Lucifer's Crown Read Online Free PDF Page A

Hindu gods combine benevolence and malevolence, creation and destruction, in the same beings. Pagans think that supernatural forces are inherent in the earth itself, forces that are never impersonal, but are very much involved, intelligent, even ironic."
    "And which have to be placated?"
    "Acknowledged. The sort of thing that was going on last night.” Gupta's smile was lopsided, angling his moustache upward. “Here, we could discuss the nature of faith all day if we'd no jobs to go to."
    Shows where my mind is , Maggie thought.
    "I'm a policeman, not a philosopher, certainly not a holy man. But I'm telling you this: I've lived here fifteen years. My wife's a native. Glastonbury is one of the world's great holy places. Odd things happen here, and no mistake."
    Was Gupta, the Glastonburian, making fun of a gullible tourist-cum-pilgrim? No. He was dead serious. So was the woman Rose had found in the Abbey.
    All Maggie had wanted in coming here was a chance to visit Britain again. To teach—and to remind herself—that intelligence wasn't something to be ashamed of. To make a start, however feeble, at the rest of her life. And now? “So I get to play bodyguard as well as teacher, chauffeur, and mother. Great."
    "It's early days yet,” Gupta said reassuringly. “We'll have it sorted soon as may be. As for Rose—well, you'd better be cautious is all."
    "I'll try to contain myself. Thank you.” Maggie managed a smile.
    Touching his forefinger to his eyebrow, Gupta strode away up the street.
    Her smile crumpling, Maggie started back into the hostel. She'd better call Bart Conway, the coordinator in charge of all the seminar groups, before he saw a newspaper using “SMU” and “mysterious death” in the same sentence. And they were expected not only at the police station but at Temple Manor. Plus Rose needed to get to St. Mary's for the All Saints’ Day mass. At least she'd be safe there...
    Maggie told herself not to worry about Rose or the Lady of Shalott, about pilgrimage and belief, about faith and credulity and what might crawl into the cracks in between. But she knew she would.

Chapter Three
    Thomas London watched as the mist at last grew silvery, then transparent, and then in ephemeral strands was sucked into the blue afternoon sky like Dante's blessed souls ascending into heaven. He liked Dante, even though the Italian poet had made a more compelling story of the Inferno's torments than of Paradise with its unfolding rose of angels.
    Gulls squawked overhead. A car sped past. To the west a quarter moon sank toward the horizon. To the east, beyond the lichened slate roof of the manor house, Glastonbury Tor gleamed in the sun. At this distance the tower looked little larger than a pin.
    In the seventh century Pope Gregory had ordered his missionaries not to destroy the ancient temples of Britain, but to set up altars and relics and replace pagan sacrifices with church festivals. Some of the old gods had then been named demons. Some had been named saints. With a wry smile at God's sense of humor, Thomas ducked through the narrow doorway into the chapel. In the cold, musty shadows his breath resembled a wraith.
    Today pilgrims were returning to the holy place of Glastonbury, reclaiming their roots. Today mankind stood in the center of the labyrinth and contemplated its path out again. Today, All Saints’ Day, the new year overlapped the old as the new millennium overlapped the old. The End Time had come at last.
    Switching on a light bulb, he gazed searchingly up at the rood. The crucifix, flanked by two carved figures, stood above the ancient screen dividing the tiny nave from an even smaller chancel. The faces of Our Lord, St. John, and St. Mary Magdalene were deeply shadowed, and revealed nothing of the future.
    Very well then. He had his work. Below the desiccated wooden lace of the screen seven canopies—three on one side of the opening into the chancel, four on the other—marked niches for the portraits of