For centuries magicians have compiled grimoires to call up demons. In Victorian London, an ambitious warlock called Peter Owling designs a book to summon the Lord of Demons himself - Satan - and thereby achieve eternal life. But not even his beautiful young acolyte, Christian, grasps the full extent of his master's plans ...
In twentieth century Melbourne, a group meets in secret at Humberstone College, dedicated to reassembling Owling's book. But there are others meeting at Humberstone, too; three postgraduate students drawn to the College's mysterious past, its gloomy underground labrynth, and what they come to suspect are its current secrets. A beautiful young man appears to one of them in a mirror. He seems to carry a warning ... but can his dreadful story be true? (Publisher's blurb, back cover).
Epigraph: Let Love clasp grief lest both be drowned, Let darkness keep her raven gloss. Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss, To dance with Death, to beat the ground,
Than that the victor Hours should scorn The long result of love, and boast, 'Behold the man that loved and lost, But all he was is overworn.' Alfred, Lord Tennyson
I gotta keep movin', I gotta keep movin' ... There's a hellhound on my trail. Robert Johnson
