Authors: Peter Flannery
‘
Where are you? Where are you?
’
The road climbed a small rise and
Steve remembered that the first junction lay a mile or so beyond. If he had not
found the van by then which road would he take? How would he decide? He shut
away the doubts and screamed up the hill. And when he reached the top his
spirits rose.
The traffic had come to a
standstill, queuing all the way up to the junction almost a mile ahead. Nothing
that had come through here in the last twenty minutes had passed through this
jam. The van must still be there.
Steve sped down the long slope
and picked his way through the standing traffic, searching all the while for
sight of the black Mercedes van.
The first quarter mile… nothing.
Halfway through and still no
sign.
Steve’s heart felt like a heavy
lump of stone as he reached the end of the traffic jam.
The van was not there.
‘
I’ve lost him,
’ thought
Steve. ‘
Oh God, I’ve lost him
.’
The bike idled impatiently as
Steve sat astride it in the middle of the road. Cars honked at him but he did
not hear them. He was fighting to keep despair at bay.
‘
Where did he go? Where the
hell did he go?
’
Steve had definitely seen the van
come onto the dual carriageway. So where was it now?
‘
He must have turned off?
’
concluded Steve.
That was the only answer. The
killer must have turned down one of the private side roads. But which one?
There was no way of knowing and it was foolish to try and guess.
Steve would have to check them
all.
*
Lucifer would waste no time with
the witness. The light of providence shone upon him. The sudden appearance of
the guardian angel proved it so. He had thwarted the angel but still he must
act quickly. There would be no mistakes tonight.
He locked the van in the barn, carried
the witness into the chapel and laid him at the foot of the altar. He took the
short-bladed fist-dagger from the altar and cut off his clothes. Then, leaving
the witness naked on the floor he went to change.
When he returned the witness was
starting to come round, shivering and moaning round the wire gag in his mouth.
Lucifer stood over him and began
to pray.
*
Steve crossed the central
reservation through one of the gaps reserved for emergency vehicles. Now
heading back the way he had come he pushed the bike as fast as it would go. The
first turn-off was just back over the rise, on this side of the road; he would
be there in less than a minute.
‘Private: No Entry,’ the sign
read but Steve ignored it. He turned onto the rough track and switched the bike’s
headlamp to full beam illuminating the twisting way ahead. The potholed track
continued for perhaps two hundred metres to an old cottage abandoned long ago.
However, enclosing the cottage and the surrounding area was a high chain-link
fence. The area inside had been cleared and covered with gravel and was filled
with numerous large metal containers.
Steve stopped in a wide puddle outside the heavy gate. A dog started
barking and two big Alsatians loped into view barking aggressively through the
wire. The sign on the gate read,
No Tipping / Keep Out
and Steve was not
inclined to go any further. The gate did not appear to have been opened
recently and there was nowhere else for a van to go. He manoeuvred the bike
round and headed back to the road.
*
Psimon opened his eyes to a
waking nightmare.
The killer loomed above him, the
tall dark youth from his childhood, the stranger from the church, the constant
terror of his dreams and waking hours too.
He was here.
He was real.
And Psimon was at his mercy.
*
Lucifer concluded his opening
prayer and lowered his upturned hands. The witness had awakened; he could feel
his eyes upon him. He looked down and the chorus rose up in fervent harmony.
This was what he lived for. To humble such as he.
*
Psimon could not comprehend the
lack of humanity in those dead black eyes. His mind was blinded by the dark
light of evil before him. Shrinking back against the hard stone floor he tried
to cry out but found that he could not.
*
Lucifer smiled at the fear in the
witness’s eyes.
‘
So
,’ he thought. ‘
Not
so formidable after all. Not so strong as we had thought
.’
He turned his back on the witness
and crossed to the wall of the chapel, to a wooden stand where he kept the rod
and the staff. The witness would be quickly humbled. He would confess his sins,
he would be cleansed, and he would die. Lucifer would take the breath of life
from his lungs and dump his body in the ground, like so much rancid meat.
*
Psimon tried to squirm away as
the killer returned, arching his body like a worm. But the killer grabbed his
legs and hooked his ankles over the end of one of the short pews. Psimon was
left with just his bare shoulders against the stone; his hands were tied
securely behind his back. Naked and freezing he felt horribly vulnerable and exposed.
He watched as the killer lifted two long staves. One a brass crosier and one a
wooden shaft that might once have held a cross. Both were battered and stained.
The killer raised the staves and began to speak.
‘Yea, as you walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, you will fear my anger. For I am there with the
rod and the staff. With the rod and the staff I humble thee.’
The killer’s voice was deep and
guttural and possessed of a horrible melodic quality. And as he ended his short
perversion of scripture he brought the staves down on Psimon’s naked form.
Psimon screamed as the thick
brass rod smashed into his shins, the wooden shaft whacking down against his
unprotected feet. He stared up with utter panic in his eyes. He could not move;
he could not twist away. Over the years he had felt the torture again and again
but now he was here in the chapel of night, and in reality the pain was far,
far worse. The rod and the staff they rose and fell again… and again... and
again.
And Psimon screamed.
*
Steve had checked a farm and a
track that led to a disused electricity substation. Now he followed another
private road that was sign-posted ‘Private: Access Only’ but a vehicle had
driven down this track recently. The splashes from the puddles along the way
were still wet and shining in the Kawasaki’s headlamp. Steve wondered if this
were the place.
God, he hoped it was!
He followed the track round a
broad curve and came upon a large house with two big cars parked upon the
gravel drive. One an expensive-looking Audi and the other a Range Rover still
wet from its splashing through the puddles on the track.
The front door of the house
opened, light spilled out and several well-dressed adults emerged.
‘No,’ said one of the men. ‘No
trouble at all.’
‘Most people end up at the
substation, next turn down,’ said a woman coming to help carry the bags from
the back of the Range Rover.
Steve ground to a halt in the
gravel.
The people turned to look at him,
a dour looking man riding a big motorbike, no helmet and a face of fury.
‘Can I help you?’ asked one of
the men taking a step towards Steve.
Steve ground his teeth and let
out an animal growl.
‘No,’ was all he said. And with
that he spun the bike round and headed back to the main road.
‘
Oh, God,
’ he thought as
he pulled back onto the dual carriageway. ‘
How long has it been?
’
It must be forty minutes now
since he had last seen the van, maybe more. The killer could be anywhere. Steve
was losing hope. He turned onto another private road with a sign saying Dryden
Farm. The track rose up slightly and Steve could see the lights of farm
buildings through the trees. It looked homely and peaceful but Steve could not
afford to pass it by. He tore up the track, turned into the yard and almost
collided with a tractor reversing out of a barn. The bike slid sideways on a
slick of mud and slurry and Steve careered into a row of aluminium feeding
troughs.
The elderly farmer climbed out of
the tractor and hurried over to Steve.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘I
didn’t see you there… you came in pretty fast.’
Steve could not hide his
disappointment and frustration. He was struggling to keep the bike upright in
the slippery yard.
‘Easy there,’ said the farmer.
‘Let me give you a hand.’
Steve felt the bike steady as the
farmer grabbed the pillion bars behind the seat. He pulled it backwards
allowing Steve to steer the bike away from the feeding troughs.
‘You lost?’ asked the farmer
warily when he saw the expression on Steve’s face.
‘I’m looking for a friend of
mine,’ said Steve as he tried to turn the bike around.
‘Oh?’ said the farmer.
‘He’s in a black Mercedes van,’
said Steve.
The farmer paused for a second,
thinking.
Steve drew slowly forward not
wanting to accelerate too quickly on such a slippery surface. He was almost
back on the road where the bike’s tyres could find some purchase and speed him
away.
‘The Harper boy drives a black
van,’ said the farmer and Steve came to a lurching halt. ‘Though I’ve never
known him have a friend.’
Steve just stared at the farmer,
his heart suddenly pounding excitedly in his chest.
‘The Harper boy?’ he said.
‘Aye,’ said the farmer. ‘Is that
who you mean?’
‘Big guy,’ said Steve. ‘Dark
hair.’
‘Bloody massive, more like,’ said
the farmer. ‘Aye, that’s the fella.’
‘So I’ve come up the wrong
track?’ said Steve, trying not to sound too desperate for information.
‘Yep,’ said the farmer. ‘You need
to get back on the main road and turn left. Go up to the roundabout and come
back down on the other side of the road. It’ll be the third turning on your
left, big pylon by the drive. The house is set back some way from the road.
Grim place now,’ he rambled on. ‘Not what it was when Mr Harper was around.
Mind you he was an odd one too,’ he gave Steve a knowing look. ‘Bible basher if
you know what I mean…’
Steve could only stare at the
farmer.
‘Do me a favour,’ he said. ‘Call
the police and tell them to get some people round there straight away.’
‘Is something wrong?’ asked the
farmer.
‘Please, just do it,’ said Steve
as he kicked the bike into gear. ‘Tell them Steve Brennus told you to call.’
And with that he took off down
the track like a man possessed. Indeed he was a man possessed; possessed of
new-found hope.
‘
Hang on Psimon
,’ he
implored. ‘
Hang on
.’
Chapter 31
Lucifer removed the wire gag and waited to see if the
witness would wake unaided. He needed to be conscious before he could confess.
He looked down at the pathetic figure lying on the flagstones before the altar…
the battered flesh, the broken skin, the bright blood flowing from the ghostly
whiteness of his body.
There was something of beauty in
that at least.
He went over to the font, drew
some water in the great bowl of his hands and returned to stand over the
witness once more.
‘Or don't you know,’ he whispered
quietly. ‘That all who are baptised here are baptised into death?’
The chorus approved of his words,
the reference to scripture.
Lucifer basked in the music of it
as he let the water fall. It was fitting that he should rouse the witness with
an act of aspersion.
*
Psimon gasped with the sudden shock
of cold. The pain that had been dulled by stupor now assaulted him once more,
streaming in wave after wave from his ravaged nerves. Through swollen eyes he
looked up into the face of death as the killer reached down towards him.
*
Lucifer took the witness by his
arms and lifted him to his knees. The weakling was too feeble to bear his
weight at first but Lucifer took a fistful of his sodden hair and held him up
until he found his strength. Then he nodded and went to bring the bucket and
the aspergillum.
*
Psimon could not stop shaking,
shaking from the cold and the pain but more so from the fear. He knew what was
coming next. With desperate eyes he watched the killer, he could not look away.
The killer, in his altar clothes, his filthy bloodstained altar clothes, a
mockery of service to the church. He watched him and he could not look away.
And when the killer turned, the silver bucket and the holy water sprinkler in
his hand, Psimon began to weep.
How many times had he felt this
before? How many times had he screamed his confession before the acid fell?
Screamed it and meant it and believed that he had sinned, and prayed that he
would be believed, that he might be spared the pain.
But now that he was here he wept.
He wept because he knew he could not do it. He could not willingly confess, he
could not lie; not in the face of such abhorrent lies. He could not give them
credence. He would not; not while any strength of will remained.
God give him strength, he wished
he could.
But he could not.
*
Lucifer returned to stand before
the witness, and when he spoke it seemed to be in answer to some unheard
question.
‘With the sin of heresy,’ he
said. ‘And with questioning the authority of those in dominion…’
He dipped the aspergillum and
raised it to one side, the vitriolic fluid falling on the stone and burning it
away.
‘He has dismissed the sublime
rapture of the chorus, and must confess…’
Lucifer looked down at the
witness. And the witness met his gaze.