Ashley Lister's Dark Tales from Innsmouth: The Collected Novellas by Lister Ashley

Author:Lister, Ashley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-12-02T00:00:00+00:00

# 2

There were fifteen people in the Chapel of Dagon at Clevedon Manor. The sacrifice was naked on the alter, arms spread wide across the bars of a crucifix. A strip of silver duck-tape covered his mouth. He had a potbelly, overhanging a clump of dirty looking pubes, with a small and inoffensive penis peeping rudely out from the thatch of matted hair. His wrists were bound with painfully tight cable ties that made his forearms bulge like overstuffed sausages. His legs were secured with even greater severity, so that blood dripped from one cut, soaking his foot like a scarlet sock. The sacrifice seemed unmindful of his nudity and more concerned by the hooded figures surrounding him and chanting from the shadows. His eyes, wide and wild, stared from one figure to another, all the time seeming to grow more desperate. A dozen of the hooded disciples were made anonymous by the blood-red robes of their order. Hargreaves, taller than the others, wore the black robe of leadership. Sharon, as naked as a goddess, stood before the victim as she brandished the silver length of her black-handled athame.

“All hail Dagon,” Sharon called in perfectly rendered R’lyehian. She was formerly a professor of ancient languages and her knowledge of the language of the legendary Ancient Ones was second to none. It was this knowledge that had gained her membership to the Esoteric Order of Dagon: an accolade not granted to any other woman before. She had begged Hargreaves to allow her membership after discovering that some of the order’s rituals could manifest enormous changes on the world. It was a power to which she yearned to be connected.

“All hail Dagon,” she called again.

Hargreaves repeated the words and then the true disciples took up the chant.

The words were bellowed with authority and confidence and Sharon could feel the energy reverberating through her flesh. Her pulse quickened. Her nipples hardened. The muscles of her sex trembled with an electric thrill of excitement. She supposed part of her arousal could be the coarse sexual gratification of presenting her naked body before a bewildered sacrificial victim and a dozen horny disciples who were probably sporting boners beneath their robes. But she wanted to believe that a larger part of her excitement came from the ancient vitality released by the R’lyehian chant. Shivering with hedonistic elation, she pressed the tip of her athame against the sacrifice’s breastbone and watched a dark tear of blood trail down his flesh.

“All hail Dagon,” she said again, thrusting the blade more firmly against her victim.

The figures behind her repeated the words: Hargreaves first and then the true disciples echoing his chant. Hargreaves stepped to her side and snatched the duck-tape from the sacrifice’s mouth.

Sharon flinched as though she had felt the ripping of tape from her own flesh. She stared at Hargreaves in surprise. This was not how the rituals were performed and she was shocked at this unprecedented interruption to the ceremony.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.

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