The Dry Grimoire

Frank Sinn was a collector. He collected the worst of humanity, it's grisliest side, the detritus of depravity and the spoils of degradation.

Shunning the modern world and it's irrelevant chattels, Frank Sinn collected the Satanic; it's deadliest artefacts and most heinous of texts. He sniffed out Darkness and willingly scratched it's underbelly, grabbing whatever emerged in his gluttonous hands.

Sinn left behind him broken families, ruined lives and bankrupt souls. His quest for the demonic knew no bounds and he would have defiled his own kin to get nearer to Him.

He believed the answer to his place in Hell lay in the sceptic scrawl of grimoires, the dreadful tomes of Hades inked by the most terrible of underlings.

Sinn had them all except for one. The bloodiest volume of all, the foul Trockenes Heft, the dry Grimoire, it's fetid vellum penned with the blood of virgins and nuns, their open veins filling the quills of ravenous ogres as they feverishly scribed the manual of damnation, the most important words ever to be uttered from Lucifer's massive burning maw, drying the pages to an unreadable crisp as they went. 

It is said that the Fallen One himself sealed the book shut, his pointed claw, the lock's very key, snapping off and tumbling into the irksome tumult of Men's bloody history before he could find it again and for millennia thought lost forever from man and Beast.

Yet, after years of painstaking sleuthing and arcane skullduggery, incredibly a mysterious relic came to Sinn's attention and through some murderous and nefarious deed in the dead of night, he had stolen what he thought was the key to the Trockenes Heft from a young and penniless fool, who had offered to sell this thing to him via the web. Meeting in an alley and witnessing the gloating in Sinn's eyes, the youthful seller perilously held out for more, much much more. 

Lust and deceit are the shrapnel of greed, both qualities dear friends of the thuggish Sinn. With the object now dripping red from his own hand, the collector envisioned that magnificent book-clasp bound shut from all but the most evil of men. Men like Sinn, who had cut and slit a path of gore in that alleyway, and many more, to now himself possess that uniquely powerful key, the claw of Satan himself.

'With this rare and beautiful defiler I can open the doors of death itself, then rightfully enter the ranks of the uppermost fiends and stand at last beside the Beast, a place I have surely earned: where surely I belong. All I need now is the grimoire'.

Knowing much of avarice and unquenchable desire, Sinn sensed the book was out there in the shadows, owned by a man much like himself, a seeker of the foulest of truths, an acolyte of the Fallen One, but a man without the key.

Sinn placed a simple message in blood in the dank toilets of a bar devoted to the Night and it's denizens. 

'I have the key. You have the book. It's time we met.'

He waited a week before returning late in the night. 

The reply was thus, smeared in thick red gore:

'You will find me in the city's abattoir this midnight.'

Sinn wasted no time and drove to the slaughterhouse. He checked his phone and entered on the stroke of twelve.

'Hello!'

Sinn yelled into the vastness, it's cloying odour of innards and meat a sweet bouquet to his twisted sensibilities. He liked this place.

A short stocky man stepped out of the darkness, his hirsute and muscular forearms thick with blood and his apron drenched scarlet. On his large round head he wore a fraying skullcap and in his hand an old cleaver glinting in the jaundiced light of the moon.

'You have the book?' Sinn asked.

The butcher nodded.

'You have the key?' he asked in return.

Sinn nodded too.

The butcher placed his cleaver on the ground and dragged a living piglet into view.

He spoke commandingly.

'Then let us, the chosen pair, agree to bring things together and drink the drink to He who would welcome our pact, the ancient cupping of fresh hot swine blood'.

The cleaver glistened as it fell and swiftly severed the animal's tight neck, it's steaming life-fluid filling two tall goblets with fresh crimson liquid.

Handing one to Sinn, the short bloody man raised his own and spoke again:

"A toast to the Deceiver, a toast to the Lord of Lies".

Gleefully Sinn downed the hot ferrous fluid and smiled with reddened teeth.

It was morning when he woke in his apartment. He was sat in his favourite armchair, the fire blazing and an empty plate, wine bottle and glass were on the side table, evidence of a meal the night before but one he struggled to recall at all.

Sinn felt sluggish and thick-headed. It must have been a heavy dinner. Perhaps too many chops with bread and gravy and too much claret. 

He had dreamt it all. And how he had dreamt. The book, he remembered. It had all been a glorious dream, but sadly, infuriatingly, nothing more.

He attempted to stand but his body seemed cumbersome, as if pinned to the chair. He sat back down and stared at the hellish flames. 

'Good morning!'

A semi-familiar voice rang out from the deep shadows cast by Sinn's velvet curtains. 

Sinn looked round agitatedly.

A figure arose from the armchair in the deepest dark.

'It is I, Mr. Sinn!'

Sinn stared in disbelief at a short stocky man covered in blood. The same man from his dream. He held a wet cleaver in his hand and a long needle and thick thread caked in gore. 

The butcher!

'Yes, the butcher Mr. Sinn. I am he, here in your fine apartment. I brought you home, where I enjoyed a pleasant meal of kidneys I found, breads and wine, whilst admiring your impressive collection of trinkets and what-nots all dedicated to ..... Well, Me!'

Sinn blinked and the butcher stood. He was taller now and removed his cap to reveal short sharp horns. His body was blood-red, his wet skin steaming by the fire and his tufty cloven feet clicking as he moved on the laminate floor.

'Yes, Mr. Sinn. I am the one you seek. The Master of Misrule, the Snake of Derision, the Lord of Evil. I am Satan.'

Sinn gasped. He was agog. This was the moment he'd waited for all his life. His vast collection had brought him to this point and now before him the true God had visited, assuredly to invite him to stand at his side in the infernal halls of Hell.

He tried to stand but couldn't. He was so damn heavy this morning.

'No need to stand Mr. Sinn. Remain seated. After all you're full up. Full as a gun. Stuffed to the rafters with no room to spare. You are literally bursting at the seams. Let me show you my friend.'

Satan bent down and undid Sinn's heavilly-stained shirt. Sinn stared down at his belly, grossly distended and moving in the firelight. In the centre was a long angry incision all the way down to his groin. It's reddened, ragged edges had been roughly stitched together with thick twine. Juices seeped out all along the cut.

Sinn looked at Satan imploringly.

'Oh, yes, why are you like that. Of course, I'll tell you. I have been searching for my claw for centuries. Without it I cannot read my old book and prepare for the final battle with that pathetic Nazarene. You found it for me, my claw, Mr. Sinn. My book, the Trockenes Heft, scribed by my furious ogres in the land of the Hun, requires blood to re-awaken. It must be soaked in a willing disciple's blood for one whole arc of night. The disciple will unfortunately be no more once I retrieve my satiated tome, but we all have to make sacrifices don't we Mr. Sinn.'

The bemused Sinn gasped in horror as Satan took the claw from his inside coat-pocket and re-attached it to his finger. He stooped and inserted the talon straight into Sinn's navel and proceeded with a brutal upward cut and violently sliced through the course twine stitching.

Sinn screamed as his belly was rented apart and his rib cage sprang open like a cupboard, revealing the bulging Trockenes Heft stuffed carelessly within. Glistening red and pulsating, it began to move down and out as Sinn's slick entrails slid from his midriff onto the floor. The book was carried fat and quenched straight to the hooves of the Beast, who picked it up with a loving grin.

'Why thank you Mr. Sinn. I've always appreciated the more able amateur collectors in my flock. I think you've been the best. And what a fabulous decanter you made too, willing and wide open for business.'

The Devil snickered.

'Too bad you're of no more use to me. And certainly not that other fellow, whose days are numbered!' He chuckled.

Turning with his writhing grimoire the Dark One clicked his now complete clawed fingers and Frank Sinn burst into flames and he and his collection was never seen again by any living soul.