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 its claws, but he ignored the attacks. He made certain he had a firm grip beneath its forelegs and then held it out at arms-length, away from his body, still singing all the while.
He drew the sword over his shoulder until he could feel the soft kiss of the blade against the bare flesh of his lower back.
Suddenly, abruptly, he stopped singing.
The silence was thick with tension, the air in the room seeming heavier than when he’d begun, filled now with a vibrant energy.
The cat met his gaze with its own.
Understanding passed between them.
The sword came whistling down, cutting through the air with an eerie shriek.
The cat’s severed head fell at Blake’s feet with a soft, wet sound.
Blood sprayed from the stump of its neck; a hot crimson fountain that splashed Hudson’s face and upper body.
Moving quickly, he held the sword beneath the cat’s upended corpse, turning it like a spit on a barbecue so that the entire blade was covered with blood before the river stopped. When the blood ceased to flow, he tossed the corpse across the room.
With the dripping blade he unhesitatingly traced a pentagram inside the boundaries of the circle he had created earlier. According to custom, as long as he remained inside the symbol he would be safe from harm.
Not being the type to risk everything on one toss of the dice however, Blake stepped clear of the circle and retrieved the last object he’d left on the floor. The Smith and Wesson felt satisfyingly heavy in his hands.
He hoped he wouldn’t have to use it.
Returning to the circle, Blake laid the pistol down between his feet. With his other hand he thrust the sword point-first into the floor in front of him so that it stood upright without any support.
He knelt and meditated for several moments, clearing his mind of all extraneous thought.
When he was ready he reached up, cupped the Bloodstone between both palms, and called out with his mind into the dark night, summoning the beast to his side.
Chapter Fifteen: A Witness in the Dark
On the other side of town, something stirred.
He awakened slowly, ponderously, like a dragon aroused from its enchanted slumber.
He blinked his yellow, cat-like eyes, once, twice, three times.
A voice was calling to him in his mind, a voice he didn’t recognize.
If it had been the old man, he simply would have ignored it, having already decided he would deal with the old fool when the time was right. But this wasn’t the Elder, nor one of his own kind.
So who then?
As far as he knew, the old man and he were the only survivors of the Age of Creation.
Therefore, it had to be a human.
The notion filled him with mild amusement.
Curious, he closed his eyes and relaxed, sloughing off the earthly restraints imposed on his body, sending his awareness soaring out into that dark realm that separates this world from the next; that place out of time, out of space, where the physical laws of reality no longer have any meaning.
In that realm he was free to travel wherever he willed and he used the summons as a beacon, honing in on it, following it to its source.
What he saw there surprised and delighted him.
It also aroused his hunger.
Taking to the sky, he headed in that direction.
*** ***
In her dream, Katelynn was standing in the cemetery.
It was late at night.
The moon was hanging in the sky, a baleful eye in the darkness. Its cold blue light touched the edges of the gravestones around her, sending their long, solemn shadows across the dew-wet grass in perfect rank and file, reminding her of an army standing watchful and still.
A grim, motionless army.
The air was heavy with their silence.
Feeling this silence all about her, Katelynn grew afraid.
Without knowing why, she began to run, slipping in and out between the gravestones as she raced desperately across the wet grass. Her heart was thumping wildly and the need to scream rose dangerously in her throat.
She managed to stifle it in time, knowing that if she let it loose that he would hear her.
That thought startled her and brought her up short in her headlong flight to lean against the nearest tombstone.
"He’ll hear me?" she asked herself, with a moment’s rational thought. "Who will hear me?"
She didn’t know. But she did know he was there.
Behind her. In the darkness.
Coming for her.
She had to get away!
A whimper of fear escaped her lips as she pushed away from the headstone and began running again.
The silence behind her changed; became the silence of fear, thick and lazy.
The air grew colder.
She had the unmistakable feeling he was closer now, relentlessly closing the distance between them, and she glanced around frantically, knowing he was out there but unable to find him.
And then she fell.
*** ***
The night grew still.
Even the trees seemed to be holding their breath, standing immobile, frozen in place.
The light breeze that had been blowing moments before suddenly died.
The crickets stopped their singing.
From where he knelt in the middle of the floor, Hudson Blake opened his eyes and looked around the room.
He was alone.
But he didn’t expect to remain that way for long.
The beast was coming…
The feeling that someone was nearby, watching, struck him suddenly, and he instinctively cringed, reacting to the presence on a primal level, animalistically aware of the nearness of danger.
Coming…coming…coming…
His mind screamed at him to run but he remained where he was, believing he was safe as long as he stayed within the confines of the protective circle he’d created. He grasped the stone tighter between his hands, his knuckles leeched white from the effort, and repeated the name again and again in his mind, calling out to him.
Moloch�
Moloch�
Moloch�
Abruptly, he realized he was no longer alone.
The warmth of life slowly seeped from his frame as he saw the shadow that fell on the wooden floor, the shadow of the large hulking beast that crouched on his balcony rail, its wings swept wide in the moonlight.
Blake could only mutely stare as icy terror swept over him with the swiftness of a cyclone, but it was too late for thoughts of escape.
Moloch had arrived.
*** ***
The dream shifted, wavered, and then coalesced.
No longer in the cemetery, she found herself standing on a railing. Behind her a thirty foot drop over the balcony stretched away to the ground below. A pair of open French doors faced her, and through them she could see an older man kneeling naked in the middle of the floor. His chest and face were stained with a dark, crimson crust.
Dried blood, she realized, as its tangy aroma reached her nostrils. Her mouth twisted into a wide, cruel grin.
Her tongue flicked forward, caressing her upper incisors, feeling their length and sharpness.
What the hell? a distant part of her mind wondered.
A voice not her own spoke, and a chill ran up and down her spine at the icy menace in its words.
"Give me the stone," it said.
A hand, her own but not her own, reached forward and uncurled its fist.
She saw with growing horror that it wasn’t human.
There were only four fingers, each one tipped with a razor sharp claw, and when they curled into the palm and back out again, gesturing, she heard them clicking together like the rasp of steel on steel.
Her breath caught in her throat as she tried to scream…
She awoke, gasping for air, the sound of her scream still ringing in her ears. Something clutched at her out of the darkness, twined itself in and out of her legs, and she screamed again, thrashing her limbs frantically, fighting off whatever it was with strength born of desperate fright.
With a start she realized she was merely tangled in her bed sheets, the material clinging to her sweat-drenched skin.
"Oh, my God!" she said, her chest heaving as she fought to control the wild beating of her heart.
"It was a nightmare, just a nightmare," she mumbled as she slumped back against the headboard, drained and exhausted.
Unlike most dreams, this one stayed with her; most of the details etched firmly in her mind. It had been shockingly real and frightening. She couldn’t imagine what had caused it; she hadn’t had such a vivid dream in years, certainly not one so violent.
Or so strange.
She sat up and glanced at the clock.
Three-thirty.
Hours before daylight yet.
She lay back down, willing her body to relax. In time her shaking finally stopped and her breathing lost its ragged edge, returning to its normal rhythm.
Though she hadn’t expected to return to sleep that night, her exhaustion worked to her advantage. Eventually the gentle sounds of her own breathing lulled her to sleep as easily as a child listening to a mother’s lullaby.
At her breast the red gemstone shone brightly with a crimson light all its own.
Across town, Moloch, the beast the stone had connected her with, continued with his bloody assault.
Chapter Sixteen: Premonitions
Katelynn awoke the next morning with a nagging suspicion that something was wrong. The dream remained with her still and all through breakfast images flashed before her, reminding her of the horror she’d seen. The face of the man on the balcony kept playing itself over and over again, haunting her, until she knew she would have to do something about it.