Again, towards the final stages of yet another Masterton masterpiece, reaching the duly expected, frightful catharsis of The Pariah (1983) I have unearthed a chilling and macabre tale of an Aztec demon, Mictantecutli (king of netherworld Mictlampa), that in the late 1600s was subdued and brought from Mexico to a small coastal town i Massachusetts to scare the bejesus out of the local populace and drive them even further into zealous religous mania. But as the demon is so powerful, rejected from both Heaven and Hell, he is a pariah that feeds on souls, warmth, and human hearts, and his killing and possessing of three young women is the instigator of the famed Salem witch trials at the end of the 17th century. Finally, the puritan preacher David Dark and his partner i crime, Esau Hasket, realise their mistake in bringing this terrible skeleton creature of Mictantecutli, The Fleshless Corpse, and with the help of an old Narragansett medicin man they passify and cage the evil monster and try to sail away with it. However, the ship sinks just outside the harbour and with its cargo it lies at the bottom, preserved in tons of sand... and so, after almost 300 years, it's time for the monstrous being to finally be released. But the help from a human is needed...
The Pariah is, to this point at least, a well-written and enjoyable read that is again different from his most early work just a few years before -- as with Family Portrait it is more detailed and complex in plot and characters, and what it might lack in drama and viscera in comparison is somewhat gained on a more focused descriptions of haunting ghosts in the homes and lives of the main characters. In other words: it's not yet as bloody as it is creepy. That said, I also have to mention the famed manitou of Misquamacus seems to make a cameo appearance in the manservant and wonderwoker alike -- Quamus. Now ain't that dandy!
One last word: To whom it may or may not apply -- the word PARIAH means "outcast" or "untouchable"; the fish that comes in great numbers and eat you are called PIRANHA, as the Dante and Cameron movies, right ... ;-)
