the river reeds, but it built with power as he went, getting louder, stronger, until it grew into the roar of a thousand voices all crying out at once.
In the midst of this, he withdrew the cat from its cage. It hissed and spat at him, scratching his forearm with
