Aware of the risk and the time he was wasting, Reynevan had waited for his brother’s burial. Despite the efforts of his sister-in-law and her family, he would not be discouraged from keeping vigil over the corpse, and he took part in the exequies and funeral mass. He was there, with the sobbing Gryzelda, the parish priest and a small cortège when Peterlin was buried in the cemetery behind the small, old Wąwolnica church. Only then did he depart. Or rather—pretend to depart.

When dusk fell, Reynevan hurried back to the cemetery. On the freshly dug grave, he arranged his magical instruments, which he had assembled with surprisingly little difficulty. The oldest part of the Wąwolnica cemetery adjoined a ravine hollowed out by a small river; the ground had subsided there, offering easy access to the ancient graves, so Reynevan’s magical arsenal even included a coffin nail and a skeleton’s finger.

Nothing helped, however, not the finger bone, nor the monkshood, sage and chrysanthemum picked near the cemetery, nor the charm whispered over an ideogram furrowed in the soil with a crooked coffin nail. Peterlin’s soul, in spite of the assurances in the magic books, did not rise up over the grave in ethereal form. It didn’t speak. Or give a sign.

If only I had my books here, thought Reynevan, resentful and disheartened by his repeated failures. If I had The Lesser Key of Solomon or the Necronomicon… A Venetian crystal… A little mandrake… If I had access to an alembic and could distil an elixir… If…

It wasn’t to be. His grimoires, the crystal, the mandrake and the alembic were far away, in Oleśnica. In the Augustinian priory. Or—more likely—in the Inquisition’s possession.

A storm was swiftly approaching beyond the horizon. The rumbling of thunder accompanying the flashes of lightning intensified. Then the wind dropped completely and the air became as lifeless and heavy as a shroud. It must have been close to midnight.

And then it began.

Another flash of lightning lit up the church. Reynevan saw in horror that the entire bell tower was teeming with spider-like creatures. In front of his very eyes, several stone crosses moved and slumped over, and in the distance, one of the graves visibly bulged. The crunching of coffin planks followed by a loud squelching resounded from the darkness over the ravine. And then came a howling.

His hands were jumping as if he were feverish as he sprayed more salt around, and his lips barely let him mutter the formulae of the spell.