London Macabre by Steve Savile

Author:Steve Savile
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Horror
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2012-07-31T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifty-Five

Locke reached the marble staircase and cast a lingering look back over his shoulder towards the Conclave’s chamber. The ceiling was high, vaulted with thick timbers, with a line of windows just below the lowest braces. There was a crystal chandelier in the geometric centre of the ceiling, the lowest glass still twenty feet and more above his head. It hung from a metal chain. Silver moonlight streamed down from those high windows in bright unbroken beams. The chandelier painted a moonbow on the furthest wall. Dust motes hung lazily in the moonbeams but they weren’t what stopped him dead in his tracks. He hadn’t noticed it before, but the keystone above the door was set with a small Green Man relief, branches and vines sprouting from the leafy face’s mouth. By itself there was nothing untoward with the foliate head; it was a symbol of rebirth, of renaissance, resurrection. They were common in churches throughout the country. There were three representations of the foliate head: the first simply called the Foliate Head, completely covered in vegetation; the second, the Disgorging Head, spewing vegetation from its mouth; and the third, the Bloodsucker Head, which sprouted vegetation from all of its facial orifices, mouth, nose and eyes. In some places the foliate head might have been symbolic of fertility, drawing upon woodland spirits like the woodwose to bless or protect the chamber, but not here, not now.

Now, with the Devil’s Cup on the other side of the threshold, the head’s numinous quality was unnervingly eerie. The fact that it was a Bloodsucker Head only served to make it more so, with the Seven, creatures vampiric in their nature, standing guard within the Conclave.

The foliate head was a throwback to the pre-Christian days of the country when people worshipped the elements, and of course, the Horned One who went by many names: Cernunnos, Dhu’l Karnain, Ammon-Zeus, Janicot, Atho, Herne the Hunter, or simply the Horned God. There were elements of Pan, Puck, Faunus, Jack-in-the-Green, the Holly King and other impish sprites in the iconography of the Horned God, but with the god’s ”vitality” owing more to do with the sexual proclivity that accompanied his worship than it did the magic of the seasons or the sun or the moon, the Horned God served as the foundation for the Christian concept of the Devil, earning him many more names in the process.

One of those was Sataniel.

Another was Osiris.

The line of reasoning sent a chill through Locke’s heart.

His mind raced, trying to remember everything he had ever heard about the Horned God.

He kept coming back to a single thought: those who held to the old ways and still offered worship to the Horned One were cast out as witches, accused of worshipping the Devil, and burned for their sins.

Burn with me, burn, burn, burn . . .

He felt his legs buckle and clutched the railing to stop himself from falling.

They had just held their most sacred gathering in a chamber dedicated to the Horned God, and had drunk poison from his chalice.

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