Duroc took the dagger out of his pocket. It was old, and he had no idea what its culture of origin could have been. The handle had once been covered in carved designs, but many hands had worn these away to suggestive shapes. The blade was long, thin and honed to perfection. Carefully, Duroc gave the instrument to Seth. The Elder held it up, catching the light along its silvered edge.
With his left hand, Seth unfastened the tags on his kimono and bared his chest. The Inner Circle observed with interest, and just a touch of dread.
Duroc's hand settled on the butt of the revolver slung in the small of his back, under his coat. He had orders not to allow anyone to break the circle.
'Brothers, I beseech your blessings upon the endeavour of this day.'
The chorused 'amen' was ragged, unenthusiastic.
Seth stood up, allowing his robe to fall open. He touched the point of the dagger to a spot an inch above his knotted navel, and eased the tip inside him. His jaw was set, and he contained a groan as he slipped the metal into his flesh.
Elder Curran put a hand over his mouth to contain his disgust.
Inch by inch, Nguyen Seth fed the dagger into his body. No blood flowed from the wound. Seth's shoulders heaved as he probed the inside of his stomach, and he choked back yelps of pain.
Elder Javna tried to stand up, but Duroc placed a hand on his shoulder, gently forcing him back into his seat.
Seth gave out a cry and put out his hands to steady himself against the table. The dagger shook, and slowly slid out of the wound,
He grabbed the handle, and shifted the blade in the hole, enlarging it. A light came from inside him, a violet- white light. He withdrew the dagger and dropped it. His stomach was heaving now, the slit pulsating as something inside tried to be born.
With his fingers, he peeled the lips of the aperture away, and the light shot out. It moved fast, and struck the Cynosure. There was a flash and everyone covered their eyes. Blinking, Duroc looked at the crystal. The darkness at its heart was replaced with the light from inside Seth, and the light was rhythmically pounding like a beating heart.
Seth was chanting now, in a language Duroc had heard before but could not identify. He spoke the words of a ritual that was old when continents were young.
As he chanted, some of the Elders joined in, infiltrating newer prayers into his rite. The words didn't matter, just the feelings. Seth massaged his wound, smoothing it shut, and it seemed to shrink, to pucker into a second navel.
Yellow fluid was leaking from the corner of his mouth as he continued to speak the words of power.
Elder Wiggs had his hands locked together in traditional prayer, and his eyes jammed shut. Nothing he could do could make this go away.
Apart from the ceremony, Duroc was awed by its beauty. He tried to look away from the Cynosure, but was incapable of heeding any distraction. The crystal was expanding now, almost like an egg swelled to the point of bursting by a hatchling.
Hawkins screamed, his cry lost in the rising chant. Many voices were issuing from Seth's mouth now, a choir lodged in his throat. Hawkins grabbed his chest and struggled in his seat. The man had a history of angina, Duroc knew. He was having a seizure. Perhaps a fatal seizure. Nobody made a move to help him. He spasmed. kicking the tablelegs, his hands twitching on the table, fingertips scrabbling at the channels.
Seth held out the dagger, and passed it to the Elder on his right hand, Curran. The handsome man, a former televangelist, examined it as if it were a fine cigar, but had no idea what to do with it. Duroc stepped in and showed him, pulling Curran's sleeve away from his wrist, and tracing a line along the artery from hand's heel to the inside of the elbow.
He had once explained it in a lecture to the Violent Tendency on avoiding torture. 'Find something sharp, and bare your arm. Remember, across—for the hospital. Along—for the morgue.'
Poking his tongue out with concentration, Curran stuck the dagger into his wrist, and pulled it down. He was inexpert, but he severed the artery. Blood gushed, and fell onto the table. His hand fell, and the wrist continued to pump out blood. The red trickle flowed into the channel, and towards the Cynosure.
Wiggs picked up the knife, crossed himself, and struck down with such force that he nearly severed his left hand. He smiled as if relieved, and his blood joined Curran's.
'No,' said the next Elder, half-rising. Duroc thumb-jabbed him in the back of the neck, forced his head down onto the table, and slit his throat. The channels were thick with blood now.
Seth's chanting was a deafening thunder now.
'Joseph is merciful,' said Elder Javna, surgically opening his wrist, 'Joseph is…'
Next was Hawkins. Duroc put the dagger in his leaping hand, but he couldn't get a proper grip on it. Duroc made as if to take the knife himself, but suddenly the Elder found his last strength. He took the blade, and thrust it at his burning heart. Duroc heard metal scrape bone. After a brief and bloody frenzy, Hawkins fell forwards. He must have been the first of the Inner Circle to die.
Most of them didn't have to be prompted. Those who hesitated, shut their eyes and did the deed after a touch from Duroc.
Beach was the last. He opened his throat with resignation, knowing he had no choice. Duroc took the dagger from him, and wiped it off with a handkerchief.
Seth's chant slowed to a whisper.
The twelve Elders of Joseph slowly emptied, their flowing blood picking out intricate patterns in the shallow bowl of the table. The Cynosure was splattered red, and still pulsed.
Then, it imploded, shrinking to a red dot with an audible pop as air rushed into the vacuum where the crystal had been. Electrical discharges crackled, and the dead and dying men writhed, cries wrung from their throats. Beach stood up, a bib of blood standing out on his black vest. He half-turned and collapsed, as if the life were suddenly whipped out of him.
There was a smell of ozone in the air. Duroc saw Elder Curran's plump face shrink onto his skull in an instant, all the moisture sucked somehow out of his corpse.
The red dot shot up into the air like a firefly, and exploded. Nguyen Seth finished his rite, and sat down, exhausted, among his dead followers.
Duroc saw the dot whizzing up into the vaulted arches of the Tabernacle. The central chamber was a hundred and twenty feet high, and the light was careening off the ceiling.
There was a great wind. Hawkins' briefcase came open, and a storm of papers circled like a tornado.
Duroc suddenly felt tired, as if all his strength were being sapped in a single draught. He sank to his knees, his head swimming, and held fast to one of the chairs. A great weight seemed to fall upon him, pushing him downwards.
The floor was covered in sticky blood.
He tried to raise his head, to look up, but couldn't.
Above him, floating under the domes of the Tabernacle was something vast, unearthly and hungry. It had forced itself through into the world with Nguyen Seth, and nourished itself on the lives of the Elders of Joseph.
Duroc was surrounded by hanging tentacles, as if an unimaginably huge jellyfish were hovering above him. The tendrils brushed him, but did no harm. He felt almost lulled by the contact. The sensations they brought were entirely new, beyond pleasure or pain. It would be easy to sit here forever under this shower, exploring the new feelings.
Then the tentacles were gone.
'Roger,' said Seth. 'Permit me to present to you one of the Dark Ones whom we serve.'
Duroc forced himself to look up at the enormous, amorphous entity that hung above them. It was beautiful, it was terrible. He had been expecting an angel, a demon or a monster, but this was none of those. This was a prodigy, an anomaly. He wasn't sure it actually existed. Its surface rippled as if it were a liquid, or a turbulent gas contained in a molecule-thin balloon of living matter. It had eyes, faces, mouths, hands, but they were like nothing Duroc had seen on any earthly creature. Inside it somewhere, organs pumped and pulsed and squirted. It had a smell, a taste, a sound.
For the first time since leaving the seminary, Roger Duroc felt like worshipping something.
