The Master's Apprentice - Oliver Potzsch Page 0,241

a man insane! If he turned left, freedom and a fresh start awaited him. Together with Faust, the letters that threatened his safety would vanish. And the fire that was burning so hot inside him now would go out sooner or later. But if he turned right . . .

The coal marks could lead him back to the cemetery, but they also showed the way to the prison. Karl felt certain he’d be able to find the way back to the underground hall from there. It hadn’t been far.

Left or right.

Swearing under his breath, Karl stood up. He cursed God, the world, and the doctor in particular, and turned right.

The marks on the walls led him back to the well below the prison. There still were no sounds coming from above. Karl turned around and tried to remember which way they’d gone earlier. The humming and chanting led him in the right direction. A few minutes later he was back in the cellar in front of the double doors. The crate with the laterna still sat where he’d left it in his panic.

Cautiously he sneaked back to the open door and peered into the crypt. The masked men were humming and murmuring strange-sounding spells, while their leader in the apse had pulled his hood back over his head.

On the altar, Greta had been replaced by the doctor.

Karl clenched his fists. Was his master already dead? Blood was dripping from Faust’s right hand, which someone had bandaged after that madman had cut off his finger. His head had flopped to one side, and his eyes and forehead were also bandaged with rags. What in God’s name had those men done to the doctor?

Now the leader was raising the curved dagger he had used to cut off Faust’s little finger. The chanting stopped.

“The first and second sacrifice are complete!” bellowed the man in the robe. “The beast is awakening from its sleep—I can hear it! I can hear it stir deep in the innards of the earth. Homo Deus est!”

“Homo Deus est, Deus homo est!” chanted the masked men in a frenzy.

The leader held the dagger high up in the air, just like a priest lifting the cup during the Eucharist. It looked as though he was asking for the weapon to be blessed.

“O Spiritus Mephistophiel, Madeschea, Diabola, Larua . . . threefold spirit from hell . . . Sanguis tuus, cor tuum . . .”

Karl had given up trying to make any sense of the twisted Latin terms and names, but the last phrase he understood without a problem.

Sanguis tuus, cor tuum . . . Your blood, your heart.

He had a horrible suspicion about what would come next. The black monk would ram the dagger into Faust’s body and slit him open like a fish so he could tear out his heart. Dark spells and invocations still poured from the leader’s mouth, but it couldn’t be long before the dagger shot down. Karl looked around with panic. Was there no way to stop the ritual or at least disrupt it for a while?

His eyes fell upon the laterna magica sitting on the ground, and from there to the small lantern in his hand. The flame was very weak, but it still burned. Karl’s hands shook. He had plenty of practice setting up the apparatus quickly. Would there be enough time?

He yanked the crate closer, opened it, and pulled out one of the oil-drenched cloths they had brought along. He held it to his lantern, which had just about gone out. When the rag was alight, he used it to light the oil lamp inside the laterna magica. Then he adjusted the tube until the glowing circle of light was directly on the back wall of the apse.

The men in the underground church cried out with surprise, and their leader broke off in the middle of his litany. Annoyed, he turned around and spotted the circle, which was hovering and flickering like a supernatural being.

A not very human sound escaped the monk’s throat. It sounded like the angry growl of a wolf.

Then Karl inserted the first glass plate his hands could find.

Johann woke up and stared into the darkness.

Where was he? What had happened? Scraps of memory returned and slowly came together to form a complete picture. Tonio . . . the underground hall . . . the black potion . . . a baptismal font with blood . . . his daughter, almost naked and lifeless on an altar . .