Dark Rites. Heather Graham

two a little shorter. He wasn’t even sure if they were men or women, young or old.

      They brought him to a little cubicle. It had a heavy wooden door with a little panel that opened in so that he could be seen from outside. He was pretty sure that, once upon a time, such a space had held dangerous patients, the criminally insane.

      Or perhaps those made dangerously insane by the crude treatment of the disabled in years gone by. Actually, he’d seen a few places where things hadn’t changed so much.

      The small room had a cot. With a blanket. And a bedpan. That was it.

      The blanket gave him hope.

      He wasn’t going to die. The high priest seemed to want him. He had to play this right.

      And pray that he wasn’t going to be asked to stick a knife into a living sacrifice!

      He wasn’t shut up in the locked room for long. They came for him again—the four red-clad figures. They chanted as they led him out beneath the moonlight. Once, there had been something of a courtyard—a place where patients might have precious moments in the sun.

      When there was sun, of course. It was, after all, Massachusetts. His mom used to joke that everyone should come for summer in Massachusetts—it happened every July 27.

      He almost laughed aloud; he was so terrified, and grasping at strange, old memories.

      He wondered if he was supposed to chant. He didn’t know what they were chanting, so he probably couldn’t chant with them.

      Others joined.

      He saw that an old tiled garden table had been stripped and set with inverted crucifixes. There was a large empty space on the table...

      Room for the sacrifice!

      Maybe there was no sacrifice. Maybe...

      There would be a sacrifice. There was a large knife on the tiled surface. Its clean blade glinted in the dim light.

      The chanting continued. They began to form a circle—twelve, all in all, including him. And then, as the chanting increased, another figure stepped into the center. He raised his arms, and he began to speak. At first, it was some other language—what, Alex just couldn’t be sure.

      And then his words were in English.

      “Do what thou wilt! For the day is coming, the day that is his! He will embrace his followers, those who bring him to flesh, to the pleasures of the flesh. For those who bring him to blood...oh, yes, the sweetness of the blood!”

      As he spoke, a tall blonde woman was led into the group. She seemed to come willingly, but she walked as if she was in a trance.

      She wore white where the others wore red.

      Alex began to tremble.

      Sacrifice...this beautiful young woman!

      The high priest raised his hands. He reached down for the knife on the altar. He lifted it high.

      Alex’s knees were giving; he was going to fall. They were going to sacrifice the young woman!

      But the high priest continued to talk. “The time comes for the ultimate, as we prepare this world for he who is coming—he who will touch you all, and give you life and freedom. We prepare, we come closer and closer!”

      Someone stepped forward, touching the young woman by the shoulders. The white gown fell to her feet.

      No! He had to protest; Alex had to do something, had to stop this...

      Alex heard a noise. A horrible bleating, a protest.

      He turned.

      It was a goat.

      And as Alex watched, the poor creature was trussed up by a pair of the figures and stretched, screaming and terrified, over the altar.

      And the knife went down on the creature’s belly and then its throat.

      Blood sprayed across the table and down onto the cobblestones. The bleating stopped.

      “All hail Satan!”

      The cry went up. The gushing blood was caught in a chalice. The cup was passed around.

      It was brought before the girl; she was marked in blood over her breasts—what the markings meant, Alex didn’t know.

      But she was alive!

      The chalice was passed again. It came to him.

      He was supposed to drink.

      He did.

      It was amazing what terror and the will to survive could do for a man.

      * * *

      He didn’t vomit until he was back in his little cell.

      He fell on his little cot, shivering and sick.

      “Vickie, please, please, find me!” he said softly. “Please, please!”

      He thought he might cry; he felt he should, but didn’t. He was too bewildered, too weary, after the night.

      He just lay there. He tried to assure himself that help would come.

      “One thing for sure, Vickie, if I make it out of here alive. This fellow is going to be a vegetarian! Maybe I’ll even be vegan!”

      His cell had no windows, but he thought that it was late in the night when he finally slept.

      He might be an agnostic, but he drifted off whispering the Lord’s Prayer.

      And he couldn’t forget the woman, the beautiful, blonde woman standing there, obviously drugged, smeared in the blood as if...

      As if she was being prepared for a time when it was her blood that would be spilled.