“Well, the sex, maybe so, this I can see; that’s a whole other story altogether. Never mind. But the ritual murders now, Father? That’s true? Now come on! Using blood from the newborn babies?” The detective was alluding to something else he had read in the book on witchcraft, describing how the unfrocked priest at Black Mass would at times slit the wrist of a newborn infant so that the blood poured into a chalice and later was consecrated and consumed in the form of Holy Communion. “That’s just like the stories they used to tell about the Jews,” the detective continued. “How they stole
...more
