Rites of Azathoth by Cavallo Frank

Author:Cavallo, Frank [Cavallo, Frank]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bedlam Press (An Imprint of Necro Publications)
Published: 2017-01-25T18:30:00+00:00

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Thirty

New Bethlehem Episcopal Cathedral

Boston, MA

Reverend Hayden and Lauren Armstrong had left nothing to chance. They made their way out of Whateley Estates under heavy guard from his private security team, who drove them non-stop back to Boston via an armored car that had been waiting to take them to New Bethlehem.

The Gothic Revival cathedral was impressive from the outside. One of the tallest structures in downtown Boston, it resembled a French medieval church, built in a cruciform pattern with massive façades and ornate flying buttresses topped with carvings of gargoyles and wreathed faces.

Inside the bronze double doors and the huge gate it was even more spectacular. A long gallery stretched toward the altar under a seven-vaulted nave, supported by fourteen fluted Corinthian columns, everything faced in white travertine. The high arched windows were filled with stained glass depictions of the Stages of the Cross, done in brilliant reds and purples and shades of yellow.

Polished cherry-wood pews filled the hall as far as the transepts, where the red marble floor opened to accommodate a wide choir box in advance of the dais and the pulpit. The chancel itself was housed in the lower sections of a high tower at the far end, presided over by a gleaming oak cross draped in purple and white vestments.

Once they were inside the cavernous and quite empty church, Hayden dismissed his security team. That made Armstrong gasp in protest.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

He seemed distracted, gazing around at the interior of the cathedral as if seeing it for the first time.

“We don’t need them anymore,” he replied. “They can’t help us against the enemy we face.”

“What do you know about him? I get the feeling there are things you haven’t told me,” she said.

He turned. He began to pace back and forth, as was his habit when pondering. His eyes grew serious, as though he hated even speaking what he was now required to say.

“You’re young. You newer initiates never had the benefit of learning from the Elders, those who knew Vayne before, and some who encountered him after. They warned us. They told us things even some of the Disciples, like yourself, do not know.”

“What do you mean?”

“Our adversary is not human, not anymore. He has been to the other side, the black abyss where the Outer Gods reside.”

“How did he come back?”

“That is something that no one has ever known, not even the Elders,” Hayden replied. “But make no mistake, the very fact that he did so is testament to his power. What we face is a thing that somehow rebelled against the forces beyond, like some rebel angel of Lucifer’s host, and fought his way back. That is no small feat. Luther Vayne may once have been a man, but he has now been twisted by the darkness of Azathoth, a cosmic storm we cannot fathom. No one truly knows what powers that corruption bestowed upon him.

“He can kill with a word. He commands the obedience of the shadows and all that lurks within them,” Hayden said.

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