Church of Sin (The Ether Book 1) (3 page)

The lock snapped back and Alix found herself in a small room and another door directly ahead. The walls were brick, the floor concrete. In the corner there was a small desk behind which Alix recognised the pale
man who had introduced himself earlier as Ned. He was sat hunched over a laptop and didn’t look up when they came in. Other than that, the room was bare.

Alix he
ard the clank of the door close behind her.

“Doctor Omotoso,” said the lawyer, “this place is completely unethical and I will not participate anymore in this abomination! I demand that my client be transferred immediately to a psychiatric hospital where he can be placed under the care of
real
professionals, not amateurs like you and your pet over there!”

His face had become even redder and he had developed a nasty rash around his neck. She backed away in the corner hoping not to become involved.

“Listen, mister, calm down,” said Omotoso. “We’re guys doing jobs, like I said. You want to make noise when your otta’ here and shout and whatnot then fine, be my guest. They’ll stick you behind bars quicker than you can tear up that little piece of paper that you signed, though.”

“
I will
not
be spoken to like a school boy, Doctor!” He was close to shouting and Alix felt compelled to at least try and lend a hand. He was right about the only-doing-a-job bit she supposed and that probably warranted the benefit of the doubt.

“Listen, I have a patient to assess. Can this wait?”

“Oh, I see, you have a patient to see? Well that’s great. Don’t you care that your patient is being held in this unhygienic, backwater prison?”

“Yes, I do care. But these people can’t do anything about it. Just like
you
can’t. So can we just get on with what we’re here to do?”

He seemed to calm down a bit and resorted to huffing a lot and scribbling in his notepad.
Omotoso looked embarrassed and Alix felt he wanted to tell her something but he couldn’t speak openly. Ned seemed unimpressed by the whole exchange, like it didn’t even matter to him. But Alix noticed him watching her out of the corner of his eye. She felt very anxious in this room full of testosterone.

“Can I see the professor now?” she asked, turning to Omotoso.

“Of course.”

She stepped forward to a door on the other side of the room. It seemed the same as every other door except this one was controlled by a key pad to the right. Omotoso paused before entering the code.

“Just stay cool in there, okay?” he said to her.

“What do you mean?”

He hesitated before responding.

“
There’s a yellow line drawn across the floor of the room. Stay
this
side of the line. That’s the only rule.”

She looked at him. His expression was quite serious. She turned back to the lawyer.

“Aren’t you coming in with me?”

He shuffled his feet a little before saying, “I’m sure I can monitor your conversation with the professor from out here, thank you.”

“You drove all the way out here, banged on about human rights and how poorly your client is being kept but you won’t talk to him?”

“I’m perfectly happy out here, thank you.”

She shrugged her shoulders, Omotoso hit the numbers, and she was in.

Chapter 6

Alix stepped forward gingerly. She was inside a room similar in size to the one she had come from, no larger than twenty yards either way. White washed brick walls. Windowless. Airless. This was no treatment room. There was no bed, no curtains, no cabinets, sinks, pin boards, plants. Nothing. This wasn’t a hospital. It wasn’t even a prison by modern standards.

The yellow line Omotoso had mentioned dissected the room about half way giving her about ten feet of movement. Other than that, and the figure sat hunched
over himself in the far corner, the room was nothing more than an empty box.

She couldn’t see Anwick’s face. J
ust a mass of wiry hair, as white as the brickwork, falling about him and hiding his features. To her horror, she saw he was cocooned tightly in a pale orange straightjacket, arms bent round his back and secured with various clasps and buckles like a snared fly is woven into a spider’s web.

“Jesus,” she murmured. They’d stopped using straightjackets decades ago. “What is this place?”

She felt her heart rise up through her chest and lodge itself in her throat. There was a vulgar smell of stale urine in the air. She covered her mouth to try and stop herself from gagging. She took a moment to settle herself before taking another step forward and addressing the hunched figure.

“H
ello,” she said. “I’m Doctor Franchot. I’m a psychologist. You’re Professor Anwick?”

The heap in the corner didn’t move, other than as a result of his laboured breathing. There was something so very
feral
about him, and more animal than man at that. Alix took another step forward and lowered to her knees. She didn’t want to appear threatening in any way, although she felt sure that if anyone was going to feel threatened in this room it was more likely to be her.

“Professor? Can you hear
me?”

There was no response and she suddenly felt very inept. This man was suffering from a complex mental disorder. She wasn’t trained to deal with him. She stole a look at the security camera over her shoulder. Surely any minute now Omotoso and the lawyer would stride in and take over. It was obvious she didn’t know what she was doing. She swallowed hard but her mouth was dry. The feeling of nausea
had returned.

An assessment, Baron had told her. Christ, this was her first assignment in her new role. Not exactly what she had been employed to do, or so she thought. But good experience, Baron had said. Had he
any
idea what he had set her up for?

“Professor Anwick? Eugene?” You’d have to be an idiot not to detect the tremor in her voice,
she thought; see the beads of sweat begin to form on her brow, the uncertain way she held her hands on her knees for support, her arms trembling slightly. She felt a fraud, a fraud on the verge of detection. What had Omotoso said about the alternative personality? His words seemed to make no sense now she thought about them. Shit, had she even been listening?

Azrael. That was it.

“Azrael?”

Anwick looked up so suddenly she thought her heart might burst from her ribcage.
She stared at him. His face was plain but with crooked, angular features. They looked like they had been drawn by a child. His skin was an unhealthy yellow colour, his lips thin and cracked. Eyes were no more than slits of black etched into an emaciated facade but she could see they were full of anger, resentment and hunger. Professor Anwick had the appearance of one who had suffered the agonies of Hell itself only to have been regurgitated and coughed up kicking and screaming back into the world.

“Azrael,” Alix said again quietly. Now that she had Anwick’s attention she stood up
slowly and took another step forward.

“What do you know about Azrael, child?” Alix had expected Anwick’s voice to match his face: deep and textured.
But it couldn’t have been more different. She had expected the rasp of a demon but instead what she heard would have been more likely to have belonged to a young girl: soft, lyrical, benign.

“My name is Alix, Azrael. I’m a psychologist and I’m here to
talk to you. Do you know why you’re here?”

Anwick tilted his head
purposefully to the side, as if he wanted to appraise his interviewer from a different angle. “Is Megan alive?” he asked.

“Yes. Megan’s alive. But Katelyn’s
dead.”

It had been a week since Anwick had been found weeping softly over the broken body of
little Katelyn Laicey in a barn eight miles south of Bristol. Her nine year old twin sister, Megan, had been hidden away from the media in a safe house in Lincolnshire. Anwick would be tried for Katelyn’s murder in the New Year.

“He’ll come for her,” said Anwick.

“Who’ll come for who?”

“Megan. The Harbinger will come for Megan.”

“Who’s the Harbinger, Azrael?”

“He is the Bringer of Death, the one who will release untold evil into this
World. But these things are beyond your comprehension, child.”

“No one will come for Megan,
Azrael. She’s safe.”

“She’s not safe!
We
are not safe. This World is not safe.” Anwick shook his head mournfully, bowing low and groaning with pain. “We’re not safe.”

“Azrael,” said Alix carefully. “Can I speak to the Professor?”

“No. The Professor is a broken man, no longer capable of controlling us. I cannot fix him. He is beyond redemption. I don’t know how this has happened.”

“Can you remember anything at all?”

“Very little. But it’s of no consequence what I can remember. Anwick’s mind is deteriorating fast, as am I. I have precious little time. Do you have the key to this cell?”

Alix didn’t think he
r heart was capable of beating faster than it already was but something about the way he asked her so casually about the cell key forced her into overdrive.

“No. I don’t have the key.”

“Is
he
there? Outside, I mean?”

“Is who there?”

“Satan’s lapdog, of course. The Russian.”

Jesus, did he mean Ned?
“If you mean-”

She never finished her sentence. She was cut off. Indeed, w
hat happened next was something that Alix would never forget. Anwick’s movements were as agile as a leopard, willowy and graceful. He cut down the distance between them before she had time to react, sweeping across the ground like a violent tempest surging through a valley until his propulsion was cut short as suddenly as it had started and he jolted to a halt two feet in front of her but not before his arms – not restrained in the straightjacket as she had assumed but merely tucked behind his back – reached for her. Hands clasped themselves around her neck and she found herself being hauled towards him and over the line.

She was helpless in his grasp
. His extraordinarily powerful body wrapped itself around her, his arm moved around neck. The force was enough to take the wind out of her.

“Fuck!”

She was choking, facing the door she had come through, Anwick behind her, breathing down her neck, barking at the camera.

“Russian! Untie these chains or I
’ll break her neck!” There seemed to be more to his voice now, a low rumble underneath the higher pitch, as if his voice was no longer one but a chorus of atonal harmonies.

“Jesus, what the fuck!?”

She struggled helplessly but she was completely overpowered. She was able to take hold of the arm under her chin but it wouldn’t budge. It was as if she was caught in the unmovable embrace of a concrete statue.

“Hello?” Alix yelled at
the camera. “Some assistance?” A thought struck her. What if the camera was fake? Mercifully, the thought evaporated quickly as the door opened and Omotoso appeared in front of them, arms outstretched like a hostage negotiator, the fear and concern evident from his face.

“Now Professor,” he said
slowly. “Let’s just calm down, shall we. Neck broken or otherwise, you’re not getting out of here and she’s done nothing to upset you.”

“I mean it, Edwin. Keys.” There was no trace of anxiety, no hint of concern in the way Anwick spoke. Just the same velvety
, girl-like voice but underpinned now by something deeper and more urgent.

“I can’t do that, Professor. You know I can’t.”

He lifted his arm upwards and for a second her feet rose from the ground beneath and she was choking for air.

“I’ll kill her, Edwin. You know I... wait.”

He dropped his hold a little and she gasped for breath. Then his hands were pressing down on hers. His skin was cold and clammy, like wet leather. What the Hell was he doing? Then suddenly she was free of him, staggering forward, collapsing into Omotoso’s arms. She had no idea what made him release her but she felt a relief like no other. She turned to look. Anwick had retreated back against the wall and was adjusting the cord tied around his waist. She hadn’t seen it before but it must bind him to the wall, allowing him to move as far as the yellow line. She would have been safe if his hands had actually been restrained in the straightjacket.

“I apologise.” He looked at her directly and there was genuine sorrow in the way he spoke.
“I did not know you were a Host. I will trouble you no more.”

Chapter
7

Parkview Abbey had seen many a storm in its illustrious history but
rarely one so violent as that which now raged over its dual towers. Rain pelted down on old, opaque windows and the thunder – that mighty demon of nature – rumbled dangerously in the background.

Underneath
the shelter of a small porch the sound of the water falling from the overflowing gutters was deafening and the two people that stood at the door – an extraordinarily tall and stern looking woman and an older, and considerably shorter, gentleman wearing a tweed three piece suit – had to shout to be heard. Standing just inside the entranceway watching the exchange was a young girl of nine. She had a delicate, freckly face framed by long, straggly golden hair. The look she bore was hard to place. At first glance, it was nothing more than the look of vacancy that all children sometimes display when they are lost in their own thoughts. But a second look revealed something more complex. An acute feeling of sadness hung over her; as if her entire life all she had known was a deep, unrelenting unhappiness.

“Has she spoken since the incident?” called out the old man
. He had a slight German accent.

“Not a word,” replied the tall woman. Somehow, her ability to talk above the clatter of the rainfall seemed effortless. “But then that’s hardly
surprising. Your role is to look after her and keep her safe until we can apprehend the Harbinger.”

“I can but try, Mrs Harker.”

“I’ve told you before not to call me that.”

“My apologies. A slip of the tongue. When did she last eat
, Lilith?”

“
She hasn’t.”

“You should have at least tried to give her something, Lilith.”

“This child is lost in a world caught between the living and the dead. She is neither. A solid ghost. Food is hardly relevant to her.”

“
Perhaps.”

The tall woman thought for a while before saying, “I must travel back to London tonight. It’s late already. You do appreciate the importance of keeping the girl safe,
Ephraim? You are of course aware of what’s at stake?”

“Of course I do,
Lilith,” the old man said angrily.

The tall woman nodded, and then, seeming
ly satisfied, turned back to the car across the courtyard.

The old man hung his head sadly and watched the car spin out of
the courtyard and ride away into the night through the storm. With a sigh, he shut the mighty door and turned to the young girl that now occupied his hallway and who looked very wet and very out-of-place.

“You’re safe now, Megan,” he said and she looked up at him and into his eyes. He took a step back as he gazed at her. He rubbed his face gravely as he studied her forlorn figure.
Caught between the world of the living and the world of the dead.

A solid ghost.