The Minotauress

of very old books set around the table.

Every second that transpired felt more like a minute. Dicky kept looking up at the ceiling. 'What's takin' him so long?'

'Relax, Mr. Dicky. He seems like a pretty thorough man.'

'But what if... What if the black chick came back and now—now she's fuckin' Balls?'

'I have every confidence that that's not the case.'

Dicky groped for any distraction. 'What's with all them books?'

'These are some very interesting books indeed, Mr. Dicky,' the Writer said. 'Hundreds of years old, and more proof of Crafter's devotion to his satanic delusion.' There were a number of tomes that Crafter had obviously taken down off his shelves for the ritual he'd engaged in. One wasn't a book at all but a yellowed manuscript which the Writer was leafing through now. 'But this holograph is the most interesting of all. They're hand-written notes by an infamous astrologer and occult translator named Dr. John Dee. Evidently he compiled these missives between May and December of 1581; he was translating ritualistic techniques from various sources, for his own use. This passage here—' The Writer pointed to the yellowed sheet of vellum. 'It was translated from an older book, thought to no longer exist, called the Magnum Maleficarum, originally penned in Old Latin. The passage copied here is entitled ‘The Proper Procedure and Use of Eibon Wood.'

'Never heard of him.'

'It's not a him, Mr. Dicky. It's a type of conditioned wood, and you may be intrigued when I explain what's written here. It tells of how wooden planks can be ritualistically conditioned by burying them in a graveyard of unconsecrated ground that served as the final resting place for condemned witches.'

Dicky's brain could almost be heard clicking. 'The graveyard we seed outside! Lots of 'em were half dug into.'

'Precisely. It's a solid bet that the wooden planks that Crafter used to make the six doors in this room are made of such wood. Each plank was buried over the graves for a total of 666 days; then they were nailed together and used to fashion the door-faces. This manuscript here is quite concise. Dee calls these doors a ‘Talismanic Traversion Bridle.''

'Huh?'

'Think of it this way. Each door is a magic door, Mr. Dicky. They've been ritually charged with an occult power to close off the passage to a netherworldly domain—six such passages, I'd say. And when the proper ritual is enacted... that barrier—that bridle—comes down, and the door opens to a predesignated supernatural realm.' Again the Writer's eyes gestured the corpse hanging by the spike through its neck. 'Lowering this barrier, of course, must involve a human sacrifice. Before Crafter left on his trip, it's clear he engaged in such a task, and that poor girl was the fodder for the rite.'

Dicky whispered, eyes wide. 'He opened that there door to some place full'a demons... '

'A place, yes. A realm, obviously one that's associated with the damned demonness known as Pasiphae. In defying Poseidon and falling in love with her own hellish offspring—the Minotaur—she was eternally condemned.'

'So that's how the shiny black chick got here—through that door,' Dicky figured.

'Well, Crafter believes that, yes. But I don't, and you shouldn't either. It's all part of his delusion—nonsense, ultimately. It is funny, though. We were astounded by how Crafter could leave a house full of treasures virtually unprotected. Perhaps he thought that summoning Pasiphae would serve as his alarm system... '

'All's right,' Dicky insisted. 'But let's just say that it is true, and that this Pasiphae gal come out that door when Crafter kilt the girl... What about these other doors? It say what they are in them papers?'

'Not in these papers, but in this,' and then the Writer held up a very old book with metal hinges and faded gold gilding. 'The Incarnologie Daemorium, translated into English in 1839 by Rev. Montague Thomas Alexander in Wales. The author is quite a sinister chap who went by the name of Comte Michel Lemoine Willirmoz, who had been burned at the stake in St. Claude, France, in 1680 for black magic and molestation. He was reportedly a lithomancer, that is he practiced magic through stones. If you look carefully, the keystone of each door, just above each brass plate, has been set with various stones.'

Dicky peered and indeed noticed the tiny stone chips of myriad colors, affixed to each center block. 'They diamonds'n rubies'n shit?'

'I'm afraid not, Mr. Dicky. They're only semi-precious stones, such as amethyst, onyx, galena, quartz—no monetary value but to a lithomancer, they're the source of his magic.' Next the writer pointed to an odd smock-like garment hanging inside an opened armoire. It looked made of black sack cloth, yet the garment dazzled, for into its fabric had been stitched hundreds more semi-precious stones. 'No doubt Crafter wore that tunic there during the rite... his sorcerer's surplice. All magicians and warlocks wore such cloaks when practicing their art.'

'Dang. A magic jacket?'

'Precisely.' The Writer turned back to the Incarnologie Daemorium. 'Willirmoz was black magic's most notorious sorcerer, and in this priceless grimoire, he specifically identifies each of the six supernatural domains he was able to supposedly access. Door One we already know: the domain of Pasiphae. Door Two accesses a creature from pre-Islamic folklore known as a ghala but what is better known as a ghoul. Door Three? The Lycanthrope, otherwise known as a werewolf. Door Four opens to the realm of the Nosferatu, or vampire. Door Five: the Khmoc, which is an Asian version of a zombie that predates voodoo by thousands of years. And Door Six reveals a creature I'm not familiar with, something called a Spermatogoyle, which, according to this book, hails from a region in Hell called the Flesh District.' The Writer raised his brows over the thing's official name. 'I have no idea what that could be, but I can hazard a guess that it's got something to do with semen.'

Dicky jerked his gaze. 'Ya mean, like, man-batter? Petersnot? Dick loogie?'

The Writer slumped. 'Uh, yes. Dick loogie... '

Dicky scratched his overhanging beer belly, then cast the Writer a more suspicious expression. 'How you know so much 'bout all this devil shit?'