Free The Lonely Shadows: Tales of Horror and the Cthulhu Mythos by John Glasby

out of the walls.
    Weakly, he leaned back in his chair and tried to concentrate on what lay ahead. Around him, voices spoke in quiet little murmuring sounds, almost unheard, fading slowly, but nevertheless intruding on his consciousness sufficiently to wrench his mind away from what he was trying to think about. The tall candles threw a pale light upon him and the voices were scarcely whispers now in the great black shadow.
    They seemed somehow to blend together into an oddly soothing sound, half-lulling him to sleep. He jerked upright in his chair, suddenly frightened. He mustn’t let that happen! He looked round at the faces nearest him. Blurry wisps of whiteness around the table. And somehow, they all looked dead, as if part of them, some vitally essential part, had been taken away.
    He grew aware that Kestro had risen to his feet at the end of the long, candle-lit table. He stood for a moment, surveying them all. Then he said quietly: “I trust you have all eaten well, and that the food was satisfactory.”
    Damn it! thought Kennett fiercely. Why did the fellow always have to be so ingratiating?
    “Most of you here will know what comes next, my friends.” A hidden devil licked its lips hungrily behind the dark flames of his eyes, before falling back into the black depths. Then the heavy lids dropped lazily back into place.
    There was a sudden scraping of chairs. Kennett pushed his back automatically and rose to his feet with a tense sensation of impending disaster in his body. The feast had ended; the madness and the horror was about to begin!
    Fisher stepped closer to him. There was a worried frown on his lean face. His eyes were clouded.
    “What the devil do you suppose he meant by that?” he asked. The other tightened his lips convulsively. “It’s quite clear to me what he meant. This is where they prepare for the Black Mass. Or some other equally horrible service. It isn’t going to be very nice to watch.”
    He glanced about him, desperately, seeking a way out of escape. Hurry! Hurry! his mind shouted at him. While there is still tim e.
    “We’ve got to get out of here somehow,” he said in whisper, speaking out of the side of his mouth. “And fast! Once they start this fiendish sacrifice, there’ll be no stopping them. And there’s something else you probably ought to know.”
    “What’s that?” The other was visibly agitated. A little muscle in his cheek was jumping madly. And there was a pulse beating heavily in his neck.
    “They need a victim—a human sacrifice, unless I’m very much mistaken.” He glanced at the other out of the corner of his eye, keeping most of his attention on the tall Creole in front of the main entrance. “Something tells me, that’s why you were invited in the first place,” he added significantly.
    “Nonsense.” Fisher squared his shoulders, but there was a thin quaking in his voice that he couldn’t hide.
    “Still think he’s just gathered these people here for a friendly game of bridge?” murmured Kennett grimly. He inclined his head towards the far end of the room. “Then take a good look at that.”
    Fisher turned. Two servants carried an oblong crate, half-filled with straw and something that moved and screeched, into the middle of the room. Kestro walked over from a nearby group of laughing guests and looked down at it carefully, examining the contents.
    Then he nodded, evidently satisfied, and gave a quick jerk of a thick hand towards the door set in the wall, covered with a heavy drape of black cloth. His lips were moving, but he was too far away for either of them to make out what he was saying.
    “See what was in that?” enquired Kennett tersely. His heart was beginning to hammer madly at the base of his throat. His brain felt oddly stiff. “No. Then I’ll tell you. A black cockerel and a pure white hen.” He clamped his teeth together, tight.
    “They’re not fooling this time. This is the real thing. Unless I miss my guess, Kestro intends