Freya's Quest (25 page)

The picture started to deteriorate again as the dancers descended to the floor and began an orgy of sexual coupling with each other. The cameraman took an obsessive fascination in these indiscriminate encounters, focusing in on each one in turn. There was certainly a highly charged sexual power which began to stir me. Enhanced, perhaps, by the anonymity of the worshippers, all still hidden behind masks of various primeval animals.

As my interest was deepening further, the picture was lost completely. There were a few more flickering blank frames before the hiss of the modern video tape took over.

So the rumours of devil worship had been correct all along, as I’d gradually come to suppose. Yet even I found it hard to digest that this had extended into Seraphina’s generation.

I was left there, staring at the screen, curling up into an upright ball, arms clutching bent knees, trying to take in the import of what I had seen.

I wondered what else could be in store when I ascended to the last storey. The top of the tower was Dylan’s retreat, where he came to write and reflect. He’d always told me this; now, at least in this regard, he’d been telling the truth. The room was like the lower bedroom: a perfect square, pure white in decoration. There was an arched window in the middle of all but one of the walls. A custom-made desk encircled the walls beneath these windows, breaking off only for the stairwell leading to the turreted battlements above. Office equipment covered the work surfaces.

My attention was swiftly drawn to the fireplace in the wall without a window. Above the mantelpiece there hung the painting of a beautiful woman. I was in no doubt it had to be the self-portrait Veronica had told me about. It had a maturity beyond the age of the artist.

It was the work of Seraphina, like the pictures downstairs.

Gazing up at the imposing face of the long-haired beauty, I could see why Dylan could have become so captivated by her. And how the memory of her could still haunt him as vividly as the image of this picture fascinated me.

Now I was convinced beyond all doubt that Seraphina had been the young woman in the film.

I paced around the room, noticing how her eyes followed me no matter where I stood. A technique not quite as perfected as in the later portrait of her father. Still, I found it very difficult to break its hypnotic allure.

Eventually, I pulled myself away and climbed up to the battlements above. These were a lot larger, more intricate and higher off the ground than those of the outer gatehouse. The view from here was spectacular. Skiddaw and the Northern massif rose above the green of the forest. I spent ten minutes soaking up this vista, allowing the strong wind to blow back my hair and bite into my face.

I retreated only when I spied Paul Norton sauntering across the lawn. I ducked my head below the parapet, but he didn’t look up. Dylan must have let him in through the gates, I supposed, on his own way out.

I was sure he hadn’t seen me.

I returned inside and began a more detailed survey of Dylan’s workroom. I rifled through the piles of ordered papers on his desk, then through the drawers beneath. I found nothing of any import to my continuing investigation. But I did pick up a few pages of his novel-in-progress.

There was a large, ornately carved chair next to the chimney breast. I walked over to take a seat, so I could study the pages in more comfort. As I approached, I could make out the head of a goat on the central back of the chair. It was similar to the stone carvings over the door of the ruined chapel and above the altar in the cavern. And the medallion and the headdress of the youth on the film.

I sat down. Before I knew what was happening, circular bars had shot out from the arms and the legs of the chair to trap my wrists and ankles firmly in place. I must have set off a mechanism as soon as my bottom had touched the seat.

I went into an unthinkable panic!

I dropped the papers on the floor. I fought to free myself from the chair’s clutches. But it was a bulky piece of furniture, made from solid oak. No matter how hard I struggled, the chair itself wouldn’t move and the clasps remained rigidly in place.

I cried out, struggling more forcefully. Getting more desperate. My wrists began to chafe, but still I did not desist.

I must have spent over an hour in this fashion, until exhaustion set in.

I leant back in the chair, gazing up at the antique clock on the wall as the hours ticked by. I was consumed with terror. Wracked with guilt. Too much so to fall asleep, even though my body was aching for rest.

I thought I heard a vehicle drawing up in the courtyard below. Then I heard footsteps upon the stairs. Gradually drawing nearer.

I was paralysed with fear.

Dylan’s form became framed in the doorway. His countenance went from complete shock, to disgust, then fury.

‘Shame on you!’

I bowed my head. I could feel the force of his stare upon me.

Then he was gone.

I looked up. Then I screamed and struggled again.

But he left me there to suffer.

DYLAN REMAINED AWAY for the next two hours, extending my torture and delaying our confrontation. I could make out a lot of commotion downstairs, as he vented his feelings. However, he returned to me in a calm state. He strolled into the room, pulling his swivel chair from underneath his desk, and straddling it back-to-front so he could prop his arms against the backrest. He did all this without any reference to me.

‘So, tell me: why have you invaded my private space? I’ve been very hospitable to you. My only condition was for this tower to remain sacred to me. And you abused that.’

‘I’m sorry. There’s no excuse. What must you think of me?’

He did not reply, despite my contrition. But his face conveyed the whole story.

‘Look, please let me go, I’m bursting for the loo.’

‘Should’ve thought about that before. No, you can stay here till I’m satisfied with your explanation.’

I grimaced. The way the chair had secured me meant there was no way of crossing my legs.

‘I came up here to find out more about you.’

Dylan’s vexation returned. ‘No one’s allowed up here.’

‘I needed to find out why you were so promiscuous.’

‘Why? Can’t you just accept I’m a bit of a lady’s man?’

‘No. When you went with other women you tore me apart. I was falling hopelessly for you.’ I tried to make this sound convincing. ‘I think few stay long enough to realize something’s wrong. Now I’ve seen the rooms downstairs, I know for certain there is.’

‘What rooms?’

‘The shrine you’ve created for Seraphina. And the trophy room.’

‘How dare you!’

‘You’re an obsessive. A voyeur….’ I struggled to remember an appropriate term from all those library texts: ‘a compulsive satyr!’

Dylan swayed around on the chair from left to right, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the floor. ‘I’ve never denied my sexual compulsion. No doubt you’re gonna come up with some half-cocked explanation for my deviousness.’

‘Well, there’s no doubt Seraphina’s suicide holds the key.’

Dylan stared blankly at me. He couldn’t speak.

‘I don’t believe you’ve come to terms with the manner of her death. Nor her death itself. Judging by your false cover stories, the room downstairs and her untended grave.’

‘You’ve seen her grave, too?’

‘Yes.’

‘No one goes there! It’s out of bounds!’

‘Emily showed me it before she left. And Janis goes there as well. In secret.’

‘Damn them!’

‘Then, of course, there’s your pursuit of Janis and Emily, the sisters so close in looks to Seraphina.’

Dylan shrugged his shoulders as if conceding this point. But it was clear he was becoming increasingly anxious, as I bombarded him with facts he had no inkling I’d discovered before now.

‘Then, of course, there’s Sir Frederick and the Satanists.’

‘How could you know about that?’

‘The medallion I found started it off. Then discovering the ruined chapel.’

‘I’d’ve destroyed that place completely, but for the bat people slapping a preservation order on it at the last minute.’

‘Then there were the old legends; books in the library – censored by you, no doubt; the cavern under this house; the old painting in the folly.’

‘Christ, you have been busy.’

‘And now the film in your trophy room.’

‘Film?’

‘Yes. The one of the satanic ceremony with Seraphina and the goat-man.’

‘Goat-man?’

‘Don’t feign innocence. The goat-man was you, wasn’t it?’

Dylan rose and kicked the swivel chair out of his way. He paced the room, distraught, as if suddenly taken back to the event in question. His anger welled and he left the room.

When he returned, he was wearing the goat-mask and came marching towards me.

I let out a yelp when I thought he was about to attack me. My worst fears were being confirmed. I closed my eyes. I felt the thud as his fist hit into the wall above my head.

He staggered backwards, clutching his bloodied knuckles. Then he sat down in an armchair in the alcove near the stairs to the battlements.

‘You really think I’m an evil Satanist?….Intent on causing you harm now you know my secrets?’

I nodded, horrified, as plaster dust floated down onto my hair and face from the hole he’d punched in the wall.

He tore off the mask and threw it over his shoulder. It sailed out of the window and thudded onto the roof below. He was laughing. ‘You’ve got me all wrong.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. Faversham was the evil Satanist, not me, you idiot!’ He was still laughing.

‘I see….Will you let me go now?’ I was feeling a stabbing pain, as my bladder was close to bursting point.

‘No.’

I let out a deep breath in disgust. ‘Then why don’t you tell me the whole story. You can’t keep it all bottled up inside forever.’

Dylan remained silent for a while. Presently, he said: ‘OK, you’re right. I was the goat-man. The Satanists did exist. I was compelled into that ceremony – the one you saw in the film – against my will. I only did it because Sera wanted me to. I was in love with her. She and Faversham said we were predestined for great things. I went along with it, but despite all his teachings, I never believed in all that junk.’

‘No?’

‘No. It never stood up to any serious scrutiny. Any more than all that Christian mumbo jumbo my mother forced onto me did. I fundamentally do not believe in the idea of blind faith. Their faith allowed them to create a powerful force with a perverse sense of morality, which I could never share in.’

I nodded, feeling relieved.

‘Faversham’s blind faith convinced him he was the agent of the Devil. The Circle also had a long history, dating back way before the old Baron. So this was no sudden impulse on Faversham’s part. That history gave him a great stature which indoctrinated his followers. And his powerful charisma inspired a deep loyalty and devotion.

‘Faversham had a wealth of esoteric knowledge at his disposal, passed down through the generations. I have to say, I’ve acquired some of this power….For example, I’m an expert mesmerist.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. He taught me from a young age. It’s helped me to seduce women. It also aided me in persuading an eminent publisher to purchase the rights to my first novel. But it doesn’t always work. I never totally mastered the art, not like Faversham, at any rate. I’ve rejected all the rest of his teachings. I’m not a fundamentally evil person like him, you know.’

‘No….Now I don’t believe you are.’

‘Veronica and my mum’d been part of the Circle for years. Sera and I’d been unwittingly born into it.’

‘What about the other children?’

‘Well, I never got the chance to speak to Eric about it. Janis has always denied she knew anything beyond the old legends and playing in the ruins as a child. I always thought she knew more than she’s let on. But she’s very fragile and I’ve never tried to force her. Anyway, I’ve been trying to forget it all myself. It’s not a subject we’ve broached often.’

‘I see.’ I made a mental note to seek out Janis for further questioning later on.

‘Sera may’ve had more idea than me of her father’s ultimate purpose. I would never’ve gone through with it if Sera hadn’t insisted. I’d’ve done anything for her. We were madly in love.’

‘I never thought anything different, Dylan.’

‘Her father was the real influence in her life. As she was in mine. She found it very difficult to disobey him. But we knew he hadn’t long to live. We planned to marry once he’d died.’

‘But Janis’s told me that’s not what actually happened.’

‘No. Something about the ceremony and its aftermath deeply disturbed Sera. We ran away to the North Wales coast and were formally married there. She wanted to negate the black rituals we’d taken part in by having a white, Christian wedding.’

‘I can see the logic in that.’

‘Those brief three months together, away from our families for the first time, was the greatest period of my life. And hers, I hope. But dossing in a beach hut, and making love whenever we felt like it, couldn’t possibly last….But then we read Faversham’s obituary. It had been in the paper used to wrap up my portion of chips. One of those curious occurrences, that. Faversham was now out of our lives for good and I felt obliged to return. Sera wanted to embark on a simple, anonymous life in London, away from all pressures, so was very reluctant. I should’ve listened to her, because my decision turned out to be the worst mistake we could’ve made.’