“Place is empty,” he said, “Be damned if it ain’t some freaky shit though,”

Phoenie could hardly restrain her smug satisfaction at the spooked look of Theseus’s face. At long last his narrow-minded view of the world was crumbling before his eyes, and there was nothing he could do about it! Taking the initiative, as a true leader should, she strode forward and stepped into the darkened chamber.

A quick sweep of her flashlight told her it was a circular room about ten meters in diameter, its wall curiously free of the graffiti that contaminated the rest of the underground network. It was the floor at drew her attention, however, painted as it was with large esoteric designs not dissimilar to those on the door. Geometric shapes and archaic runes joined together to form a large circle, not much smaller than the room itself, and judging from the dark red colour it looked as if it could have been drawn out with blood. If anything screamed ‘demonic sacrifice’ it was blood.

The others came blundering in after her, a multitude of flashlights revealing every cold, grey nook and cranny of the room in unison, from the tapered ceiling to the gash at the back of the chamber that led into further darkness.

“I’m assuming this must have been some kind of storage chamber,” said John, his sensors oblivious to the floor markings and more concerned with molecular dating and atmospheric analysis, “All evidence points to this as having been a dead end,”

“That’s fantastic,” said Theseus, “Now what’s with the shit on the floor?”

“It’s not a language I recognise,” said Andromeda, kneeling down to get a good look at the words, “It might be a secret code, but that’s not my area,”

Phoenie turned to Joel Gibson and Kaori Shimomura for an explanation, but the two Ravens were huddled as far away from the circle as the walls of the room could take them, neither willing to break out of their little security bubble. It was fortunate then, that the third Raven wasn’t so emotionally traumatised.

“It’s a magic circle,” said Lyra, “People use them to focus their magical energies and to perform spells and rituals. The bastards that holed themselves up down here were shamans – people who communicate with spirits – that got corrupted by whatever demon they connected with. They’d been sacrificing idiots to their master, no doubt. Those two over there got themselves mixed up in the whole affair and almost ended up dead,”

“Real world explanation?” asked Theseus.

“Well, I’m not sure,” said John, “I mean I’ve heard these circles get used as a means of focusing concentration, but the rest of it sounds like fantasy born from whispers and rumours. It might have been a small religious cult or tribe, hoping to appease their make-believe deity with human offerings,”

Even in such undeniable circumstances, the cynics were fishing for an excuse that satisfied their ignorance. Maybe they needed more proof. “Is it painted in blood?” asked Phoenie, the mere idea silencing the room. John and Theseus exchanged looks, then the former squatted down and ran his scanners along the nearest dark trail.

“Feel sorry for whatever poor creature they gutted to paint it,” said Theseus, but the slight tremor in his voice and his unusually crossed arms belied his attempted bravado.

“It’s blood,” confirmed John, “A-actually…” his voice trembled off and he had to place a hand on the stone to steady himself, “It’s human blood,”

Chapter 48
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