‘Wait up,’ he shouted and, stepping out of the car, he paused and began rummaging through his pocket. It took a moment to retrieve the steel drinking flask he had purchased in the same hunting shop where they had acquired the torches.
Carter flipped back the cap and took a swig before shoving the flask back into his trouser pocket. ‘Adequate supplies are essential on any expedition, Alex.’
‘So is clarity of mind and good judgement,’ Harker retorted with a hint of playful sarcasm that had Carter looking offended.
‘That’s a bit below the belt,’ he muttered under his breath, then made his way over to the boarded-up entrance of the building that Harker had already reached and was now carefully examining.
‘Most of the nails have rusted away,’ Harker decided, and he roughly jammed his torch between the board and the door, then used his weight to lever it from the few remaining nails.
The board popped off its supports, and Harker caught and then gently laid the section of worn plywood on the ground. Next, with torch in hand, he turned his attention to the door itself, and its rusted lever handle. To his surprise the latch undid with a disagreeable squeak and, after shooting Carter a warning glance, he slowly pushed at the door which swung open with a lengthy creak.
Harker shone his torch around the room beyond, which was empty bar a couple of dusty deckchairs and a three-legged display table in the centre of the room.
The air in here was stale and earthy, with a distinctly spicy aroma that most likely emanated from the dead Campsis plants hanging from thin cracks in the ceiling, which only added to the place’s dilapidated atmosphere.
After a quick check behind the door, due to a rising sense of unease, Harker made his way across the room to another door set in a rounded arch directly opposite. Without pausing this time he turned the handle, letting it creak open as with the entrance door and, after a few cautious sweeps of his torch, he continued through it with Carter close behind him.
The cemetery was narrow and, from what Harker could see, about the same rectangular shape and length as an Olympic-sized swimming pool, with imposing four-metre-high stone walls lining its perimeter. The front section where they now stood, about a fifth of the open area, was nothing more than a small earth lawn with two lone gravestones in the middle, and peppered with small clusters of dead brown grass, yet another visual reminder that the place had not seen maintenance for some time.
The cemetery became a lot more impressive at the far end of the lawn, where it met three rows of cobbled paths with a vast assortment of small personal mausoleums or single grave sites bordering them.
‘Now that’s creepy,’ Harker remarked, glancing back at Carter, who merely gave a slow shake of his head.
‘Oh, I don’t know. I find cemeteries very peaceful places.’
It was hard to tell if he was being genuine or just liked saying the opposite to anything Harker said. Whatever his intention, it was annoying, and Harker simply did not reply. Instead he headed straight for the only thing that drew his attention: two freshly dug graves.
‘So what exactly are we looking for?’ Carter asked, plodding after him.
‘Your guess is as good as mine but these look a good place to start.’ Harker had by now reached the two lone gravestones. Both were made of expensive cracked white marble, and he knelt down beside the first one to read out the inscription, which was in Latin. ‘Alfonso Bianchi, 1978–2017 and’ – Harker shone his torch onto the second stone – ‘Daniele Russo, 1980–2017.’
He stood back up and considered these names. ‘Don’t ring any bells with me. How about you?’
‘Never heard of them,’ Carter replied with a shake of his head. ‘But definitely Italian.’
They stood there in silence, with Harker racking his brain for any kind of lead. He was even running through a list of anagrams for the pair of names when Carter abruptly nudged him on the arm.
‘Alex,’ he asked, in little more than a whisper, ‘when did that “God” fellow say this ceremony would start?’
Harker glanced at his watch and then towards Carter. ‘It’s only three a.m. now and it’s meant to start at four. Why?’
‘Well, if that’s the case,’ Carter said, looking extremely uneasy, ‘then who are they?’
Harker turned to see the dark silhouette of a man standing no further than seven metres from him. He swung his torchlight towards the figure, and what he saw made him take a few steps back.
The man was wearing a black jumper underneath a dark-brown cloak which descended from his shoulders to barely a few centimetres from the ground. Under that a pair of shiny black combat boots, with shiny metal trims lining the soles, glinted in the beam of Harker’s torch. If that wasn’t bizarre enough, this attire was topped off with a chilling matt-black face mask with eye holes and a protruding beak, not unlike Gonzo’s from The Muppet Show.
Most people would not have understood the significance of such get-up but Harker knew. For this was the attire of a plague doctor. Such outfits were worn by medical practitioners in Europe’s plague-ridden era and although meant to identify the bringers of life and health, they were often seen as a sign of imminent death and therefore dreaded by most people. It was this same dread that Harker now felt in the pit of his stomach and, as he backed away, he became aware of other figures approaching out of the shadows and beginning to circle them both.
He spun his torch, as did Carter, catching each of the darkened silhouettes in turn and revealing them all to be wearing the same ominous plague-doctor attire as the first.
The small group moved closer, at equal pace, until they formed a circle around the two men, whereupon they halted and stood there silently with their arms crossed.
The feeling of being hemmed in made Harker retreat until he was standing back to back with Carter, whose breathing sounded shallower with each passing moment.
‘Who are you?’ Harker demanded.
The ensuing silence only added to the rising tension, at least on Harker’s part, before one of the mysterious figures took a step forward. He raised his hands in the air and then clapped them together with a sound that echoed throughout the enclosed cemetery. Up above, torches ignited into flame around them in unison, revealing the other dark figures holding them, who were standing all along the sides of the walls and now pointing the fingers of their other hands directly at the intruders.
From the inner circle, one of the masked doctors took a step forward, also pointing an accusing finger, as a deep voice bellowed out from underneath his mask. ‘It is we who should ask who you are,’ the voice growled, before the pointed finger clenched into a fist. ‘You people should not be here.’
The sheer sense of intimidation had Harker at a sudden loss for words and, without revealing anything, he found himself thinking up truly stupid excuses. ‘It’s a public place’ or ‘My mother’s buried here’ were sadly some of the better ones, and he was still in the process of forming a verbal response when the same figure moved a few steps closer, then slowly took hold of the top of his mask and slid it off to reveal a familiar face.
‘You,’ Harker gasped as he recognized the man who had engaged him in idle talk back at Pisa cathedral.
The blond-haired man revealed the same conceited smile, his lips parting to reveal a set of glinting and unnaturally white teeth. ‘Still sightseeing?’ he asked coldly.
‘Yes, as it happens,’ Harker replied politely, already taking a step sideways in the direction of the way out, ‘but maybe we should just come back another day.’ He had hardly moved when the blond man slapped the back of his hand across Harker’s face. It happened so quickly that Harker had no time to react and the impact tipped him off balance, pushing him into Carter’s back, who managed to steady them both.
‘There’s no need for that,’ Carter huffed with a genuine air of defiance. ‘We will be leaving immediately.’
The click of a gun cocking ended any further debate on that matter, as Harker found himself staring into the barre
l of a 9mm Colt automatic held firmly in the blond fellow’s fist.
‘You’re not going anywhere,’ he declared, before turning his attention to the nearest masked ‘doctor’. ‘Take them.’
Starting a fight to resist at this point would have been futile, so Harker allowed himself to be restrained by two of the faux medics. Then, along with Carter, he was marched back inside the entrance building.
The interior was, of course, still bare but with one notable difference in that a part of the side wall had been pulled back to allow access to a further area beyond. Harker couldn’t see any hinges and figured the partition must have been on a weighted pulley of some sort. It was a clever yet simple feat of engineering.
Harker was shoved through the opening and found himself being brusquely hauled up two short flights of stairs leading onto the flat roof of the entrance building, which allowed a broad view over the entire cemetery and its surrounding woodland and the fields behind.
The countryside beyond was blanketed by overcast skies and the only available light came from the eight people lining the walls and holding up torches which flickered in the light breeze, illuminating the costumes they wore.
To call them costumes was a stretch, because to Harker they looked more like grey leather butchers’ aprons which hung down to their shins, and the simple, yet intimidating, outfit was finished off with a pair of thick black gloves.
Even if these costumes were extremely disturbing, it was the masks that offered the coup de grâce and set each of the torch bearers apart. Whereas their body outfits were identical, offering uniformity to the henchmen, the individual masks could not have been more personalized – each with unique symbols, colours and ornate carvings cut into their surfaces.
The only mask Harker could assess in any proper detail belonged to the nearest torch bearer standing up on the wall just a few metres from the rooftop. And although Harker did not recognize all the symbols and letters it bore, he did recognize a few. They were decidedly similar to the text he had seen on the Gigas page from Spreepark. The small parcel they had picked up back in Pisa presumably contained another one of the Gigas pages. ‘Presumably’ because, despite Carter’s pleading for him to open it and take a peek, Harker had resisted, not wanting to tamper with the packaging. It was a precaution that now seemed to have been wholly unnecessary as he was bustled over to one side of the roof, together with Carter, and it irked him not to have found a better hiding place than the inside pocket of his jacket.
‘Now,’ the blond man continued, approaching Harker, whose arms were still restrained by a couple of personal chaperones, ‘perhaps it is time for you to tell me your names?’
Harker eyed the man warily, before reeling off the first name that came to mind. ‘Tom Whittington.’
‘Tom Whittington!’ This answer drew a disbelieving raised eyebrow from the blond man, who immediately turned his attention to Carter, who was doing his best and failing miserably to look calm and relaxed despite his predicament. ‘And you, little fat man.’
‘William Scratchworth,’ came Carter’s reply, sounding more like a question than an answer.
‘Tom Whittington and Billy Scratchworth? How very Dickensian,’ the man announced with a frustrated smile, then he landed a hard slap across Carter’s cheek. ‘OK, let’s forgo your names and start with something a bit closer to my own heart. Why did you pick up a package earlier that was specifically meant for me?’
Clearly the fellow knew they had picked up that item, but Harker was not about to reveal a thing. He raised his chin defiantly and calmly shook his head. ‘I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Mmmm,’ their interrogator murmured, and without warning he delivered a hard punch to Carter’s ribs, causing the ex-don to bend over in pain before being pulled back up straight by the two ‘plague doctors’ at his side.
‘Well, then,’ the interrogator snarled, as Carter whimpered in pain. ‘It appears we’re in for a long night, doesn’t it?’
‘Looks that way, because I don’t know anything,’ Harker said with a defiance that had Carter groaning in anticipation of receiving the next blow.
‘Give me a break, Alex,’ Carter muttered – and the name was immediately picked up on.
‘So it’s Alex, is it? Well, that’s a start.’
Before Harker could respond, a man in one of the now familiar outfits appeared at the top of the stairs, waving a brown package in the air. ‘I’ve checked their car, Vlad,’ he announced in a Slavic accent, ‘and it’s not there.’ The blond man immediately shot the new arrival a look of reproach and it was this awkward slip of the tongue which Harker was quick to seize upon.
‘Nice to meet you too, Vlad,’ Harker said, and Carter was already bracing himself. But Vlad only offered a smile before turning his attention to the small bulge in Harker’s jacket, and with his forefinger he reached over and lightly tapped on his chest, directly upon the Codex page that was nestled in his inside pocket.
‘And what do we have here?’ Vlad continued, ignoring the gaffe made by his own man, and he reached over and calmly retrieved the package and gently opened it to reveal a folded piece of vellum – undoubtedly another page of the Codex Gigas. ‘So I’m guessing you were the one at Spreepark, then? Seems you have been a busy boy.’
Harker said nothing as Vlad passed the section of vellum to one of the men dressed as a plague doctor, who with a respectful nod stood off to one side with the valuable page grasped protectively in his hands as Vlad returned his attention back to his two visitors.
‘The whos and whys can wait for now. As you said, it will be a long night for the both of you, and your diligence in pushing your way into our business should be rewarded.’ Vlad leant over to whisper in Harker’s ear. ‘But if you make another sound, I will have your tongue cut out, understand?’
The way he curled his lips when speaking each word was chilling, and Harker offered a stone-faced nod. Vlad then approached the centre of the rooftop and began to address the motionless torch bearers, who still waiting silently along the perimeter.
‘Welcome, brothers and sisters, on this most hallowed of nights, to bear witness to the truth that we and our kind have sought since mankind came of age. Your very presence here tonight attests to the resilience and spirit of our beliefs.’
Harker found it an interesting start to the ceremony because it was so close to what he had heard in Spreepark. You didn’t have to be a brain surgeon to deduce that these people were all part of the same group, but to have it confirmed was an additional piece of the jigsaw in an otherwise confusing series of events, and Harker was grateful of it.
A hushed murmur of approval now arose from the torch bearers as Vlad continued, his voice gaining in volume.
‘Many sacrifices have been made to reach this milestone, and we should never forget that. Even though we are on the precipice of such monumental change, there are still those who would seek to destroy everything we have built so far. But, as you have seen tonight, they will fail as they always do.’
Vlad turned and pointed towards Harker with a scowl before returning his attention to the torch bearers, who were all nodding in agreement.
‘For far too long we have been branded outcasts and traitors by the Church, which has seen fit to hijack individual thought and enslave humanity in the process. Well, no more. Tonight sees the birth of a brighter light and a breaking dawn, where the old ways – our ways – lay claim to a world that has not only been promised but bequeathed to us by the true Holy Spirit. I refer to the fallen angel, and the one who was persecuted for embodying everything that it is to be human.’
With a look of fanatical fervour, Vlad raised his hand to the sky even as the torch bearers lifted their flames high. ‘Satanael, Prince of Grigori, we call out to you, Lucifer, to guide our hands and reshape the world in your own image – not His.’
Harker watched uneasily as the nearest plague doctor passed Vlad the now unfolded Codex page, and without hesitation
he began to read aloud from the text. The words were like nothing Harker had ever heard before, although he recognized a couple of them as possibly being Aramaic in origin. For the most part, though, it was totally incomprehensible and he shot a wide-eyed glance of astonishment at Carter, who was looking equally perplexed.
The recitation took about two minutes, during which the masked torch bearers, their flames still held high, murmured something unintelligible to themselves. Then, as it came to a close, Vlad refolded the Codex page, dropped to one knee and began to speak in English.
‘The two men buried here before us were heretics and judges of the masses.’ Vlad pointed down to the two freshly dug graves in the cemetery below. ‘Now let those who have judged be among the first to be judged themselves.’
The entire place went silent and then every person went down on one knee, with even Harker and Carter being forced to kneel by their chaperones. Meanwhile Vlad placed his head in his hands, as if he were crying, and began mumbling what sounded like a prayer.
Harker shot Carter another look and, with eyebrows raised, the ex-don mouthed the word ‘Awkward’. Although amused, Harker did not smile but it did give him a small sense of relief, like a faint breeze of normality blowing over him while being surrounded by such unpleasantness.
The hushed silence persisted for a couple of minutes, during which time Harker was formulating an escape plan. He was contemplating rushing at Carter, knocking them both off the edge of the roof, with the hope that they might land down below without breaking any bones. The drop could not be more than five metres and he was already tensing his thigh muscles in readiness when something shifted down in the cemetery itself. It was difficult to be sure because the only light came from the flickering flames of the torch bearers ranged along the walls, and he was about to dismiss it as dancing shadows when this time he definitely did see something move.
Harker watched as soil from one of the freshly dug graves began to swell upwards until something thin poked through the surface like the stalk of some plant.
The Last Judgement Page 8
