The Midnight Front--A Dark Arts Novel Read online

  The master eyed Cade’s nearly identical garments. “You look ready.” A hint of suspicion. “You said the prayer of vesting?”

  “I did.” Feeling doubted, he added, “Should I strip and do it again?”

  Adair swallowed his annoyance. “It’s late. We should go.”

  Cade tucked his silk-wrapped wand under his lion-skin belt. “Ready.”

  Adair led Cade and Anja down the keep’s spiral stairs. “You cleaned your blades? The room’s prepared?”

  “I followed the grimoires to the letter.”

  Anja added, “I made sure the candles and incense are pure.”

  The master remained anxious. “What about the charcoal?”

  “Newly consecrated,” Cade assured him. “And in a new brazier. We’re all set.”

  They didn’t speak again until they were inside the southwest building. Stefan and Niko, both in their own robes, met the trio at the door to the basement.

  The master faced Cade. “Remember: You’re the operator tonight, and the rest of us are just your tanists. Once the experiment starts, you’re on your own. We can’t speak or step out of our circles. We can’t give you advice or help you tame the spirit.”

  “I know. It’s ‘against the rules.’” Cade opened the door. Odors of lavender and camphor drifted up from the laboratory, which was lit by open flames. “Let’s do this.”

  They proceeded downstairs.

  There had been so many details to learn, so many points of minutiae, that Cade had no idea if he’d mastered them all. He had checked his work, but doubts plagued him. The task had been a welcome diversion from his grief. Few things could distract him from his sorrow like memorizing reams of Enochian, Hebrew, and Latin phrases, or the seemingly endless names of JEHOVAH, or the details of what herb had to be mixed with what oil in the skull of what dead beast at what hour of the day while wearing what color robe.

  Had he never witnessed magick’s deadly effects, he would have found his labors absurd. Instead, he was now confronted by a dilemma he would have dismissed as fantasy before that night on the Athenia. This ritual required him to accept the reality of the supernatural and, by extension, the existence of his soul. But if his soul was a genuine commodity, then bartering it to a demon threatened to bring the damnation he’d been taught to fear as a boy.

  If Faust had been a better magician, he wouldn’t have died, Adair had said. Did that mean there was a way to cheat the Devil? A secret to shortchanging Hell?

  Making the pact would give Cade a path to power that would let him avenge his parents, and a doorway to knowledge otherwise beyond the reach of man. If that wasn’t worth the risk of his eternal soul … what was?

  Cade stopped when he realized that while he, Stefan, and Niko were proceeding to their places, Adair and Anja had halted at the bottom of the stairs. “What’s wrong?”

  Horror had opened the master’s eyes wide. He pointed at the grand circle of protection Cade had inscribed. “That’s not the seal of PAIMON.”

  There was no point denying the truth. “No, it isn’t.”

  Adair prowled around the magickal ward, whose border had been described in strips of skin cut from a sacrificial kid with the hair still upon it, and fastened to the floor at the cardinal points of the compass using four nails from the coffin of a child.

  The master pointed out details of Cade’s preparation as if he were a prosecutor presenting charges. “A male bat drowned in blood … The skull of a parricide.” He continued to pace the circle. “The horns of a goat.” A grim frown. “And my own familiar, Kutcha.”

  His raven squawked at him.

  Anja stepped forward beside Adair. “The triangle and glyphs have been drawn in hematite.” She and Adair turned to look east.

  Another large circle abutted the rear wall. Inside it, atop a crude altar, lay the nude body of one of the keep’s lamiae servants. Her paper-white body had been decorated head to toe with symbols—some astrological, others Enochian—drawn in red and yellow greasepaint, a detail whose garishness accentuated her nudity. Coiled above her navel was a twist of violet fabric, tied in a knot around a broken communion wafer.

  Adair was aghast. “How did you make a sacrifice of my lamia?”

  “It’s bound to obey.”

  “To obey me, not you.”

  Niko shrugged. “Stefan and I might have provided some assistance.”

  Grumpier by the minute, Adair continued his perambulation. Scowled at chi and rho superimposed beneath the base of the triangle. Tapped the six-foot candles of virgin wax ringed by crowns of vervain. Shook his head at three circles joined by a cross within the triangle—the northernmost of which was adorned by horns. He faced Cade. “Are you taking the piss, boy? Why are you trying to raise this beast? Why face the fury of Hell’s prime fucking minister?”

  “Because he can give me the most power.”

  “But at what price? It’s too dangerous!”

  Cade kept his voice steady, his expression neutral. “You want me to go to war with a Nazi karcist who you say has insane power. I can’t fight him unless I can match his strength, and I’m just as damned no matter what spirit I deal with, so I might as well go for the top dog.” He walked to his position inside the protective triangle, then closed its perimeter with a pull of his sword’s tip over its edge.

  The master was incensed. “One scuff of my foot, and this circle’s ruined.”

  “Then what? We spend another month arguing? You said it yourself: That’s time we don’t have. You want me to help you fight Kein? Get in your circles.”

  A toxic silence prevailed for several seconds, until Adair motioned for the others to take their places. Before he moved to his own circle, he sidled up to Cade and spoke in a confidential hush. “No matter what you see or hear, don’t leave your circle, or we all die.” With that final warning, he withdrew to the eastern circle and waited for the experiment to begin.

  There was no need for Cade to instruct the others. They rested their swords across the tops of their feet. Each took up the bottle by the brazier beside his or her station—brandy for Anja, camphor for Adair, holy oil for Stefan, and ram’s blood mixed with Abramelin oil for Niko—and stood ready to ignite the charcoal inside their brass containers.

  Cade reached to the lectern beside his circle, opened the grimoire of blank pages he had prepared under Stefan’s guidance, and picked up his pen of the Art, which he had crafted with equal care under Niko’s tutelage. He was about to forge the contract of a lifetime. A touch confirmed that a hunk of bloodstone—a talisman of protection he had secured, as the Covenant instructed—was still under his robe. Nothing could be left to chance.

  “Light the candles.”

  Adair snapped his fingers, and flames danced to life on the wicks.

  Cade spread his arms, striking a pose that felt sacrilegious given the circumstances. “Pass me the brandy, then the camphor.”

  Anja handed Cade the brandy; he dribbled some onto the charcoal, then returned the bottle to her. Next he took the camphor from Adair and sprinkled some onto the unlit coals before handing the vessel back to his master. “We’re ready. Everyone, light your vessels.”

  His tanists ignited their braziers of incense.

  The room was prepared.

  Cade cleared his mind. Remembered why he had fasted and prayed for three days. His mind and body were unsullied. His tributes were in order and the sacrifices were in place. He squatted—with great care, so as not to dislodge the sword he had perched atop his own feet—to light his brazier of consecrated charcoal. When he straightened to his full height, he incanted in a clear and commanding tenor:

  “I present thee, O great ADONAY, this incense as the purest I can obtain; in like manner I present thee this charcoal, prepared from the most ethereal of woods. I offer them, O grand and omnipotent ADONAY, ELOIM, ARIEL, and JEHOVAM, with my whole soul and heart. Vouchsafe, O grand ADONAY, to receive them as an acceptable holocaust. Amen.”

  His brazier shot up a gey
ser of indigo sparks that rebounded off the high ceiling. Doleful howls and cries filled the conjuring room, and a macabre mist encompassed the grand circle. A window to the nether realms had been opened. It was time to begin the conjuration.

  “Hear me, SATAN MEKRATRIG! Heed my summons, PUT SATANACHIA, also known as BAPHOMET: Behold my gifts and send me thy agent and minister, free of evil noise or odor, as the Law commands!”

  He procured a pinch of incense from his robe and cast it into the brazier, turning its flames a sickly green. The vapors outside the circle flared red and reeked of sulfur, burnt hair, and rotting flesh. The stench threatened to gag him. He fought the urge to dry-heave and forced himself to speak again:

  “I conjure and command thee, LUCIFUGE ROFOCALE, by all the names wherewith thou mayst be constrained and bound: SATAN, RANTAN, PALLANTRE, LUTIAS, traditore, tentatore, adulatore, divoratore, conciatore, seminatore, e seduttore, where art thou? I conjure thee, by Him who created thee, to fulfill my work! I invoke thee, by the names ADONAI, EL, ELOHIM, ZABAOTH, ELION, ERETHAOL, RAMAEL, TETRAGRAMMATON, SHADDAI, and by the names ALPHA AND OMEGA, by which Daniel destroyed BEL and slew the Dragon; and by the whole hierarchy of superior intelligences, who shall constrain thee against thy will—I adjure thee, LUCIFUGE ROFOCALE, appear before me in a pleasing form and voice, or feel the pain of my rod!”

  He thrust his twisted wand of hazel into the brazier of charcoal.

  Roars of suffering and hatred beyond measure struck terror into Cade. His hands shook, and he feared he might lose control of his bladder. Vertigo swept over him, and for a few seconds he was sure his balance had betrayed him and he was falling.

  At once he felt steady, recovered his wits, and pulled his wand from the coals. “LUCIFUGE ROFOCALE! Show thyself in a pleasing form, or feel my wrath again!”

  A roll of thunder passed through Cade, followed by a chill that gave him his first taste of the oblivion that awaited all mortal flesh. Then came a voice unlike any he’d ever heard; it was the rush of a bonfire and the crashing of waves.

  I AM HERE. WHAT DOST THOU SEEK OF ME?

  A figure wreathed in steam and bathed in light without evident origin appeared outside the grand circle of protection. Over nine feet tall, it loomed above Cade and regarded him with mad yellow eyes. From its bald head protruded three twisted horns. Its jaw gaped open, revealing a mouth of fangs above its pointed chin. A tattered ruff ringed the collar of its copper-hued jerkin, which was adorned by a fringed skirt. Below that extended a pair of caprine legs ending in black hooves, and a tufted tail that twitched with nervous energy.

  Cade fought to overcome his terror and recall his next part in their scripted pas de deux. “Hadst thou appeared when I invoked thee, I had by no means smitten thee. Remember, if the request I make of thee be refused, I am determined to torment thee for all eternity.”

  SAY WHAT THOU DOST REQUIRE.

  “I require that thou shalt communicate with me, or with those to whom I entrust my present book, which thou shalt approve and sign, whenever I or they shall invoke thee by the names of power; that thou shalt grant me dominion over all those spirits of the Pit that call thee ‘master’; and that thou shalt grant me the gift of seven hundred years of life, youth, vitality, and freedom from poison, pestilence, and disease. Such is my demand.”

  The monster regarded Cade with loathing and fear. YOU ARE NOT SOME MERE EVE-SPAWN. YOU BURN WITH A BRIGHTER FLAME.

  He had been warned not to succumb to the demon’s flattery. “Speak plainly! Will thou grant my request, as stated, and without additional condition?”

  VERILY, I PLEDGE TO GRANT YOUR REQUEST, AND TO APPROVE THY BOOK, TO WHICH I SHALL AFFIX MY SEAL AND TRUE SIGNATURE, AND TO APPEAR AT THY REQUEST, PROVIDED THOU OFFER ONCE EACH YEAR THE SACRIFICE AND TRIBUTE, AS PRESCRIBED BY THE LAW.

  Cade reached under his alb, pulled out a live mouse, unwrapped its leg bindings, and released it outside his circle. The rodent let out a squeak as it raced toward the demon; then it circled the monster thrice before darting from the room. As soon as it was departed, Cade drew from the same pocket a gold coin engraved with the demon’s seal, and lobbed it to him.

  The beast’s mouth opened wide like a serpent’s and snapped the coin from the air. ABIDETH BY THE TERMS OF THE COVENANT, AND MY PATRONAGE SHALL BE THINE. BUT IF THOU FAILEST, THOU SHALT BE MINE EVERLASTINGLY. It picked up Cade’s pen of the Art from the lectern and inscribed its demonic marks into Cade’s grimoire. As it set down the pen, it bared a smile that stank of urine and blood. OUR BUSINESS IS CONCLUDED.

  “I thank thee, LUCIFUGE ROFOCALE, and discharge thee by the terms of the Covenant. Depart in peace, and return when, and only when, I call for thee. Begone, spirit, in the name of ADONAY, ELOHIM, ARIEL, and JEHOVAM!”

  A stroke of thunder trembled the flames on the candles.

  The demon was gone.

  Cade finished the ritual with a single word: “Amen.”

  The master left his circle. “You had me worried there. But that was well done.” He clasped Cade’s shoulder. “Tomorrow we’ll call up a minor spirit and teach you how to yoke it.” With an arch of his brow he added, “Then the real fun begins.” He headed for the stairs.

  Niko and Stefan approached Cade. “That was quite something,” Niko said. “I hope I never see its like again.”

  Stefan laughed, and then Niko and Cade laughed, too. When their mirth faded, the senior apprentice said, “So your journey begins. But you have many miles to go, and tomorrow will be a long day indeed.” Still in their robes, Stefan and Niko followed Adair upstairs.

  Cade removed his vestments and stored them in his wardrobe rather than bring them to the keep, since he would have to wash and exorcise them and his tools in the lab. He closed the wardrobe’s door to find Anja standing in front of him, her normal air of disdain replaced by one of rage. “You nearly killed us all.”

  He recoiled from her accusation. “What? What are—”

  “When you heard the cries of the damned—you started to step backward. Had I not used the hand of PALARA to keep you in your circle, you would have broken the ward, and LUCIFUGE would have devoured us all.” She poked his chest. “Had the rest of us not been at risk, I would have done nothing. But know this: If you ever make another mistake like that, I will let you die.”

  * * *

  Enraged past the point of decorum, Anja threw open the door to Master Adair’s bedchamber. He was half out of his alb, and startled as his door rebounded off the wall. He cast aside his robe and fixed Anja with a look. “Explain yourself.”

  She was so angry, she couldn’t stop shaking. “Tell me you saw it.”

  “Saw what?”

  “What he did! During the experiment!”

  The master’s dudgeon dissipated. “You mean his half step backward.”

  She felt vindicated and dismissed in the same breath. “You did see it.”

  “Of course. And I saw you keep him in place—just as I asked.”

  “He could have killed us all.”

  Adair sat down to remove his ceremonial shoes. “A risk I foresaw. Sparing him that mistake was our job as his tanists.”

  “You taught me the operator protects the tanists. Not the other way around.”

  “Special circumstances.” He tucked his shoes inside a bag of velvet, then cinched it shut with a pull on its silk drawstrings.

  Anja had no words, just a growl of frustration. She paced and pushed her fingers through her hair. “All he cares about is taking his revenge.”

  “So?”

  “He is selfish. He cares nothing for our cause.”

  “Aye. But if that’s what it takes to get him trained in time, so be it.”

  “His training.” She seethed. “It makes no sense. Not the pace, not the forgiveness. You told him to raise PAIMON, he called up LUCIFUGE ROFOCALE—and you let him. Why?”

  “You heard why. We don’t have time to—”

  “No! Do not lie to me. We have been together too long, lived through too mu
ch.” She pointed an accusatory finger. “You would never have let me, or Niko, or Stefan do that.”

  Adair pushed his shoes under his bed, then set to folding his alb. “Is that what this is about? You’re cheesed because someone other than you is getting special treatment?”

  Stung, she tensed. “How dare you—”

  “Don’t play coy, lass.” He stood tall. “It’s never been a secret that I love you like you’re my own. You’ve always been my favorite. If anyone other than you ever spoke to me like this, they’d spend the night as a toad in the castle cistern—and you fucking well know it.” He stepped away to his dresser. With his back to Anja, he pulled the stopper from a decanter of Irish whiskey and filled a glass. Then he turned, downed half the drink in one tilt, and let out a gasp of satisfaction. “So what’s really got your dander up?”

  She found the truth embarrassing. There were many emotions she was willing to own, but envy wasn’t one of them. “Cade. He made all his tools in three weeks.”

  “Aye, with help.”

  She shook her head. “Not as much as you think. When you helped me, it still took me more than a year to make my first tools.”

  Adair took another sip of his drink. “Cade had more previous training than you did.”

  Anja sensed her master’s rhetorical evasions—not in what he said, but in what he was careful not to say. “And how did he memorize so much of Waite, and the Clavicula Salomonis Regis, and the Grimorium Verum, in just two months?”

  “I don’t mean to be rude, my dear, but when I found you, you were a peasant girl from a Russian logging town. Cade was a student at Oxford, one of the most prestigious universities in the world. What you think he lacks in experience, he makes up for in first-class education.”

  Everything the master was telling her was true, but she sensed there still was something he was hiding. “You have had apprentices who were good students before they came here. None ever learned as fast as he has.” Her temper got the best of her. “He has done more in two months than I did in three years! If I was your favorite, why did you not speed my training like this?”