Blood Sacrifice by Peter McLean

Author:Peter McLean
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Published: 2019-04-16T14:05:54+00:00

About the Author

Peter McLean has written several short stories for Black Library, including ‘Baphomet by Night’, ‘No Hero’, ‘Sand Lords’ and ‘Lightning Run’ for Warhammer 40,000, and the Warhammer Horror tale ‘Predations of the Eagle’. He grew up in Norwich, where he began story-writing, practising martial arts and practical magic, and lives there still with his wife.

An extract from Genevieve Undead.

He had a name once, but hadn’t heard it spoken in years. Sometimes, it was hard to remember what it had been. Even he thought of himself as the Trapdoor Daemon. When they dared speak of him, that was what the company of the Vargr Breughel called their ghost.

He had been haunting this building for years enough to know its secret by-ways. After springing the catch of the hidden trapdoor, he eased himself into Box Seven, first dangling by strong tentacles, then dropping the last inches to the familiar carpet. Tonight was the premiere of The Strange History of Dr Zhiekhill and Mr Chaida, originally by the Kislevite dramatist V.I. Tiodorov, now adapted by the Vargr Breughel’s genius-in-residence, Detlef Sierck.

The Trapdoor Daemon knew Tiodorov’s hoary melodrama from earlier translations, and wondered how Detlef would bring life back to it. He’d taken an interest in rehearsals, particularly in the progress of his protégée, Eva Savinien, but had deliberately refrained from seeing the piece all through until tonight. When the curtain came down on the fifth act, the ghost would decide whether to give the play his blessing or his curse.

He was recognized as the permanent and non-paying licensee of Box Seven, and he was invoked whenever a production went well or ill. The success of A Farce of the Fog was laid to his approval of the comedy, and the disastrous series of accidents that plagued the never-premiered revival of Manfred von ­Diehl’s Strange Flower were also set at his door. Some had glimpsed him, and a good many more fancied they had. A theatre was not a proper theatre without a ghost. And there were always old stage-hands and character actors eager to pass on stories to frighten the little chorines and apprentices who passed through the Vargr Breughel Memorial Playhouse.

Even Detlef Sierck, actor-manager of the Vargr Breughel company, occasionally spoke with affection of him, and continued the custom of previous managements by having an offering placed in Box Seven on the first night of any production.

Actually, for the ghost things were much improved since Detlef took over the house. When the theatre had been the Beloved of Shallya and specialised in underpatronised but uplifting religious dramas, the offerings had been of incense and a live kid. Now, reflecting an earthier, more popular approach, the offering took the form of a large trencher of meats and vegetables prepared by the skilled company chef, with a couple of bottles of Bretonnian wine thrown in.

The Trapdoor Daemon wondered if Detlef instinctively understood his needs were far more those of a physical being than a disembodied spirit.

Eating was difficult without hands, but the

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