Читать книгу Private Investigations - Jean Barrett - Страница 12

The Altar

It was no more than a narrow shelf behind a hidden door in a darkened room, but it held all that he required to serve his demonic deity. A pair of black candles burned, their flickering light revealing on the shelf a tiny black coffin, the skull of a goat and several finger bones. There was also a flat dish containing oil. In it he placed the strands of auburn hair he had snipped from the head of his victim. He was ready.

Seizing one of the candles, he passed it back and forth over the dish before applying its flame to the oil. The hair slowly curled and burned in the ignited oil, filling his nostrils with a sickly sweet odor. As he watched the strands being consumed, he chanted a soft, rhythmic incantation.

When the hair was no more than a powdery ash on the surface of the hot oil, he began to pray. “You instruct us, Master, that those who transgress must pay for their transgressions. Hear me, Master, and know that she will trouble us no more…”

Above the shelf hung a small mirror. In the weaving light of the candles his face was reflected in the shadowy, distorted glass. A face that was lurid, glowing with triumph, for he knew now what it felt like to have taken the life of a human being. And, if necessary, he could kill again.