He cursed, a foul word he’d learned whilst travelling in northern Spain, for which he immediately made an apology under his breath. As if by way of thanking him for acknowledging the sincerity of his regret at the offence, the end of the key vanished into the hole and the lock gave a welcoming click, the key turning smoothly in the mechanism. The rotund Priest breathed a little deeper and slower. With a final glance over his shoulder to make sure he hadn’t been followed, he pushed the door open and stepped inside.
He shut the door to the small, but perfectly acceptable, accommodation provided to all travelling Priests and Fathers at the Cathedral fast behind him, and locked it with a single turn of the key. He tested the door and leaned against it. Finally he felt a little capitulation in the fear and panic inside him. He was now safe, for the moment at least. He could pack and leave within the hour, maybe thirty minutes if he was quick. He could commandeer a horse from the Cathedral stables and ride like the wind from the city. Or perhaps he could slink from the city silently on foot, using the darkness which now embraced Arras, not stopping until he was miles from the accursed place. Once he was in the wilds of France, no one would ever find him, not unless he wanted to be found.
The options excited and emboldened him. For the first time since he heard the news of Father Andreas’ death, he felt confidence returning. And he always prided himself on his confidence. After all, wasn’t he the Father who walked where others feared to tread? Was he not the Father who’d entered the beasts’ lair, had conversed with the enemy and had won the trust and loyalty of those shunned and feared by others of his faith?
But Father Andreas’ death had scared him, Father Andreas who had shown so much willing and so much spirit. Aguillard had known at once, as soon as he’d heard the news that Andreas was dead, that the game was up, that things were changing, that they were closing the loop. He never believed for an instant the story about the heart attack. Aguillard was many things but he wasn’t stupid and he wasn’t naive.
But he was impetuous, he always had been, and he’d lost his temper. He’d shouted at his fellow conspirators and he’d said that the plot had gone too far and then he’d threatened to reveal it. He regretted the words now. Of course he knew he would never reveal the plans. He’d invested too much, he’d worked too hard considering, preparing, making sure everything was followed according to the plan, making sure everyone knew what their tasks were and that they followed them to the letter. That no one talked. That no one let slip what was being undertaken. But he wasn’t sure that anyone believed his word was safe any more. And so here he was running because, in a moment of maddening rage, he’d played a hand he’d feared Father Andreas had played the day before.
Father Aguillard reached the end of the narrow corridor and paused.
Strange. He could feel a breeze coming from an open window, the chill of the night-time air in the apartment. And yet he was sure he’d shut the windows before leaving earlier in the evening? And that smell, a quite dreadful smell, like rotting drains coming up from behind the door. He crinkled his noise and went to push it open, rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.
A voice greeted his entrance and he swallowed, a chill creeping over him not brought on by the cool of the open window alone.
“Why don’t you sit down, Father Aguillard?” the voice asked gently. “You look like you’ve had a terrible shock.”
“I have.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Father Andreas, why did he have to die?”
“Why do you need to know?”
“You’re going to kill me too, aren’t you?” Aguillard asked the figure, sat before the open window.
“Goodness me, Father Aguillard, you do ask a lot of questions!”
“I should have asked more,” he growled, finding some of his old spirit others so admired.
“Quite.” The figure moved, shifting something from under its legs. “So, have you spoken to anyone about what we have done?”
Aguillard throat tightened and went dry.
“No,” he said, the spirit immediately seeping out of him. He shook his head like a scolded child. “No, I haven’t said a word.”
“That’s good.” The figure leaned down and dragged the thing it was lifting up over its head.
Aguillard leapt up from the chair, knocking it sideways, and cried out in a voice he never knew he possessed, instantly bursting into tears. He walked backwards, eyes fixed on the figure before him. It was then that he fell. “Please!” he cried, as the shadow stalked over him. He smelled its breath, hot and putrid. He screamed, but only until his face was ripped clean off in a single crisp bite.
THIRTY
22:34. TUESDAY, 13 OCTOBER 1914.
THE FRONT LINE. ARRAS. FRANCE.
The night was as black as coal when the British patrol went forward from Fampoux and stole silently, breathlessly, into the land beyond. Above the six men, crouched close to the churned and pitted ground, the oval moon flitted in and out behind thick clouds, its weak silvery light unable to penetrate the gloom of the land below.
There was never any question of the squad not accepting the task of making a forward patrol out of Fampoux. Despite having only spent a few hours in the place, many already subscribed to the fact that there was something unsettling about the village. They couldn’t agree on how or why the Germans had retreated from it almost willingly, not fighting hard for every square inch of the invaluable location. There was the cloying stench of death which hung heavy within it, as if the slaughter of the war and the trenches before it had sunk into the very earth. And there was the silence, as if an almost aberrant veil had been drawn over the village, suffocating the life within it.
The men had talked, as all soldiers do as they work and to fend off boredom, about what new weapon had been created to have secured such an easy victory and at such a cost to the enemy. They shivered and trusted that whatever it was never fell into German hands. The reek of the recent slaughter and the prevailing sense of doom about that place unsettled every soldier. When the request was made for a patrol to leave the village and examine the way ahead, volunteers were quick to be found.
“Can’t see a bloody thing, sir!” hissed one of the soldiers, as he felt his way forward blindly in the dark.
“Keep your bloody voice down!” the Lance Corporal snapped back under his breath. “Neither can I but I’m not harking on about it.”
“How far are we going, sir?” another called, putting his hand on something soft in the dark and retracting it quickly.
“Bloody hell!” the Lance Corporal cursed, pushing back his cap. “Do you want to go back to that village?”
“No, sir!”
“Then keep your bloody trap shut!”
“Just asking, that’s all.”
“We’ll go out for an hour or so.”
“An hour?!” someone cried.
“Have a good look about. See how far the Hun have pulled back. Come on, this is bloody ridiculous,” he said, standing up and peering east, “crawling around in the dirt. We’re through the barbed wire. Let’s go forward on foot. It’s so dark. No one’ll see us.” He turned back to peer at his men through the blackness. “If a flare goes up, remember to drop.”
“If a flare goes up and they follow it with a machine gun, we might not need to worry about remembering to drop.”
“Alright, keep it bloody shut.”
They walked on, shuffling figures in the darkness, tripping over unseen objects on the ground or stumbling sideways into holes and craters. There was a smell of mud and iron in the air. Behind them they could see an occasional light twinkle and then go out.
Every now and then, further along the front, the far skyline flared orange and red and the low thump of a barrage followed a little time later. A portion of the distant horizon in the south caught a dull yellow and burnt for a longer period, maybe a building burning from the onslaught.
“Poor buggers,” one of the soldiers mumbled, glu
mly.
“Shut up, Jones,” another hissed back.
The youngest of the soldiers listened to the sounds of the night, the rustle of uniform and leather belts, the soft jangle of strapping from the soldiers around him. Far behind him, he was sure he could hear the sound of conversation coming from the lights of Fampoux. It made him feel relieved. He turned his ear to the darkness ahead to see if he could hear anything.
A wolf howled somewhere in the night.
Ahead of them, the Lance Corporal raised a hand and dropped to his knees. The line of soldiers followed his lead, one after the other.
“Didn’t know there were bloody wolves in France!” someone said.
“What is it, sir?” the second in the line asked.
“Thought I heard something,” the Lance Corporal whispered.
They stayed there, crouched tight to the ground, for what seemed an eternity to the youngest soldier. When his legs started to ache, he sank onto his knees and turned over to sit on his backside, rifle across his lap. He looked up at the sky and thought about his sweetheart Mary back in England. He was surprised how little he had missed her. But then, he’d not had much time to sit and think about home since he’d been out here. Digging trenches, doing drill, marching for days and days, cleaning rifles, keeping sentry, staying awake nights on end, trying not to fall asleep during sentry duty, seemed to get in the way of thinking fondly of home. He was glad of it, too. He felt so far from anywhere here. He knew if he thought too much about home, he’d get sick.
At the head of the line, the Lance Corporal heard a noise again and asked, “Did you hear that?” to the nearest of the soldiers behind him.
“Hear what, sir?”
“That noise. Something moving about, up ahead.”
“No sir,” the soldier replied, discernibly quieter.
The Lance Corporal bent his head to the side and listened harder.
“I’m going forward,” he said. “Stay here. I won’t be long.”
“But sir!” the second soldier in the line said, clutching blindly at the Lance Corporal’s heel. “What if …”
“I won’t be long. Just having a look up ahead.”
“But if you don’t come back?” the Private asked awkwardly.
“If I don’t come back, you take the men back to the trench.”
“Very good sir.”
The Lance Corporal rose and shambled his way forward. Within a couple of steps he was lost in the black of night.
“What’s going on?” someone asked.
“It’s Lance,” the Private whispered back. “Thinks he heard something. He’s going to have a look.”
“Bloody great. Just what we need. Jerry in the dark.”
The Lance Corporal stepped on, keeping bent and low, little steps in the dirt in the darkness. He stopped and sank to his knees, listening intently, and then rose and went forward again, his rifle gripped tight in his hands. He stopped once more, sinking down on his haunches. He looked back to the way he had come, entombed in sheer black. He swallowed and for the first time worried about finding his men again. But it was quiet and he knew could find them by calling out to them if need be. After all, there seemed to be nothing else in this godforsaken place.
He turned back towards where he thought the enemy to be and screamed as the beast launched itself at him from the dark, ripping the windpipe and sound from out of him.
The Private pricked up his ears and peered into the gloom. As he listened, he was sure he could hear something, like the dull crunching of stones, the snap of sticks.
Something was there.
“Go back!” he hissed, standing and pushing out at the soldier behind him. “Quick! Go back! Fucking go back!” he called, his voice rising with his fear.
The soldier behind him stumbled blindly onto his knees and then up, reaching out and pushing at the soldier behind him. “We’re going back,” he called. “Come on! Orders from the front! We’re going back!”
The bumbling, ragged line turned and began to trot back down the route they had come.
Something came out of the east and fell upon the Private at the rear of the line, vast bloodied jaws clamping hard into the crook between his neck and shoulder. The soldier cried out as the jaws tore a great chunk from his body, taloned hands grappling around his middle, holding him firm. A second bite took his head from his body, gushing warm gore over his assailant.
The remaining soldiers could hear the feral sounds, the clamouring of excited animal feeding, like a pack of hounds around a captured fox, but they didn’t turn round. Now they were sprinting, charging headlong into the dark, tripping and falling into the dirt and detritus of no man’s land, picking themselves up and running again, only to fall moments later. They were crying too, calling out for the attention of the trench ahead, for those there to help, to send up flares to guide their way forward.
But no flares were sent and in seconds the soldiers’ cries were silenced.
The creatures fell upon them greedily.
THIRTY-ONE
20 AUGUST, 1914. THE VATICAN. VATICAN CITY.
Cardinal Bishop Casado stood in silence at the end of the Pontiff’s quarters, his unblinking eyes burning into the closed doors of the Pope’s private chamber. For five days, ever since the Feast of the Assumption of Mary when Pope Pius X had been taken ill and carried away to his chamber for the Vatican’s physicians to do what they could, there had been no word from the Pope or from those closest to him, a quiet stream of doctors and selected persons entering and leaving without word or emotion.
But now Casado knew the end was close. The faces of those leaving had grown increasingly bleak over the last few hours and it had been twenty minutes since the last of the visitors had reappeared.
He swallowed and allowed his eyes to fall to the floor of the corridor, a moment’s rest to ease the pain growing behind them. With that, the handle to the door turned and slowly opened, a black-robed senior Cardinal Casado knew well, stepping silently from inside, his eyes cast to the floor, his features drawn and white. At once Casado knew to fear the worse.
As if sensing Casado’s presence, the Cardinal turned and walked quickly towards him.
“Is he ...?”
“He is,” the Cardinal replied. There were tears in the man’s eyes, his nostrils flared in attempt to fight back against this emotion. “Pope Pius X passed away ... peacefully.” Casado went to speak but the Cardinal, perhaps sensing the words would be meaningless, continued.
“He asked that I give you this,” he said, pressing a sealed letter into Casado’s hand. Casado looked down at the small crushed white envelope in his palm.
Again, Casado went to speak, but the Cardinal had already turned away from him. “Oh, and Cardinal Bishop Casado,” he added, pausing to turn back and talk over his right shoulder. “German forces have just marched into Brussels. War has come to Europe.”
THIRTY-TWO
1895. THE DOLOMITES. NORTHERN ITALY.
It had been a hard climb and Tacit noticed how Inquisitor Tocco was out of breath by the time they reached the summit and the yawning black of a cave. Tacit followed his teacher’s way and threw down his pack alongside Tocco’s, his eyes drawn to the dark shadows of the cave mouth.
“Do you know what lies inside?” the Inquisitor asked mischievously, setting himself down on a rock and checking the position of the sun away to their left.
Tacit swallowed and shook his head. He knew whatever it was would put up a fight. It seemed to Tacit that whatever they visited in their line of work, wherever they seemed to go, there was always something to fight, something to destroy, to extinguish, to remove from the world.
There was always blood.
“The children of our faith,” chuckled the Inquisitor, drawing out his small bottle and taking a short sharp sip from it. He scowled and put it back into the inside pocket of his jacket, laying his head back on the rock and catching his breath. His eyes rolled in his head and for a moment Tacit thought he’d fal
len asleep. “Hombre Lobo,” he said suddenly, laughing wickedly. Heavily, he lifted his head and thrust it in the direction of the cave. His hand was in his pocket and from it he pulled his revolver. He checked the mechanism and ensured the cylinder was full of silver coloured bullets. “Werewolves,” he said, looking up and seeing that Tacit appeared puzzled.
“‘Children of our faith’?” Tacit asked. “What do you mean?”
The Inquisitor sneered. “Of course you wouldn’t have been told, it’s one of the closest guarded secrets of the faith.”
“At the very beginning,” began Tocco, sweeping the dark of his hair from his forehead, “when the Inquisition was in its infancy, when its laws were first being drawn up, the Church’s enemies being recognised and its methods planned, it was quickly realised that some of the fiercest laws should be kept aside for those who failed most grievously with their faith. The ‘fallen deviants’ the Church called them, the ones who were once mighty within the Church, who were respected, revered even, before they lost their way. To our wise fore-fathers, they were thought of as the true sinners of the Church, for they had sinned in the very presence of God.
“Excommunication, casting them from the Church, was felt not enough for those who had benefitted and taken so much from the Catholic faith and repaid it so badly. Only divine retribution was considered appropriate for these damned ‘monsters’, these high-ranking Catholic officials, lords and ladies, people of power, all of whom had long taken succour from the Church and then turned their backs on it when they were replete. Not only were they were cast out of the Church, but they were cast out of society to live till the end of days as the monsters they had become, forced to live their pitiful lives under the shadow of night, no longer able to venture out beneath the glare of daylight and God’s warmth, forever tormented by the desire for flesh, just as they had tormented the Lord with their greed for riches and power.”
The Darkest Hand Trilogy Box Set Page 13
