CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
It was as though the inside of Planet Earth had been scooped out, hollowed and emptied, leaving just this vast cavern that soared above them to a ceiling they could barely see.
A pale gray mist floated through the air, concealing the walls except for occasional glimpses of black stone. Set in the stone at regular intervals were high stained-glass windows, through which piercing sunlight flooded, even though they were deep beneath the earth.
The rays of light picked out features half hidden in the mist. Row after row of ornately carved wooden pews, on each of which sat an embroidered cushion, ready for kneeling at prayer. The pews were large and sturdy, but carved with delicacy, the figures and motifs unclear; they needed to be closer. There seemed to be flowers and trees depicted in the wood, amongst which creatures moved, some seeming to have horns on their heads, others apparently half human, half beast. The cushions were brightly colored, scenes of ritual and elaborate worship. Where there might be a crucifix there was an inverted cross, where there might be a Bible there was a skull.
‘This isn’t just a huge cave, is it?’ Kirby said.
It wasn’t possible that this far underground there could be light entering through the windows, but the sunlight was pure and bright. As they moved a little further into the cavern they began to see the images captured in the stained glass. They were all mockeries of the scenes familiar in any Christian church. The nativity scene of Mary holding baby Jesus in swaddling clothes was shown as a huge misshapen goat figure giving bloody birth to a monster, while all around creatures bayed and celebrated. These were not shepherds and wise men bearing gifts; these were twisted abnormalities leering and ranting. A scene that would normally be of Jesus on the cross was shown as a grinning devil clinging to the wooden cross by its lizard’s tail.
High above them the ceiling could be glimpsed as the mist began to fade. Somehow they could breathe easily, far more comfortably than back in the winding tunnels. There was a source of fresh air despite the depth. The ceiling was carved out of wood, unseasoned oak by the look of it. Huge chandeliers hung from crossbeams, black candles of thick wax set in holders, flickering flames casting sullen shadows onto the floor below.
As they made their way further inside they realized that they were walking along what in a church would be the aisle. Ahead of them, yards in front of them, was a wide altar, where more candles burned, next to incense burners and decanters of filmy red liquid. To one side of the altar was a font, the large stone lid removed and propped against the side. Steam rose from the water in the font.
‘This is a vast underground cathedral,’ Bayliss whispered. ‘I never read about this.’
Keep your mind closed.
McKinley heard Carter’s words spoken inside his head. It was the right advice. They didn’t know what they were walking into.
Along the stone walls, between the windows, were what seemed to be huge nets, hung from iron hooks set in the walls. The nets were coated in a wispy, grayish white material that resembled dried frog spawn. Inside the nets things were stirring.
As they reached the end of the aisle and stood in front of the altar lowly pitched, discordant organ music began to play. It was a twisted theme on Wagner’s Wedding March. The mist had almost cleared now, and they looked around them, once more experiencing a kind of awe at the sheer magnitude of the place. It was huge, but the perspective was unreal, the walls seeming miles away yet close enough to touch; the ceiling barely visible yet crowding in over their heads.
Noises behind them made them all turn. Kirby gasped.
‘How did we miss those?’ Bayliss said.
On the pews were dozens, hundreds, of shapes. Coated in the off-white material, cobwebbed and cocooned, they became visible as people. Hundreds of people seemingly stored, seemingly in suspended animation, sitting on the pews in mock devotion, waiting…but waiting for what?
They wouldn’t see them, there were too many there, but Michael Bennett, Farrant, Anderson, Casey Faraday, Sheila Thomas and Jo Madley were amongst those preserved.
Rustling above them made Carter and the others look around the walls. The nets were shaking, layers of the weblike material slewing off as the people inside struggled to get free. There was a low murmur as they moved, combined voices creating a hum of anticipation.
‘We should get out of here,’ Kirby said, her voice shaking with barely contained fear.
Carter wasn’t listening. He walked back down the aisle to a pew about ten rows from the front. ‘Sian?’
Staring sightless into space, tears cascading down her face, there was a ghost of a smile on her lips. It was Sian, wrapped in the restricting material, sitting calmly while all around her the others were shaking back to life. Suspended in the moment of their death and now being brought back to some kind of existence.
Carter put his hand on her shoulder and felt the viscous stickiness of the gauzelike webbing that coated her. Her mouth opened but no sound came out. She began shaking her head from side to side in a futile gesture of denial.
‘Sian, let me help you,’ Carter pleaded.
Someone coughed and a cultured voice with a pronounced Spanish accent said, ‘I am afraid she is beyond even your help, Mr. Carter.’
Kirby gripped Bayliss’s hand, and both of them moved instinctively closer to McKinley. Carter looked at Sian, who had sunk back within herself at the sound of the voice. The movement in the pews and on the walls also stopped, and it was as if the whole cathedral was holding its breath. Carter walked back to the others and stood next to McKinley.
The man in front of them was of medium height, average build; nothing about his physique was in any way remarkable. His thick black hair was swept back from a noble forehead, and his strong nose merely heightened the effect of his piercing blue eyes. A smile danced on his full maroon lips, a small neat beard emphasizing the line of his jaw. He was handsome but looked ordinary. He wore expensive clothing from centuries ago, the silk and velvet revealing he was a man of wealth. At his side was a sword sheathed in an ornate scabbard encrusted with jewels.
He affected a small bow. ‘Allow me to introduce myself,’ he said, the accent originally from the Valencia region of Spain. ‘My name is Alphonse deMarco. Welcome to my home for the past few hundred years.’
Sounding like a thousand cicadas waking simultaneously the figures on the pews and on the walls began their struggle to get free with renewed energy. The noise was almost deafening but deMarco had no difficulty in making his voice heard.
‘You are curious, naturally, especially you, Mr. Carter, as to why I have gone to such lengths to attract you here. Such elaborate planning, such extreme effort to recruit people you might wish to…to save. People like Mrs. Talbot.’ He flung his arm out to the right and Carter and the others automatically flicked their eyes in that direction.
Laid out on the altar, smothered in the hazy material, was Jane Talbot. Her eyes were opened, and she was tearing at the coverings. Her eyes were staring at Carter.
Carter began to move forwards but deMarco held up a hand to indicate he should stay where he was. ‘All in good time; a time to reap and a time to sow, as your good book says.’
‘If it’s me you wanted why did you have to…’
‘Why take Miss Davies, Mrs. Talbot…why take the many hundreds I have recruited through the centuries? The dear ladies ensured you would grace me with your presence; the others…the others are my soldiers, my army. I have been collecting them, recruiting and storing them, here in my humble cathedral; waiting for the moment when I can unleash them on my enemies.’
Bayliss stepped forward tentatively. ‘How can you have enemies? Those you fought are long dead, and no one else has ever heard…’
DeMarco laughed, and for an instant the writhing figures on the walls and the pews were still. ‘Please don’t accuse me of nonentity, Mr. Bayliss, it doesn’t sit well with my ego. You have heard of me, with your ceaseless research, though I accept that the world at large is unfamiliar with my name…for now.’ He walked a couple of steps from the altar and Bayliss shrank back. ‘Ask in the corridors of the Vatican, ask His Holiness, even now, even after centuries have passed, and my name is known.’
DeMarco allowed a cold smile to twist his mouth. He raised a hand and snapped two fingers.
The huge room seemed suddenly to be active, yet Carter couldn’t immediately see anyone or anything. At least nothing that stayed still long enough for him to identify it. The writhing figures were frantic with action now, some beginning to tear free of their bindings. In dark corners beyond the nave, hidden by stone pillars and arches, scuttling shadows darted about.
A sound like liquid flesh squeezing and pulling made him look upwards. From the ceiling indistinct shadows were erupting above his head and dropping like rain. Globules of darkness forced their way out through the wood and the plaster until they were in the open, and as they floated down they coalesced into shapes that were nearly human.
Then a large shadow fell upon him from behind and he was pulled to the floor. In the increasing blackness Carter thought he could see a black-robed form lying motionless on the floor beside Jane, holding her. Candles flickered around them, and quiet, frightened figures tried to hide in the shadows. The robed form had the shape of a man but was no longer a man. There was no face, just ruffles of hanging white skin, crinkled like paper, no eyes, and no mouth. The black robes hung deformed from the shriveled body, wasted, lifeless. The figure was like a cloud of smoke formed into a man-creature, a withered husk on the brink of death.
Carter felt pressure around his neck, as cold claws clamped into his skin. Talon fingers gripped the flesh, cutting deep, drawing out blood. He swung and turned to try to prize the fingers from him, and as he turned he saw what was attached leechlike to his neck. It was large, folded wings hanging to the ground, misshapen horns protruding from the head. The skeletal arms wrapped around Carter were covered in coarse black hair that had worn away in places, to reveal dark, paper-thin skin.
As Carter struggled against the creature he began to feel weaker, and the shadows reflected his weakness. And as the beast was draining the life from him, so the figure on the ground was stirring into new life, the black robes filling and swelling as Carter drifted into the darkness. All the time Jane lay quietly conscious, but her mind was switched off from the horror she was watching.
McKinley opened his mind and sent flashes of power surging into the creature attacking Carter. At the same time he probed into Carter’s brain, trying to send additional strength.
Carter felt the grip of the talons weaken as McKinley’s psychic surges began to take effect. He stoked energy in his brain, letting it coil like a snake until with a fierce flash he poured it into the creature. At once the skeletal arms fell away and the wings drooped to the floor.
By the altar the stirring figure lay still, larger than before but seemingly still weak.
DeMarco looked concerned, and a look of almost fondness masked his face. He turned to Carter, barely glancing at the creature floundering in the aisle. ‘My…my friend, Prime,’ he said, indicating the altar. ‘He has not survived the years as well as I.’
Carter kneaded the back of his neck. The claws had opened a wound but it didn’t feel too deep. Kirby took off her sweatshirt and was dabbing at the blood. ‘It’s just superficial. So long as there isn’t any infection.’
The creature that had attacked Carter still flopped on the floor. Kirby stood over it, raised one leg, and brought her foot down on the throat. Moments later, after she leaned all her weight into it, there was a snap of bone.
DeMarco turned and looked all about the cathedral. The shadowed figures that had seeped from the ceiling were pulling at the webbing on the walls, tearing it from the hooks that held it in place. As the material tore, the figures captured within were able to jump free, onto the stone floor, where they milled about like a crowd at a railway station. They made very little sound; Bayliss watched them for a few moments until he realized what was strange about them. Although they were clearly all human beings, men, women, some young, others older, and all were naked, there was blankness in their eyes. It was as if they were dead but hadn’t been told to lie down.
McKinley probed into the minds of some on the pews nearest to him—numbness rather than emptiness. It was a kind of suspended life that hovered between existence and death itself.
‘A technique I found in Haiti,’ deMarco said. ‘Not yet tested in battle but I have no fears about its efficiency. We have done several tests.’
When all the people on the walls had been released the gray-shrouded figures began to free those in the pews. Soon there would be thousands of them, silent but waiting.
‘When I say Prime has not fared as well as I have, I omit to reveal I do have a slight advantage. Prime is of course only human.’ DeMarco let a strange expression settle on his face, neither a smile nor a frown. It was the kind of expression that speaks of acceptance, of the end of resistance. He made a movement that looked as if he was scratching the back of his neck. Gradually the skin around his lips seemed to loosen. The folds of skin on his neck draped forward like a woman letting a silk nightdress slide to the floor. The shifting of his skin was accompanied by the most odd noise—the sound of wet tissue paper being folded, very quiet, very soft. The skin on his head flopped forwards onto his chest. With imperceptible movements behind his back deMarco continued to ripple his skin away from his body so that after a few moments it fell in rivulets from his waist. Still it continued to cascade away from him, the sound of faint tearing joined now by sighs of almost sensual pleasure. Carter realized the sounds were coming from the creatures around him, a kind of worship. As the skin finally peeled from the torso and dropped obscenely without a sound to the floor Carter was astounded when he bent casually, picked it up like a discarded towel, and hung it from a hook on the wall. What was left, without the cloak of human skin, was a nightmare.
There have been many depictions of the Devil over the years, from horned goat-beast, to sophisticated man about town. What stood in front of them was nothing at all like the artwork, nothing seen in the movies.
The face was ghostly pale, life long since extinct. Tatters of raw skin hung from the forehead and cheeks as if torn billboard posters that advertised an event that was a vaguely restored memory. Thin tufts of hair coated the bloated skull, coarse and gray and congealed at the sides where there should have been ears. Instead of ears a pair of thick, dark brown horns pointed upwards and slightly forwards. The body was heavy at the chest, bulging with muscle; beneath the ribs and across the stomach the skin protruded outwards where things captured inside the body were pushing for escape. Simian arms folded across the knees of legs that were powerful and long. The hands were thick at the wrist, with elegantly tapered fingers that waved in the air with talon-sharp nails of deep yellow. The legs were bent at the knees, hiding their length and width. The feet were webbed between stubbed toes that were curved into claws at the ends. From the pronounced backbone two white, withered wings hung forlornly, as though distant relatives long forgotten.
By far the worst aspect was the eyes. Burning red like the hot fires of Hell, they flared with anger and hatred. Ceaselessly open, with no lids or lashes, they were pools of evil that beckoned like beauty to embrace them.
The voice, when deMarco spoke, was, like the body, devoid of the cultured fa?ade he had adopted. ‘How the devil are you, Carter? Welcome to my future.’
Without warning Carter felt his left arm rise from his side until it was pointing at right angles to his shoulder. Then the right arm did the same until he was standing in front of the altar, his arms outstretched as if crucified.
‘An undignified pose I grant you; but it serves my purpose,’ deMarco said.
Bayliss was terrified but brave enough to step between deMarco and Carter. When he was closer to Carter he could see the effort and energy he was extending to resist. ‘You’re not Satan,’ he said. His tone was challenging, hiding the fear he felt. ‘Nothing I’ve read about you suggested anything other than you as an acolyte, another wannabe Satanist with delusions of grandeur.’
DeMarco laughed, a brittle sound of torn metal. He flashed his red eyes and Bayliss slumped to his knees, the pain in his chest so fierce he could hardly breathe. ‘Hurts, doesn’t it? That’s just the onset of the pain you’ll feel in about ten years when the lung cancer spreads to your liver. If you live that long. You really should have given up the cigarettes and the whisky, you know; don’t you read the packets? Smoking kills…’
Carter was being held and stretched. His arms were flung wide now, his chest straining against the force holding him.
Most of the people in the pews were released by now, and they stood with the others freed from the walls in a vast crowd, expectant, swaying slightly. The shrouded figures were placed at intervals on the periphery of the crowd, ready to herd them when deMarco instructed.
Kirby was helping Bayliss to his feet, pain and breathlessness etching lines into his face that hadn’t been there before. McKinley was delicately trying to probe inside Carter’s mind, feeling for the force that was controlling him.
‘Nick Bayliss is regrettably correct. Although I do seem to fit most of the characteristics, I am but a humble servant. Loyal and determined but a mere employee; and with few corporate benefits either…ah, well, eternal life has its compensations I suppose. But down to business; I needed you, Carter, for your mind; linking it with mine, along the Ley we are standing on will allow me to generate sufficient power to summon…you called him Satan, Bayliss. I call him Father.’
With sudden speed deMarco stalked down the aisle and grasped Carter’s left hand. The sparks that flew when their skin touched were like a power cable striking water. Carter flinched as if a dozen knives were penetrating his spine, and his organs felt as if they were swelling within him as the surge from deMarco began to build.
Before McKinley could attack him deMarco shouted to the gray-shrouded creatures at the back of the cathedral and seven or eight of them leapt upon McKinley, pinning his arms to the ground, covering his face with the drapes of their robes.
‘And now we can begin the Ascent,’ deMarco said, elation tingeing his voice.
As Carter braced himself, searching for an opening to exert resistance, there was a loud crash and one wall of the cathedral burst open, like the parting of the Red Sea. Through the wall poured hundreds of people, some holding incense burners, others flicking water from ornate containers, others reciting passages from the Bible.
With their attention diverted McKinley took his opportunity to free himself, his large frame and strength easily overpowering the bony creatures.
Carter felt deMarco yield and he managed to loosen the grip, but the force holding him in place was too strong and his arms remained outstretched, even when deMarco released his hand, watching as the wave of people flooded the cathedral.
The cathedral was now awash with people. Those nakedly released from storage milled zombielike, spilling out along the pews as the newcomers marched in, forcing the others back.
The shrouded followers of deMarco massed in front of them, two forces setting themselves for battle. Prowling like a caged tiger deMarco walked a few feet one way, turned, and stormed back. He was searching the intruders for someone he knew would be there; someone who had to be there.
Then he saw him. ‘Meyer!’ he shouted. ‘Klaus Meyer.’
‘The German,’ Bayliss said.
‘Muscular Christianity,’ Kirby murmured.
McKinley shook his head. ‘That isn’t any German. I’ve seen that guy’s picture in magazines back home. That’s Carl Anderson. He’s the father of Jessica Anderson, the woman Crozier introduced to us.’
An uncertain silence fell over the cathedral.
Meyer motioned his troops to be still and wait. He walked past the shrouded guards and advanced on deMarco. For his part deMarco moved past the font to meet him.
With a guttural growl of greeting, deMarco said, ‘Klaus Meyer, after all these years.’
Meyer gave a small inclination of his head and shoulders in a bow of acknowledgement. ‘I’ve gone by the name of Carl Anderson for the past sixty or so years, a successful businessman in America. Before that I was Clint Sybert, a respected surgeon working out of Canada. Before that I was in Europe, but these details are not of importance.’
With a wave of his hand deMarco offered disagreement. ‘On the contrary old friend…’
Meyer took two steps forward, his temples throbbing with anger. ‘Do not, ever, call me friend. You feign genuine surprise to see me, but we both know you’ve been stalking me all these years, as I have done you. My life has been long and under the protection of the papal authorities it has been prosperous.’
‘How is your lovely daughter?’
‘Jessica was a wonderful daughter in many ways but she was under your spell since the day she was born. I always knew it but she was my only daughter, and I loved her, even though I knew her every action was to serve you. It took much pleading with His Holiness to allow it, but eventually I was able to recruit women into my Jesuit order. So long as they remained a separate order the break with tradition was overlooked. My sister Celeste Toland formed the Sorority and Jessica joined eagerly, imagining I expect that she would be pleasing you by keeping close to the enemy. That is what you made my own daughter, deMarco, my enemy. No one ever suspected, not even Jessica, that Celeste and I are siblings; we managed to exude a facade of personal loathing. To the outside world we disliked each other intensely. Celeste and I did business together but because of our supposed hatred for one another, Jessica conducted those transactions. It helped Celeste keep track of what Jessica was doing in recent months. Perhaps having a fling with her was taking things a bit far, but Celeste gets wrapped up in her work.’
‘And the ladies are with you?’
‘All except Jessica; she can’t attend, she didn’t have time to send her regrets. But as you can see from my many companions, you are not the only one who has been assembling an army of followers.’
Carter tried once more to free himself but deMarco still held him firm. His whole left side was frozen by what ever power deMarco was exerting on him. Then, without warning, Carter felt a fierce surge down the right side of his body. Another force was joining in the control of him. As the right side and the left side burned with the intrusion it felt as if his body was being pulled in different directions.
Meyer had joined deMarco and they were using Carter’s powers as a conduit; battle had commenced. Meyer pulling in one direction, deMarco in the other.
DeMarco turned his back on Meyer; it was the signal. Heavy black rain began to fall from the ceiling, pricking skin with needle-sharp points where it touched. The floor began to vibrate, and then started to ripple like waves upon the shore.
The gray shrouds of deMarco’s followers were discarded and the winged demons that hid within were unleashed. They whipped and prodded the naked soldiers from the pews, urging them forward against the Jesuits.
Celeste issued her instructions and the well-drilled army deployed itself into position and began the fighting. Both sides had prepared for centuries, and neither would be satisfied with surrender.
The cathedral was filled with screams as blood spilled onto the stone floor, soaking into it as if into tissue paper. The light flooding through the stained-glass windows was like spotlights onto a stage, picking out thrusts of swords, slashes of claws. Everywhere were performances of hatred and anger. Limbs were severed, throats torn, as two beasts of armies clambered over each other.
On one side of Carter stood Meyer, on the other side stood deMarco. As deMarco thrust his power into Carter’s mind, trying to unlock the psychic strength, so Meyer probed, seeking to gain control so that he could send this Satanist back to the depths from which he was trying to summon further demons.
As the twin forces pulsed through his body Carter seemed to glow, his skin translucent. His back arched from the pain pulsing through him.
Carter could feel the ley line beneath his feet swelling and moving like an electric cable. Both deMarco and Meyer were trying to harness it to bring ever more troops into play. He was summoning all his strength to keep his abilities locked away so that neither side could use them. If weakened, he wouldn’t be able to predict what effect his powers allied to theirs would have.
He could feel the Ley expanding; something large was moving along it. He remembered what deMarco had called it, Father…
Suddenly Carter felt Meyer’s influence lessen. He opened his eyes and saw a flour-white and spindle-thin demon latched onto Meyer’s back, pulling his hands away from Carter’s. Like a hungry animal deMarco pounced. He shot bolts of electric energy through Carter’s arm, up along his spine and into his skull. The sparks flashed over his brain causing pain and confusion. With a roar of triumph deMarco pinned Carter’s consciousness and directed their joint powers into the opening of the ley line.
The lights dimmed, the candles fluttered, and the warring armies momentarily halted battle. Tongues of flame flicked from the dark opening of the Ley. The stench of open graves wafted out, as a black cloud of flies hovered over the entrance. And something very large began to force itself into the cathedral.
Carter felt a bolt of lightning enter his head, the pain so intense his heart seemed to shrink inside his chest.
It’s always been you, Robert.
On the altar Jane Talbot was sitting cross-legged, her eyes closed, her full attention on Carter.
I can’t compare with that but I can help.
McKinley had made Bayliss and Kirby hide down beneath a front pew, and he was standing beside Meyer.
The ley line had ripped open and claws more than six feet in length were scrabbling to gain entrance.
Carter, using McKinley and Jane, directed a fierce pulse of energy at the demon attacking Meyer and within moments it was killed.
As the immense head and shoulders emerged as if from the womb of the Ley, and the army of deMarco renewed battle with revitalized vigor, so Carter pulled in the others and for the first time he opened his mind fully. It was a risk, as deMarco was still there, but he moved quickly.
Jane was as powerful as Carter had predicted she would be. With McKinley using his power to the full they began slowly but systematically to repel deMarco. Piercing him with combined surges of psychic energy they gradually weakened him until he dropped away from Carter’s mind, and within moments dropped Carter’s hand. He was no longer in control.
DeMarco was on his knees, damaged, but he was crawling towards Jane.
Meyer was concentrating. There was a blinding light from above. It was as if the ceiling had evaporated and un-filtered sunlight was pouring down on them. It had a dramatic affect on deMarco’s followers. The naked conscripts folded at the knees and fell forwards as the bindings of darkness that had held them in suspended death dissolved and left them to their natural passing. The gray demons shrieked as the skin bubbled and flaked off them in the intense heat and brightness of the light.
The Jesuits recognized the source of the light and revered it, but took strength from its purpose and seized their victory.
As the brightness intensified so the ley line began to shrink, and as if cowering away from the pure source of the light the huge entity that had sought freedom slunk back to the dark depths.
The battle lasted a few moments more before stillness insinuated into the cathedral. The intense light receded and Celeste began shepherding her army away.
Carter and McKinley helped Jane from the altar. Her face was drained of color but to Carter she had never looked more beautiful.
Meyer said, ‘If you come with me there’ll be transport back to London, although even for the Department I think your report is going to make waves.’
‘You may want to file your own report first. Crozier thinks he’s God but your boss takes precedence.’
Meyer held out his hand and Carter shook it.
‘I’m afraid Sian Davies is amongst those who didn’t survive. Like my daughter she’s one of deMarco’s victims.’
‘So am I the only one concerned?’ Bayliss demanded. ‘There’s no sign of Alphonse anywhere.’ Kirby put her hand on his shoulder but he shrugged her off.
Meyer sighed. ‘It shouldn’t involve you anymore but I’ll track him down. If he escaped I’ll find him. He’s alone now.’
Carter looked at the others, felt Jane’s hand tighten in his.
‘We’re professionals. When we start a job we like to finish it.’