Bowels of the Holy Ground

Nina guides Joachim deep beneath the cliffs, trailing cloaked figures until they reach a vast cavern given over to a frenzied orgy. A bonfire in the center heats a great cookpot, dancers circle the flames, couples couple against the walls, and musicians play, everyone bare but for the players. Against one wall sits a hulking figure crowned with an enormous goat's head, ringed by women. Nina leads the frightened Joachim down, where women move to strip them both, and she happily gives herself over, coaxing him to flee the world with her. The whole scene is watched in secret by the strange creature from the Tower and by Luca, who has slipped in after Nina.

As Joachim tries to lie with Nina, his sight warps with flashes of light and blackened, writhing hands, and his grip seems to sink into her flesh, convincing him he has been drugged. Smoke rising from the fire takes the shape of a winged woman, whom the same prophet of the falcon hails as the Goddess of Flames, a vision Luca also sees, guessing narcotics have been stirred into the pot. Amid the fumes Joachim loses himself entirely, then comes to atop Nina, who leads him to the goat-headed idol to be converted. Under the drug's spell he kisses the figure's heart and its serpentine, seemingly living member, then drinks the boiling brew for his induction, only to feel something solid strike his lips.

Lowering the bowl, he finds a whole human finger in his mouth, which jolts him from the trance. Turning to the pot, he sees small bodies dissolving within it. Horror-struck, Joachim bolts, but Nina cries that he means to betray them and orders his capture. The cultists seize him outside and fling him down a nearby cliff, his last sight before the dark being Nina's deranged face.

The chapter runs twenty two pages within the Conviction Arc and first appeared in Young Animal issue 8 on April 9, 1999. The goat-headed presence and the veiled watcher tie into the Godhand member Slan and the Great Goat.