The Arcanum Read Online Free PDF

and evidence suggest tribe reunited in New York City.

Consult Lovecraft. New players. New dangers. Sacred Order of

the Golden Dawn.
    The last line was written in an almost manic scrawl and underlined several times:
    PROTECT THE SECRETS OF ENOCH
    “Where is it, then?” Doyle spoke aloud as he surveyed the otherwise empty walls. He checked under the antique ashtray lamp. His fingers frisked the sides of the bookshelf and poked among the books, searching for false bindings. He tossed the Persian rug aside and stamped on the wooden boards, listening for hollows. But in vain. Doyle’s brow knit with frustration as his gaze drifted to the chessboard beside Duvall’s desk.
    He noted an obvious move on behalf of white, which had always been his color when playing Konstantin. But making the first move wasn’t nearly advantage enough. Most of the time when they played, it felt to Doyle as if Duvall was simply humoring him, delaying the kill out of fear of boredom. In this case, however, Doyle spotted a nearing checkmate.
    “Castle, of course,” he muttered as he switched the positions of the rook and king.
    At that moment, the bookcase clicked open. “Cagey bastard,” Doyle whispered, with a grin. Duvall could best him even from beyond the grave.
    Doyle pulled the bookcase away from the wall to reveal an elevator lift beyond. His heartbeat picked up. Trapping his cane under his arm and carrying the candle, he entered the lift. He forced the operating handle clockwise a half revolution. Machinery hummed as the cage door slammed shut, then Duvall’s office lifted out of sight. The candle flame wavered in the suffocating blackness as the lift descended. Pipes banged. Thick wires slid against metal. The lift shook. After ten uneasy seconds, it came to a jarring halt.
    Doyle braced himself against the walls. For a moment he stood there, listening to his own furtive breaths. Then he folded the cage door open and stepped onto a carpet of rich red velvet.
    Candlelight flowed across the mustard-colored walls of a small salon, replete with mirrors and standing candelabras. On the walls were framed portraits—one of which bore a distinct likeness to Doyle himself. At the far end of the room were a set of French doors. He opened them, then reeled backward, stunned.
    He had found the Hall of Relics.
    The items were displayed on masterwork pedestals, protected by globes of Venetian glass. One of the first relics, a corpse, rested inside a glass-enclosed coffin. It was a woman, her decayed arms stretched taut at her sides, her face hollowed to a husk, eyes black sockets, hair splayed about the withering skull like so many spider legs.
    Doyle knew the body, and recalled its discovery. He remembered the waves of a West African ocean rolling it forward in the sand.
    His eyes traveled down the rest of the body, past the shriveled stomach, to where the legs would normally be—if she had been human. Instead, there was only a thick fishtail, scales flaking off the sides. The inscription on the coffin read:
    MADAGASCAR, 1905—PHYSICAL PROOF OF MERMAID LIFE, POSSIBLE ATLANTEAN DESCENDANCY
    Doyle moved on, holding up the candle to the next display. A shimmer of green met his eyes. It was a slate of emerald, carved with an ancient Phoenician script, circa 200 A.D. It was the grail of Alchemical scholarship, brief as a sonnet, yet fathomless in its truths.
    THE EMERALD TABLET OF HERMES TRISMEGISTUS
    The mere sight of the next relic raised the hairs on his arms. Doyle had led the investigation to its discovery, and bore witness to the exorcism that had quieted the demonic spirit. Yet evil still pulsed within its broken smile. For beneath the glass was a skull, belonging to the vilest man of an age, whose malice was so pure it survived his living body. The inscription read:
    1766—THE CURSED SKULL OF “BLUEBEARD” GILLES DE LAVAL
    Doyle quickly turned his attention to the objects on either side of the skull, counterbalancing the energies of the