Grimoire of the Lamb by Kevin Hearne Page A

stay on the inside of bodies, and there were a couple of smallish skulls on either end. Around the altar itself he’d drawn a couple of large circles, symbols of invocation and protection written along the circumference and ritual materials placed carefully inside. Adjacent to these were other circles—the summoning kind. Circles of binding with pentagrams. A telltale whiff of sulfur confirmed that he’d successfully summoned physical demons here, not just the spirits suggested by the first room’s circles. He had the seals of calling, binding, coercion, submission, and banishment painted perfectly between the points of the stars. Almost too perfectly.
    I scanned the altar again with a new suspicion. The two skulls were facing at exactly the same angle. He had some bowls full of ritual ingredients—salt and salamander tails, that kind of thing—and those bowls were precisely equidistant from one another. The candles were brand new and of the same kind. The ritual knife was placed perpendicular to the edge.
    I thought back to the guest bathroom with the air freshener and the primly folded towels. The order of the library. Even the studio, meant to look sloppy and spontaneous, had been carefully arranged that way. This guy was an obsessive–compulsive.
    It made sense. The precision required to be a practicing magician was no joke.
    I decided to mess with him. A fingernail’s scratch across the seals of coercion, submission, and banishment would drive him crazy. He’d spend hours repainting just to make sure everything was perfect. That is, if I didn’t kill him first.
    Golden figurines of Sobek, Amun, and Amun-Ra stood impassively on the altar, their dead painted eyes calmly awaiting tribute and sacrifice. I smirked; Elkhashab appeared to be hedging his bets on which form of Amun would get all the love. Amun had been a headliner in the early Egyptian dynasties, but he had to share top billing with Ra later on, and Sobek wasconsidered in some tales to be a manifestation of the combined god Amun-Ra. Elkhashab must be harboring doubts about which was to receive sacrifices from the
Grimoire of the Lamb
.
    This room was the last one. Nestled in the corner behind the altar, off to my left, a spiral staircase twisted up into the ceiling. If it led all the way up to the surface, that was how he smuggled stuff out of here. He would never leave his house with contraband when he was under surveillance; he would choose to emerge elsewhere.
    It also explained why he never went for the big score with a sarcophagus; never mind that it would invite too many inconvenient questions, there was no way he’d get one up through that wee well. I doubted he could get one up through the steep tunnel that led to his studio either. I wondered why he hadn’t installed a rudimentary lift instead. Too conspicuous?
    The staircase bore investigation. It was probably my best way out, after all. But the altar needed a closer look first. I circled it and discovered a small table nestled against the far side, almost like a hallway desk, yet lower in height so that it was invisible while looking at the altar from the direction I’d entered. Stacked on it were two sheaves of paper—no, parchment. Incredibly old stuff too, mostly illegible, the ink having faded and flaked away after centuries. In the magical spectrum, the writings were quite clear, however; they glowed with ancient hoodoo. I’d bet five biscuits that these were the writings of which Elkhashab had spoken—the writings of Nebwenenef.
    My immediate impulse was to destroy them, but I decided against it, figuring that Elkhashab would notice right away and know that someone had been there. Like everything else around the altar, the sheaves were placed and organized with attention to detail, and I didn’t want to give myself away yet. I’d definitely come back and take care of them before I left, however.
    I turned my attention to the staircase. It was a sturdy metal one; it didn’t creak