James Rollins: Blood Infernal

So close now …

Carefully, John drew a circle of salt around the pentagram. As he did so, he chanted prayers. His life was nearly spent, but at last, he would achieve his life’s dream.

To open a portal to the angelic world.

More than six hundred times, he had drawn this same circle, more than six hundred times he had chanted the same prayers. But in his heart, he knew this time would be different. He recalled the verse from Revelation: Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred three score and six .

“Six hundred and sixty-six,” he repeated.

That was the number of creatures he had imprisoned in the bell, the number of smoky essences he had collected upon their flaming deaths into this one diamond. It had taken a decade to find so many, to imprison them, and to gather together the evil essence that animated these damned creatures. Now those same energies would open the portal to the angelic world.

He covered his face with his hands, trembling bodily. He had so many questions for the angels. Not since the times chronicled by the Book of Enoch had angels come to man without the command of God. Not since then had men benefited from their wisdom.

But I will bring their light to earth and share it with all of mankind .

He moved to the fireplace and lit a long taper. He carried it around the circle, igniting five candles placed at the corners of the pentagram. The yellow flames looked weak and insubstantial in the sunlight, guttering in the draft from the window.

At last, he closed the curtains, and darkness cloaked the room.

He hurried back and knelt at the edge of the circle.

From the gemstone, inky smoke flowed from the tiny opening, moving tentatively, perhaps sensing the larger world still glowed with the new day. Then it seemed to grow bolder, rushing toward John, as if to claim him, to make him pay for its long imprisonment. But the circle of salt held it at bay.

Ignoring the threat, John’s voice hissed against the crackling fire as he recited words in the Enochian language, a language long thought lost to mankind. “I command thee, Master of Darkness, to show me the light that is the opposite of your shadows.”

Within the circle, the black cloud quivered once, twice, expanding and contracting like a living heart. With each beat, it grew larger than before.

John clasped his hands in front of him. “Protect me, oh Lord, as I look upon the glory thou hast wrought.”

The darkness coalesced into an oval large enough for a man to step through.

Whispered words brushed John’s ear.

“COME TO ME…”

The voice rose from out of the portal.

“SERVE ME…”

John picked up an unlit candle from beside his knee and lit it from one on the corner of the pentagram. He held the flame aloft, calling again upon the protection of God.

A new noise reached him as if something shifted on the far side of the portal, accompanied by a heavy chinking sound, the clang of metal on metal.

Words returned, worming into his mind. “OF ALL MORTALS, I HAVE FOUND THOU ALONE WORTHY.”

John rose and took a step toward the circle, but his foot brushed Vaclav’s outstretched hand. He stopped, suddenly sensing how unworthy he was to look upon such glory.

I have killed an innocent .

His silent confession was heard.

“GREATNESS HAS ITS PRICE,” he was assured. “FEW ARE PREPARED TO PAY IT. THOU ART UNLIKE THE OTHERS, JOHN DEE.”

He trembled at these new words, especially the last two.

My name is known, spoken by an angel .

He teetered between pride and fear, the room spinning drunkenly. The candle fell from his fingers. Still lit, it rolled into the circle, then through the portal to cast its light on what lay hidden on the other side.

He gaped at a figure of incredible majesty seated atop a shining ebony throne. Candlelight glinted off eyes of black oil in a face of stern beauty, each plane seemingly sculpted from onyx. Atop that beautiful countenance rested a broken crown of silver, its surface tarnished black, jagged edges looking like horns. From beyond wide shoulders rose mighty wings, whose feathers were as dark and glossy as a raven’s. They curved high, sheltering the naked form within their embrace.

The figure shifted forward, disturbing the tarnished silver chains that encased his flawless form, securing him to his throne.

John knew upon whom he stared.

“Thou art no angel,” he whispered.

“I AM… AND HAVE ALWAYS BEEN.” Though that smooth voice filled his head, the figure’s lips did not move. “THY WORDS HAVE SUMMONED ME. WHAT ELSE COULD I BE?”

Doubt fluttered in John’s chest, accompanied by a growing pain. He had been wrong. Darkness had not summoned light — it had called to darkness instead.

As he stared in horror, a link of the chain shattered from the figure’s form. Fresh silver shone brightly from the fractured edge. The creature was breaking free.

The sight cut through John’s trance. He fell away from the circle and stumbled toward the window. He must not let this creature of darkness enter this world.

“HALT…”

That single syllable of command stabbed a fiery lance of pain through his head. He could not think, he could barely move, but he forced himself onward. With hands like claws, he grabbed the thick curtain and pulled with all his feeble strength.

The velvet tore.

Sunlight flooded the room, shining onto the bell, the desk, the circle, and, finally, the portal of darkness. A piercing scream rose behind him, filling his skull to bursting.

It was too much.

But it was enough.

As John Dee slumped to the ground, his last sight was darkness again fleeing the sunlight, retreating to its place of refuge in the gem. He offered one final prayer to the world as he left it.

May no one ever find that cursed stone…

At noon, soldiers shattered the laboratory door with a battering ram. The men fell to their knees in the hall as the emperor himself swept past them.

“Lift not your faces from the ground,” he ordered.

The soldiers obeyed without question.

Emperor Rudolf II walked past their prostrate forms and into the room, taking in the pentagram, the puddles of wax, and the two dead bodies upon the floor — the alchemist and his young apprentice.

Rudolf knew what their deaths meant.

John Dee had failed him.

Not sparing the corpses a second glance, Rudolf stepped into the mystical circle and retrieved his precious diamond from the center. A black mass quivered hatefully inside its leaf-green heart. Cold fury emanated from the stone and clawed at Rudolf’s mind, but it could do no worse. Whatever else he had done, Dee had contained the evil.

Keeping the bright stone in the sunlight, Rudolf stoppered the opening with the sliver of bone that lay abandoned on the corner of the desk, translucent as a snowflake but still so very powerful. He lit a candle and sealed the bone to the diamond using drips of tallow that burned his fingers.

Once done, he sat in the battered chair. With careful movements, he covered the luminous green stone and the darkness that it held with fresh oilcloth. Afterward, he tied the wrapping and lowered the bundle into a cauldron of warm tallow that Dee kept always near the fireplace. Rudolf submerged the bundle to make certain that wax sealed each bit.

He glanced at the men in the hall. They lay as ordered, their faces pressed into the floor. Satisfied that he was unwatched, he opened the secret compartment in the fireplace mantel and tucked the foul object inside. Using the Enochian language, he whispered a quick prayer of protection before closing the secret door.