A Dance in Blood Velvet Read Online Free PDF

understand, do you?” Andreas said furiously. “I can’t write, because there is simply no point! No point to anything, except blood! And Kristian calls this the way to God? Damn his God, damn them both to hell!”
    Karl’s arms went around him, lips against his cheek.
    In the background, Katti’s voice soothed, “There is still love, Andrei. And we love you. Kristian can’t take that from us.”
    But he could. He could and he had.
    A groan issued from Andreas’s throat. The images dissolved and vanished, but the groan went on and on.

CHAPTER TWO
A DEADLY CALL
    B enedict Grey did not consider himself evil. His activities might have generated lurid headlines had he attracted notoriety as other, more flamboyant, occultists did; but such attention was merely a measure of the public’s ignorance. They could not comprehend that “occult” simply meant “hidden”, that rejection of conventional religion did not equal devil-worship, nor that his quest was harmless and scholarly. Benedict would never dream of using his knowledge to hurt another living soul, hadn’t even considered such danger.
    Until today.
    In an ashen sunrise, he stood looking out of a window, trying to clear his mind. The parlour was a cosy room with cream-washed walls, red rugs on dark floorboards, an inglenook fireplace. Outside, the winter-brown garden was sheened with buds. Daffodil shoots poked through the soil, and starlings squabbled over bread scraps on the lawn. After the previous night, it seemed miraculous that the everyday world was still here.
    Outwardly, Benedict was conventional. A handsome ex-soldier who’d survived the War almost unscathed, he’d moved to Ashvale, a small market town in the middle of England, to be near his older brother Lancelyn. Ben and his wife, Holly, owned a thriving bookshop. That was all outsiders needed to know.
    Their neighbours had no idea what took place in the privacy of the Greys’ home. The brown brick cottage, with its slate roof and charming veils of creeper, looked as unremarkable as any other in the quiet old street. Only a chosen few knew of his arcane book collection, or the temple he’d constructed in the attic. Even Maud, his bookshop assistant, suspected nothing.
    Ben and Holly alone knew what had happened in the temple last night.
    Too stunned to talk, they’d retired to bed, but neither had slept. Holly was unsettled. Shortly before dawn, when she dropped off at last, Ben came downstairs to watch the sunrise while he tried to make sense of the impossible.
    Lancelyn had taught Benedict that the astral plane was subjective; that every occultist’s experience was unique, his perception of supernatural entities purely mystical. There were no horned demons waiting to be summoned bodily to Earth.
    So what the hell was it that had manifested in his temple last night?
    The ritual had been one of hundreds he’d performed, some with Holly and some alone. He recalled fragrant ribbons of smoke, the rhythm of incantation, lamplight gleaming on their robes - coloured lavender, for the border between night and day. Infinite corridors of reflection in the mirrors. The black Book in the centre of a ten-pointed star. And then, coalescing from air, a creature from the astral realm. Not a phantom but solid, maggot-white, real .
    The difference, Ben reflected, was the presence of the Book.
    He glanced at a small table, where the volume now lay like a slab of night on the lace cloth.
    Holly was right, the creature had looked disgusting: a fossilised skeleton, horribly alive. Ben had needed no persuasion to banish it. Truth was, he’d been terrified. And now he was shocked rigid to realise he’d actually succeeded: summoned a being from the astral plane. Yes, he was appalled by its ghastly appearance, the aura of cold evil emanating from its pallid body, but...
    By God - he thumped the wall in exuberance - it was exciting!
    With the safety of distance, he regretted his haste in dispelling it.
    Shouldn’t