The Satanist (56 page)

Mary needed no telling that she would have to pay for her success, and she made no resistance when two of the hooded men ran up to her, seized her by the arms, and hustled her forward towards the Great Ram. For a moment he stared up at her with lack-lustre eyes, then comprehension and hate dawned in them.

Extending a hand to Wash he said thickly, ‘Help me up.’ Then when Wash had got him to his feet he went on, his words still laboured but pregnant with menace. ‘Give me a moment. I must think. I will not kill her. Death is too good; too easy. I must think – think of a curse. A curse to bring her living death. I have it. I’ll destroy her mind; turn her into a Zombie. No; no, I won’t. Here they would put her into an asylum and idiots can be quite happy when given enough food and the barest comfort. I’ll mar her beauty – teeth, eyes, hair – and cause her lingering agony from the gradual rotting of her bones.’

Mary faced him, her eyes distended, her mouth suddenly gone dry from horror. She had expected death, but no sentence so terrible as this. Yet she knew that even if she flung herself at his feet and grovelled there, she could expect no mercy from him.

There was a moment of dead silence. Even the lesser Satanists who had crowded round were awed by the thought of a once beautiful woman, toothless, hairless, pur-blind, dragging herself about while her bones were being slowly and painfully eaten away by a curse that would take the form of third degree syphilis.

The silence was broken by Wash, who said in a harsh voice, ‘She’s asked for everything that’s coming to her, Master. But in this place we’re all washed up now. That accursed crucifix is laying somewhere around. None of us dare touch it and the vibrations it gives off would stymie any magic attempted here.’

‘You are wrong.’ The Great Ram spoke tonelessly but with authority, ‘When it … it came in contact with me it burnt itself out. There is row no more power vested in it than in any other pieces of wood and ivory. Have the candles re-lit so that I may put my curse upon this woman.’

Several of the Satainsts made a move to obey, but Wash called sharply, ‘Hold it, folks; I’ve first a word to say.’ Then he turned back to Lothar. ‘Tonight, Chief, we’ve work to do: Our Lord Satan’s work, and a top-ranking mission at that. You don’t need me to tell you that laying curses drains power from even the strongest of us, and within an hour you may need all yours to pull us out should we come up against some snags. Leave this crazy bitch to me. I’ll deal with her later.’

‘No, I mean to curse her here and now,’ Lothar replied doggedly. ‘I am no little High Priest but the Great Ram; and under Prince Lucifer my power is inexhaustible.’

‘Sure, sure; no question about that.’ Wash’s tone was soothing but suddenly it changed to a sharper note. ‘When you’re yourself. But at this point you’re not. You’re as groggy as a brand-new battle-shock case. I’ve seen plenty
and I know. So temporarily I’m taking charge here, and we’re all quitting this place right now.’

Amazement dawned in the Great Ram’s heavy-lidded blue eyes, then anger, and he exclaimed, ‘How dare you! No one gives orders in my presence.’

‘Maybe it’s unusual; but it’s just that I mean to do.’

‘Defy me at your peril. Remember there is always a tomorrow. At my leisure I could break you as easily as I could a reed.’

‘I know it, Exalted One, and I’m not such a fool as to defy you. But I want you to give me my way. To get it I’ll make a bargain with you.’

‘I do not make bargains with my inferiors.’

If you don’t make this one we’ll all go up in smoke, for having mucked the deal between us – you for playing unreasonable in refusing to delay your curse, me for having dug my toes in on that account.’

Wash reached out an enormous hand, clutched a handful of Mary’s hair, jerked her head roughly from side to side, and went on. ‘This woman is mine. For as long as I want her she’s to remain intact: hair, sight, hearing, toenails and all that goes on inside her. When I’m through with her you can lay your curse, but not before. You’ll either agree to that or tonight’s assignment is off. I’ll walk out on you.’

Still sweating with fear, Mary waited, for the Great Ram’s reaction. Had he not been so shaken she felt certain that his hard, imperious, overbearing nature would have forced him to reject any compromise; but temporarily he had become like some great capital ship that had suffered a devastating air attack in which bombs had put all her barbetts out of action, so that she was heaving half awash in the sea, and capable now of using only the fire power of her minor armament.

After a moment of excruciating suspense his answer came. With a sneer he said, ‘The chains of the body must still be heavy on you to play such high stakes for any woman. But this is no time for us to quarrel. Let it be as
you wish. Providing she does not escape the penalty for her sacrilegious act, a few weeks or months are of little importance. Anticipation of what is in store for her may even prove a refinement of her punishment. But you must inform me when you have tired of her.’

‘I’ll do that,’ Wash agreed. Then, raising his voice, he turned to the others. ‘Get moving, now! Two of you give a hand to the Master, here. The rest of you beat it back to the transport. And make it snappy. When you hit the base you know what to do.’

The fog still hung thick outside the chapel. It was that which had enabled Barney to get clean away. Wash did not delay to practise a magic which would have dispersed it, as the men of his coven were all so familiar with the ruins of the Abbey and the wood beyond that with their torches they could quite well find their way through them.

Except for the two who had come forward to support Lothar, they hurried off and were swiftly swallowed up in the greyish darkness. The Great Ram refused the aid of the two men who remained, but accepted their guidance and, with one of them carrying his head-dress, while the other shone a torch, they set off along the now trampled path through the sea of weeds that carpeted the ground between the mounds of stone. Wash, grasping Mary firmly by the arm, brought up the rear.

On reaching the far side of the wood they emerged abruptly from the belt of fog just in time to see three cars, which had been hidden among the trees, carry away the other members of the Brotherhood, all of whom had removed the monks’ robes that had concealed their uniforms. Wash ordered the two men who were escorting the Great Ram to take his robe and put it with his mask in the boot of his car, then follow with it. Lothar himself he installed in the front passenger seat of his own car, while Mary squeezed herself into the back among the pile of luggage. Having put his head-dress and robe into the boot, Wash came round to the driver’s seat and a minute later they were bumping their way back along the track to the road.

The drive lasted for some fifteen minutes during which, for the first time in what seemed many hours, but actually was little more than one, Mary breathed freely again. She had saved her dear Barney and had herself been spared the gruelling infliction of initiation. Lothar’s threat to reduce her to a ghoulish physical wreck remained. But Wash had saved her from that, at least for the time being; and she had an optimistic feeling that, now he had so clearly shown that he had fallen in love with her, somehow he would manage to ensure that she escaped the Great Ram’s vengeance.

She had heard Wash tell his men to return to the base, but had not realised that they too were on their way there until the car slowed down and, at a loud challenge, drew up. A sentry and a military policeman came forward. Wash gave the countersign, the two men saluted and the great wire gates were opened. They drove through them and on for a quarter of a mile between clusters of buildings, to pull up beside a hangar that faced on to the airfield. The three of them got out and Wash led them into it.

Inside there stood a small passenger aircraft that several men were preparing for flight. Its engines began to tick over and the hangar doors were opened. For a few moments they stood beside it. The luggage was brought in from the car and carried up the movable staircase into it. Lothar turned to Wash and asked,

‘Has the thing I’ve come for been loaded into her yet?’

Wash nodded. ‘My boys saw to that this afternoon. It’s in a big case and stowed in the tail. Go up and satisfy yourself it’s there if you wish.’

Without a word Lothar left them, walked up the steps and disappeared into the aircraft. That gave Mary the first chance she had had to thank Wash, without risk of being overheard, for saving her from being cursed. In a spate of words she began to do so.

Angrily he cut her short. ‘You sure must have been round the bend to do what you did. And later there’ll be no side-stepping for you from paying for it. All you’ve got to thank me for is a reprieve. Best make your mind up to
get all you can outa life while your health is left to you.’

A junior officer came up, saluted and reported, ‘All set to get moving, Sir.’

Wash acknowledged the salute and, as the officer turned away, led Mary towards the boarding steps. In sudden apprehension she exclaimed, ‘Are we going too? I saw your luggage going up but I haven’t got my wits back yet. I didn’t realise…!’

‘Yeah, we’re going too. Your suitcase is on board.’ He thrust her before him up the steep steps.

‘But where?’ she cried with rising panic, as he forced her on in front of him. ‘Where are you taking me?’

‘To Russia,’ he answered tersely, ‘and we’re not coming back.’

When Barney had been seized in the chapel he had instinctively fought back, but the odds assembled there against him were so overwhelming that he knew his struggles to be hopeless. With Great Ram’s denunciation ringing in his ears he knew, too, that his life was not worth a quarter-of-an-hour’s purchase.

Then, as he was facing the altar while swaying wildly between his two antagonists, he had seen Mary throw the crucifix. The blinding flash, thunderous crash and heaving of the floor that followed had stricken all the Satanists with instant terror. The one holding on to Barney’s left arm let go. Swinging round he had kneed in the groin the other man who was clinging to him, and wrenched his right arm free. The rest of them, by stepping forward, could have barred his path to the open end of the chapel; but it had been plunged into darkness and they had been thrown into
a panic. He cannoned into one and brushed by another; next moment he was out in the body of the Abbey and running for his life.

It was a nightmare dash, for out there fog combined with the darkness to prevent his seeing where he was going. Several times he ran slap into sections of wall and twice tripped to fall at full length among the weeds and brambles. Yet it was that spell-induced fog that saved him from determined pursuit and recapture.

After four or five minutes of staggering blindly about, he got clear of the ruin and could vaguely make out the trunks of big trees as he ran on now dodging between them. Another five minutes and both the wood and the fog-belt ended. He had no idea of the direction he had taken but there was no sign of a track or the cars in which the Satanists had arrived, and as far as he could see ahead of him lay only a ploughed field.

Pulling up on the edge of it, he stood gasping for breath and striving to collect his thoughts. He owed his life to Mary; he had no doubt about that. But what about her? Unless she too had got away in the darkness and confusion they would inflict a terrible vengeance on her. She was no fool; she must have known the sort of penalty she would have to pay for throwing a crucifix in the Great Ram’s face. That meant that, despite the bitter abuse she had hurled at him not much over an hour ago, deep down she must love him. Courageous men and women will take great risks to rescue children, and often complete strangers, from fire or drowning, but they do not voluntarily invite a terrible death for themselves in order to save the life of someone they hate. And after what had passed between them there could be no halfway house. If she did not hate him, then she loved him. At the thought that she must almost certainly still be in the clutches of the Satanists, he groaned aloud.

As his breathing eased a little, he swung round to plunge back into the wood. But he had taken only a few steps before he pulled up. The ruined Abbey must be anything between a quarter and half a mile away. In the fog and darkness
nothing but a fluke could lead him back to it direct, and he might wander about in the wood for an hour or more without finding it.

Besides, when he did, what was he going to do? His gun had been taken from him by one of the American’s servant boys. He had intended to ask for it back after supper; but Lothar’s arrival had precipitated a series of events which had denied him the chance to do so. Even if Lothar had been rendered
hors de combat
by the blaze as the crucifix hit his face, there was still the giant American and the dozen men who made up his coven. Barney was far from being a coward and he had the greatest difficulty in resisting the urge to make an immediate attempt to rescue Mary; but he knew that on his own he could not possibly succeed.

He groaned again, leant against a tree and, covering his face with his hands, endeavoured to make up his mind about the best course to take. To bring the police on the scene was the obvious answer; but how could that be done most quickly? After a moment he decided that the best bet would be to get hold of one of the Satanists’ cars and drive in to Cambridge. Even if he could have found a house with a telephone fairly quickly, it might prove difficult to convince the police that he really needed the help of at least a dozen of them, and urgently; whereas if he went to a police station he had only to show his official pass to secure immediate assistance.

At a run he set off along the edge of the trees, but he had completely lost his bearings and actually was on the far side of the wood from the track along which the cars had come to it. After he had been running for several minutes, the wood ended in a right angle. Turning the corner he ran on, only to find that this side of the wood seemed longer than that on which he had come out; but having covered some distance along it he struck a path. To the right it led into the fog-shrouded wood, to the left to a cottage some hundred yards away, of which against the paler sky he could just make out the chimney and the roof line.