by Dennis Wheatley
1935, Hutchinson
Some good guy magicians are in spiritual battle with foreigners and the disabled. One level it kind of reminds me of the magic battle of Asian cinema, except that it's boring and almost nothing happens. Wheatley is capable of writing engaging thrillers, but this wasn't one of them.
Mostly just Duke de Richleau spitting out a random hodgepodge of supernatural knowledge: More candles! The sheets must be white and absolutely clean! The Germans did no wrong!
Standing out is one effective sequence involving Saiitii manifestations, which seems to be an homage to William Hope Hodgson's Carnacki stories.
"A dim phosphorescent blob began to glow in the darkness; shimmering and spreading into a great hummock, its outline gradually became clearer. It was not a man form nor yet an animal, but heaved there on the floor like some monstrous living sack. It had no eyes or face but from it there radiated a terrible malefic intelligence.
Suddenly there ceased to be anything ghostlike about it. The Thing had a whitish pimply skin, leprous and unclean, like some huge silver slug. Waves of satanic power rippled through its spineless body, causing it to throb and work continually like a great mass of new-made dough. A horrible stench of decay and corruption filled the room; for as it writhed it exuded a slimy poisonous moisture which trickled in little rivulets across the polished floor. It was solid, terribly real, a living thing. They could even see long, single, golden hairs, separated from each other by ulcerous patches of skin, quivering and waving as they rose on end from its flabby body–and suddenly it began to laugh at them, a low, horrid, chuckling laugh."
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