The Mystery of the Singing Serpent - M. V. Carey [30]
“Belial favour all those here!” said the man. He took the cup and put it to his lips.
“Moloch hear us!” It was a chorus of voices.
The man handed the cup to Pat Osborne. She took it, looking as if she might weep.
“Belial favour all those here,” she said shakily. She drank and passed the cup as the others intoned the prayer to Moloch.
Again and again the favour of Belial was asked. Again and again the group called upon Moloch to hear them. The cup came back at last to the person in the serpent chair, who returned it to Ariel.
Next Ariel produced a small charcoal brazier with four legs. He put this on the table in front of the caped one, who then stood and extended his hands over the live coals in the thing. “Asmodeus, Abaddon and Eblis, look upon us!” he cried.
Ariel offered a silver dish. The man in black sprinkled something from it onto the brazier. A column of smoke sprang up and a thick, sweet smell drifted to the watchers across the hall.
“Belial hear us!” pleaded the caped man. “Send the power of the serpent to guard us.
Let us see your countenance. Let us hear your voice!”
The man was still then. Everyone was still, and in that stillness Allie and the boys heard the beginning of a dreaded sound. Someone or something was singing.
Allie started, as if she wanted to run. Jupe grasped her arm and held her still.
The sound grew louder. It rose, wordless, until it stung at the bone and shriveled the flesh.
Again the man in the cape dipped into the dish. Again incense was thrown into the brazier. And in the seething mass of smoke, something moved!
Bob took a sudden, deep breath.
“Belial has favoured us!” proclaimed the caped man. “The serpent that never dies is among us!”
The silent watchers trembled when they saw
the thing that writhed in the smoke. It was a huge cobra, a shimmer of green and blue, a
spread of hood, a red-eyed glitter.
The song went on and on until it was a
fearful, shrill pulse of noise that made Jupe want to cover his ears. At last, mercifully, it began to dwindle. The smoke thinned. The terrible serpent
paled and faded. The singing ceased. The thing was gone.
The caped man seated himself. “The good of
one of our fellowship is the good of all,” he said.
“We will join hands.”
Pat Osborne stared straight ahead, but she
put her hand on the table. The man in black took it.
Jupiter nudged Pete. Footsteps came softly
down the stairs, and a dark shape blocked the watchers’ view of the fellowship. It was the
muscular man who had been patrolling the
grounds the night Pete fell off the wall. He stood
in the hall, surveying the room where the caped man presided over his brazier and his disciples.
After a moment, he went into the ritual room, walked to the far side of the table and bent to whisper into the ear of the man on the throne.
“Impossible!” said the caped man. “We are all present.”
“There should be thirteen,” insisted the other. “Miss Enderby, Mr. Ariel and Miss Osborne came in together. Everyone else came separately. But I opened the gate eleven times. There should be a thirteenth member!”
The man in the cape stood up. “It seems that we may have an intruder nearby,” he told his followers. “The fellowship is dismissed. I will summon you again when the time is right.”
The Investigators drew back from the door, and Jupiter closed it silently.
“They’re on to us,” whispered Pete.
There was a scraping of chairs from the ritual room, and a babble of voices.
“Very thorough,” said Jupiter softly. “That man who tends the gate can count.”
“Let’s go!” urged Bob. “In two seconds they’ll be searching this place.”
“You go,” said Jupiter Jones.
“You’re kidding!”
“I’m not.” Jupiter’s voice was so low that the others could scarcely hear him over the bustle of the departing fellowship. “Go out the back, the way we came in. Make a disturbance. Climb the wall. Set off the alarm. Make them think they’ve scared everybody off. Then get to the car and tell Worthington I’ll meet