Madeleine turned and looked straight into the convoluted shadows where the devil lurked. “I am doing what I have to do,” she said simply, and went up to the first trestle table.
She stood over the table for what seemed like minutes on end, but was only a few seconds. Then she said: “I summon thee, O being of darkness, O spirit of the pit. I command thee to make thy most evil appearance. I order thee to come forth, and I nullify all seals upon thee, all ties that bind thee. Venite O spirit.”
Then she gripped the musty fabric of the sack, and ripped it open.
From where I was standing, it was difficult for me to see. But I could glimpse strange bones, and smell arcane dusts, and hear the rattle of fiendish vertebrae. Madeleine reached into the sack, and lifted out the devil’s skull, holding it up for Elmek to see.
“The devil Umbakrail,” she said. “The devil of darkness and evil events after nightfall.”
I was so fascinated by what she was doing that I almost forgot to look up the name Umbakrail in L’Invocation des Anges. But as she moved to the next trestle, I hurriedly turned through the pages until I found it. Umbakrail, also Umbaqurahal, also S’aamed. The devil of dark. There was even an etching of it—a grotesque beast with staring eyes and razor-sharp claws. On the facing page, in Henri St. Ermin’s laborious French, was a description of its seraphic counterpart, the angel Seron, and below that were the words which would call down Seron to banish the evil presence of its hellish adversary.
“O angel,” I muttered, fearful that Elmek might hear what I was doing, “I adjure thee in the name of the blessed Virgin Mary, by her holy milk, by her sanctified body, by her sanctified soul, to come forth. I ask thee by all the holy names—Eloy, Jehova, El Oristan, Sechiel, Laaval…”
Lieutenant Colonel Thanet said, “What the hell are you doing?”
I glanced up at him. “You mean what the heaven am I doing. I’m calling down the angels to get us out of this.”
“For God’s sake, man, that girl’s in deadly danger! We’ve got to—”
I hissed, “Shut up! There’s nothing else we can do! You saw what Elmek did to your men! Now, just give us a chance to do it our way!”
Lieutenant Colonel Thanet was about to protest, but a low, unpleasant rumbling went through the cellar, and he turned towards the writhing shapes of the demon Elmek in alarm. Madeleine had spoken the words of the conjuration over the second sack, and was pulling apart the soft medieval fabric to reveal the terrifying skeleton within.
Again, she raised the skull. It was long and narrow, with slanted eye-sockets, and the nubs of two horns. I felt a chilly ripple flow out from it, as if someone had opened the door of a cold-store. The lights in the cellar sank and flickered, and I sensed the mounting presence of unspeakable malevolence and cruelty.
“Cholok,” said Madeleine, identifying the devil for me. “The devil of suffocation. The devil who smothers children and asphyxiates victims of fires.”
Lieutenant Colonel Thanet glared at me in helpless desperation, but I was too busy leafing through my book. There it was. Cholok, sometimes known as Nar-speth. A devil with a face of absolute dispassion, and the leathery wings of a reptile. On the page opposite, I saw that its heavenly opposite was Melés, the angel of purity and happiness. I spoke the words to summon Melés, and then watched Madeleine as she went to the third sack.
Skeleton by skeleton, from the third sack to the fourth, and then to the fifth and the sixth and the seventh, the skeletons of each devil were taken from the ancient material in which they had been sewn up for so long. As yet, they took on no life, but I guessed that when all of them were free from their religious captivity, they would clothe themselves in flesh the way that Elmek must have done in Father Anton’s cellar.
The noise in the cellar was hideous and unnerving. As each devil was freed, the chorus of hellish voices grew louder; until the whole place sounded like an insane asylum, with scratching insect sounds and grotesque shrieks, and voices that whispered incessantly of death and plague and aberrations beyond human understanding. I was sweating so much that my fingers made damp dimples on the pages of L’Invocation des Anges, and Lieutenant Colonel Thanet was holding his hands to his ears in stunned disbelief.
At last, Madeleine spoke the words to free the last devil from his sack—the demon Themgoroth, the hawklike devil of blindness. In my turn, I mumbled the invocation that would bring down Themgoroth’s angelic opponent Asrul.
I didn’t forget to call Elmek’s angel, either. Jespahad, the angel of healing.
Madeleine stepped back towards us. All the bones were revealed now, and the ghastly skulls faced each other across the cellar, with the distorted form of Elmek twisting and shifting between them. The stench was disgusting—a fetid mixing of thirteen nauseous odors that made my eyes water and my stomach tense in physical rebellion. Beside me, Lieutenant Colonel Thanet gagged, and had to wipe his mouth with his handkerchief.
The cacophony of voices and sounds was growing, too. As I leaned towards Madeleine and whispered, “I did it I think I did it,” she could hardly hear me over the shrieks and cries and gibbering noises. She said, “What?”
“I did it. I called all the angels. What happens now?”
“Yes,” said Thanet, his face pale. “Where are they? If they’re supposed to come and help us, where are they?”
Madeleine looked at us for a moment. Her pale green eyes were very bright and very intense. She seemed to have taken on some indefinite charisma of pure strength and determination, as if she knew now exactly what had to be done, and how, and that she was going to carry it out whatever the cost.
She said, “It is not yet time. But the angels will come. First, we must let these devils call up Adramelech.”
“Adramelech?” asked Lieutenant Colonel Thanet, aghast. “But we don’t stand any kind of a chance against Adramelech!”
Elmek’s voice boomed and grumbled over the screams and whispers of his fellow devils. “I am pleased,” it said, in a frighteningly amplified tone. “I am well pleased. At last, my brethren and I are reunited! You will have your reward, mortals. You will have your reward!”
Madeleine turned to the devil, and called back, “We are pleased to serve you, my lord.”
I said, “Madeleine—” and reached for her arm, but she brushed me away.
“We are true disciples of Adramelech and all his works,” she cried out, her voice high and thin over the bellowing and groaning of the thirteen devils. “We will follow Adramelech wherever his chancellorship should lead us, and we will gladly bow before him in the courts of the nether kingdom!”
“For Christ’s sake, Madeleine,” I snapped. But she ignored me, and lifted her arms high.
“Summon Adramelech when you will,” she shrilled. “Let us abase ourselves before his evil glory and his malevolent majesty!”
There was a thunderous roar, like a locomotive at full speed. The lights went out altogether, and we were plunged into a darkness that was loud with horrifying sounds and whispers, and sickening stenches of putrefaction. I said: “Madeleine—” again, but she called back, “Don’t move! Just stay where you are! The devils are taking on flesh!”
Lieutenant Colonel Thanet put in sharply, “We’re going to have to move. We can’t stay here. we’re sitting targets. I vote we go for the steps while it’s still dark.”
“Colonel, these things are creatures of darkness. They can see you standing there as easily as if it were daylight.”
“But, dammit, we can’t just stay here! One of us has to go for help!”
Madeleine begged, “Please, Colonel! Just stay calm and keep still! We do have a chance, if you’ll just stay calm!”