“By entering the astral realm and touching the ether,” the beguiler patiently explained as though to a child, “we put ourselves at risk. We lower our guard. We become an easy target for the malocchio, the Evil Eye. One may not enter the astral realm without security. I learned it in Lombardy, from the girls of Stregheria. Let us begin, we’re wasting time. Repeat after me.”

In the east Samael, Gabriel, Vionarai,

In the west Anael, Burchat, Suceratos.

From the north Aiel, Aquiel, Masagariel,

From the south Charsiel, Uriel, Naromiel…

The candle flames pulsated. The red wax spattered.

No one knew what the catacombs beneath the Church of Saint Maciej concealed, not even the oldest and wisest residents of Wrocław. Even the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star, to whom the church belonged and who walked the floor every day, didn’t know what was to be found barely a few yards beneath it. To be precise: only two of the crusaders knew the secret. Two of the group of seven Hospitallers served the Wallcreeper and were his informers. Those two knew about the hidden entrance and the magical password that opened it. The two of them—being scholars of the secret arts—also possessed Arcane Knowledge. Their task was to keep the occultum in order and as acolytes to assist the Wallcreeper during vivisections, necromantic experiments and demonic conjurations.

That day, only one of them was assisting the Wallcreeper. The other was sick. Or was malingering in order not to assist.

The crypt was flooded by the deathly light of a dozen candles and the devilish, flickering glow of the coals burning on a huge tripod. The Wallcreeper, in a black hooded robe, stood in front of a lectern overlaid with books, turning the leaves of Abdul Alhazred’s Necronomicon. Beside it lay other, equally well-known and powerful magical grimoires: Ars Notoria, Lemegeton, Arbatel, Picatrix, as well as Honorius of Thebes’ Liber Juratus, a notorious book and so dangerous that few dared to use the spells and formulae it contained.

In the centre of the chamber, a skeleton was lying on a large, flat block of granite resembling a catafalque. It wasn’t actually a skeleton, but the detached bones of a human skeleton arranged in the correct configuration: a skull, shoulder blades, ribs, a pelvis, the bones of the upper arms and thighs, and shinbones. The skeleton was incomplete, lacking many of the small bones of the feet—carpals, metacarpals and phalanges—and several cervical and lumbar vertebrae. It was also lacking its right collarbone. All the bones were black and some were very charred. The Hospitaller assisting the Wallcreeper as an acolyte knew that the remains belonged to a certain Franciscan burned alive five years earlier for heresy and witchcraft. The Hospitaller had personally dug the bones from the ashes, then collected, segregated and arranged them by hand. To find the very smallest, he had sifted the cold charcoal through a sieve.