With a confident smile, Roger entered the nerve center of his secret headquarters. Shaped like a square twenty feet long by twenty feet wide, with a seven-foot ceiling, the chamber was entirely devoid of furniture. The walls were stone, the ceiling and floor both concrete. A pair of naked hundred-watt light bulbs provided the only illumination. More than anything else, the Spartan room resembled an army pillbox.

In the exact center of the room was a vermilion circle some nine feet in diameter. Roger had carefully painted it there a few days after moving into this mansion two years ago. Before that, a similar pattern, drawn in chalk, had decorated the living room carpet of his apartment. Vermilion was used because its color came from mercury and sulfur, key ingredients of the fabled Philosopher’s Stone.

Inside the first circle was a second, eight feet in diameter. Together, the two drawings resembled a round plate with a narrow rim. Names of great power were written on that rim, transforming it into a barrier that nothing evil could cross.

Inscribed inside the two circles were the Pentagram of Solomon, as specified in The Key of Solomon, the most famous of all magical texts. It was constructed with two points upward, symbolizing the twin horns of the infamous Goat of the Witches’ Sabbath. The sign of a black magician.

Nowhere was Roger’s exactness more evident than in the construction of the mystic design. Here his computer background served him well. One wrong MS-DOS statement and your program refused to run. One misdrawn line or incorrect symbol in your pentagram and all hell broke loose.

Roger knew quite well the dangers he faced practicing the black arts. The literature of demonology specified in gruesome detail the grisly penalties paid by those not extremely careful in their dealings with the inhabitants of the nether regions. Death was the least of the fates suffered by the unwary.