on the front door. With utter horror, he began to see the interior wooden surface begin to blacken; smoking, scorched holes now appearing as though it had been struck by the intense rays of the sun which had been focused and magnified through a strong lens. The smell of burning wood struck his nostrils. Then came a bellowing cry and for some inexplicable reason, Dryer had the image of the fiendish door-knocker coming to life and uttering that unearthly noise.
“I would be quick if I were you, Inspector. My lamassu door guardian won’t hold the efreeti for long.”
The front door was now beginning to char and warp, buckle inwards. Tendrils of black, lachrymatory smoke began to fill the entryway and Dryer, fully realising that escape that way was no longer an option, made a run for the stairs. He was halfway up when he heard another snort of pain and anger. And then, with an almighty crash, the door smashed open in fragments of fiery wood. Flaming pieces landed like burning kindling on the carpet.
Somewhere at the edge of his vision, he saw the hall brighten, come afire with a burst of blazing colours. His eyes twisted horribly as they tried to bring whatever it was into sharper focus. They failed dismally every time. It was as if he was looking at everything that was happening through a twisted red haze that blurred his vision, making it impossible for him to see properly. Then, abruptly, the red haze was gone. There was a riotous clashing of colours in the middle of the hall, a chaotic madness of reds and yellows that was horrible to see, and he felt terror begin its slow seep against his sanity. In those brief seconds, strange, hideous, distorted shapes flitted amidst the wavering background of heatless flame. At any moment, he expected something grimacing and terrible to surge up at him from that illusionary conflagration, clawing for his body, something that didn’t have a human face at all, and stared at him out of black, soulless, unblinking eyes, fixing him with an evil, malignant stare.
“Quick! Everyone into the circle.” Smith all but pushed Dryer into a large room at the top of the landing.
With only seconds to realise what was happening and take in his surroundings, Dryer realised that there were two other individuals present as well as Smith. One of them was the giant, ectomorphic being who had answered the door, whilst the other was a fair-haired man in his fifties. The man was smartly dressed and normal-looking, except for the fear and terror in his face, discernible in the manner in which he stared wildly all around him, but it was the giant—
Smith suddenly slammed shut the door of the room and forcibly steered Dryer into the centre of the room where the others were gathered.
A storm of unreality battered at Dryer as he tried to mentally process everything that was unfolding. His eyes were drawn again to the bizarre being that had opened the front door before vanishing. The man—if indeed it were such—had a pale golden-blue colour to his flesh, which glistened and scintillated as though it had been sprinkled with a strange, exotic confetti. The being’s head was disproportionately large in relation to its tall, thin body, like that of a hydrocephalic, and the eyes were a peculiar violet colour. The face—grim and unsmiling. What clothing it wore was similarly peculiar, unlike anything he had ever seen before, alien almost.
“There’s little time for an explanation, Inspector. Stay within the circle.”
Looking to the floor, Dryer saw that the four of them were all stood within a large circle that had been drawn with a range of coloured chalks. There were curious, cabbalistic symbols that ran in a ring around the circumference, all of which meant absolutely nothing to him whatsoever, although he suspected they must have been linked to some form of Black Magic. What other explanation was there for this unholy experience? He was about to say something when the door swung open.
In the doorway stood a dark-suited, bald, fat man, his fleshy, heavily-jowled face awash with sweat and pure malice. There was a something in his piggy, narrow-set eyes that gave them a strong hint of unconstrained anger and malice as though he bore a deep-rooted hatred of all bar himself.
Smith took a forward step, still remaining well within the circle. “Klaus Weidenreich. I should have known.”
“Augustus, my old friend.” Weidenreich’s voice was slick and oily and undoubtedly German. His eyes were dark and dangerous, like tar pits into which the unwary could become stuck; drown in their terrible depths. “You know why I’m here, Smith. There are only two of my Lord Pazuzu’s tokens remaining. You have one...and Doctor Harris,” he nodded to the fair-haired man, “has the other.”
Dryer was finding it hard to retain a grip on himself in the face of this insanity. Things were happening which he had never, even in his wildest nightmares, considered possible. With some level of mental resignation, he knew that all of his hard-nosed police training and experience was of little use in a situation such as this. He had no authority here—a realisation that only increased the fear and the mind-numbing terror which now ran virtually unchecked through the very core of his being. Tough talking and the threat of a jail sentence was of no use here. Admittedly, a gun may have been useful, but somehow he even doubted that.
Weidenreich looked down with a derisive sneer at the drawn circle. “How long do you think your pathetic protection will keep you safe? An hour, maybe two? And as for your djinn...well we both know it will be no match against the efreeti. As to your third ‘friend’, with him I have no grievance.” He stared directly at Dryer. “So he may leave—” Raising his right hand, he made a beckoning motion with it.
Instantly, Dryer felt much of the stiffness leave his body. And yet the sensation he experienced was as though he was no longer in control of his own muscles. His legs began walking of their own volition, and he was just about to cross over the circle when Smith cried out something in a language he had never heard before and he was brought to a complete standstill. A second later, he snapped out of the strange trance he had been put under and a firm resolution, hard as steel, returned to his mind. Under different circumstances, this would have been the time to strike back at the other, verbally if not physically. This, however, was not the time or the situation. Since stepping into this strange house and becoming embroiled in all of this devilry and occult malignancy, all vestiges of his sane, rational thought processes had dissipated, evaporated almost to the point of nothingness. All of his life he had prized himself on his no-nonsense approach to life, managing to maintain his mental well-being and outlook.
Weidenreich’s look of disappointment at not having charmed Dryer into stepping outside the circle suddenly changed to one of surprise as Harris pulled a revolver from his jacket pocket. Next came the loud report as a bullet was fired, followed in rapid succession by five others. All but one hit their target and the room darkened as the bald-headed German sorcerer was sent flying, blood streaming from five bullet wounds.
Dryer’s first reaction was one of shock. He was a Detective Inspector and someone had committed murder in the first degree right in front of his very eyes. However, the spectacle was made worse when, emitting a horrible, mocking laugh, Weidenreich began to get to his feet.
That dark wave of disbelief and horror surged at Dryer like a black tide once more. One bullet, certainly fired from that range and with that accuracy should have been enough to kill, but how on earth could someone survive getting hit by five? His mind was screaming silently as he noticed that two of the shots had left terrible gaping, bloody holes in Weidenreich’s head. And yet, even now those wounds were closing, shrinking until they vanished completely. There was no longer any sign of blood. It was as though he had never been shot at all!
“He’s the efreeti!” Smith shouted. “It must have possessed him and taken his body. Devoured his very soul.”
The thing that had gone by the name of Klaus Weidenreich gave an unspeakably fiendish grin, baring a mouthful of jagged, shark-like teeth. Howling its fury, it then began to transform further, tearing its way out of the corpulent body with the razor sharp
