The Revelation
Rick was at the laptop when he noticed the picture by him. The goat head. It was an article copied from somewhere. It was about an ancient religion, he thought.
"The cult of the Larua is thousand of years old. The actual name for it is unknown, but was first sighted by Romans in the land of Israel in the first century BC. The goat head was their symbol and it was known for taking children to sacrifice. It was deemed as a protector of their land and at any event, such as the New Year or a coronation of a new king, a child would be sacrificed. Because of unhappiness this followed, only orphans were chosen."
Rick then turned the page. It had a Roman picture of soldiers attacking men in robes, children in chains, and taking them away. It looked like Renaissance. "The cult was allowed to carry on after the Romans stopped them, although told that if they dared practice inside Italia or take any freeborn children, they would be crucified. In AD 38, the cult moved to Italia after disagreements with the Hebrew people an taking their slaves caused problems. In Italia however, in the reign of Emperor Domitian (AD 81 to AD 96) the cult were caught taking and sacrificing a freeborn high-class Roman girl. The seven leaders were crucified while the rest were made as slaves to the emperor.
He carried on. "In about AD 100, still in Italia, the cult began dispersing but they said their god Larua, a creature with a pointy face and had created the goat head as recognition of his place there, would kill orphans. The only known cause was when in circa AD 278, in modern day Spain, an orphanage in the coast burnt down. The cult said they killed orphans using the elemental methods of air, fire, water and earth. They said they would strange or hang, burn or give for bowel inflammation, drown or make blood flow, or bury alive."
That seemed to match with the murder methods. So it seemed someone was taking advantage of the cult, or maybe a member themselves working in care, and killing orphans this way.
"The cult was written about again in the renaissance but the Catholic Church refused to have anything symbolising it in art. However, pictures of goat heads were often seen around the cities of Italy, then states, often at murder sites. The rumours were someone was copying the Larua method and killing orphans like this. One way of death were sometimes when a whole orphan house was murdered except one child who would never be found. This child is usually over the age of three but under the age of fourteen."
Rick looked at a part labelled Modern Day. "In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in Italy, some places where orphans we reliving were found to have goat heads drawn on the walls, although these were often covered up by authorities. In about 1780 the murders stopped but were common in France and Austria. In about 1860, they were first reported in Germany and Switzerland. The ones after the 1930s are vague because the murders may have been committed by Nazis or bombs. Nevertheless, those who still believe the cult is around and killing say the murderers are likely somewhere in Europe. They have listed modern possible murders online."
Rick went on the site and found a list of dates murders may have taken place. He wasn't interested until he saw Great Britain and Ireland. On it, he read the first possible one was the one at Christmas 1964. His blood chilled as he read that prior to that, a murder had been committed at an orphan house in 1953 in France, the possible starting link, where the whole boarding house was found to have burst pipes.
It had the names of the other orphanages below. It also said that if, and Rick knew this, a child was about to go to one orphanage, before they could, at an event, the child would be taken by cult members and everyone else killed.
So…the last one was in Essex and BB had been due to come here…but why wait so long?
Then Rick had a horrible thought. Maybe the videos languished in boxes for years and the first event after they were watched was the night the cult came? So someone at the Christmas house must have watched the videos between Halloween and Christmas, though those ones had vanished, being so long, and the one on New Year must have seen them in the few days between Christmas and New Year. And it went on.
Right, Rick thought, he'd look and see. What event came soon? At the most it would be Christmas, when the police would come round and arrest these people in the act. Then he froze.
He knew exactly what holiday would come next/