The Demon Club

by Scott Mariani

  ‘They were going to murder him,’ Ben said.

  Jeff ran to fetch a chair and they gently laid Chrissie in it, still fast asleep with her head lolling on her shoulder. Ben handed him the infant while he put his shirt back on. The boy had puked on it, but Ben put it on anyway.

  ‘Hey, how do I know what to do with a baby?’ Jeff said, awkwardly clutching the wriggling child. His pudgy little legs were running in empty air. ‘This is the closest I’ve ever come to one.’

  ‘I don’t know either,’ Ben admitted.

  ‘Then what the hell are we going to do with the poor little sucker?’

  ‘Same as we’ll do with her,’ Ben said, glancing at Chrissie. ‘Hand him over to the police and hope for the best. In the meantime, they can’t stay here.’

  Jeff nodded. He ducked his head round the door of the banquet room. ‘Tues, mate. Need you to run and fetch the Bentley.’ He tossed Tuesday the keys.

  Tuesday wasn’t especially pleased to be relegated to hostage extraction duties, but when he saw the baby he put down his rifle and clutched it in his arms as though he’d been doing it all his life. Ben remembered that Tuesday was the eldest of a whole brood of younger brothers and sisters. The baby settled, but he still didn’t look happy.

  Jeff said, ‘What’s he pulling that sour face for? Doesn’t he know we just rescued him?’

  Tuesday said, ‘He’s cold. Get me a blanket or something to wrap him up with.’

  Minutes later, Dudley’s car screeched around the side of the house. Ben, Wolf, Jeff and Reaper closed up the banquet room. The prisoners locked inside were yelling and banging on the doors and hurling chairs at the windows in a frantic bid to escape, but they weren’t going anywhere. The five men helped Chrissie into the back of the car and Tuesday climbed into the passenger seat nursing the swaddled baby as Reaper got behind the wheel. He would drive around to where the van was hidden, transfer into it and then retreat to a prearranged location where they’d all meet up again later. The cops would eventually be scratching their heads wondering what the late Tristan Dudley’s Bentley was doing abandoned near a stately home in Surrey – but by then they’d have bigger things to worry about.

  ‘That’s that taken care of,’ Jeff said as the Bentley took off.

  Ben was just as relieved to see them go. Not just because of the need to protect Chrissie and the baby. It was because they didn’t want their friends to have to witness what was about to happen next. This was down to the three of them.

  ‘Now we finish it,’ Wolf said.

  Chapter 63

  They hadn’t talked a lot about this moment but each of them knew it would come. And now it was here.

  Ben had known Jeff Dekker for a long time. Jeff was an intensely moral man with a strong sense of justice. He would never voluntarily bring harm on an undeserving person, still less execute fifty men in cold blood and with a clear conscience. But after the discovery of the baby, Ben had never seen his old friend more ready to dish out punishment. Jaden Wolf had been, and still was, a hardened assassin. He was used to it. As for Ben himself, he’d struggled long and hard to decide what was best. It would be all too easy to soften his resolve, show mercy and let these evil men face justice by standing trial for their crimes in a courtroom. It seemed like the right thing to do. It was certainly what Grace would have wanted him to do.

  But Ben had been around long enough, and learned enough about the realities of the world, to know that not one of the Pandemonium Club would ever spend a single day in prison. The establishment to which they belonged simply would not permit that to happen. The power and influence they wielded would be used to raise a giant protective wall of lies and denial. By the time the bureaucratic disinformation machine had done its work, the scandal would be quietly buried and they would be left to walk free and return to their depraved ways. The Order would quickly be re-established. More innocents would die. Nothing would have changed.

  That was why Ben felt no guilt about the three cult members he and his friends had already killed. And it was why he knew in his heart that the rest of them must also die.

  Right here.

  Right now.

  But killing them wouldn’t be enough. To allow the public to mourn their dead leaders and public figures wasn’t an acceptable outcome. Jasper Shelton was right. The people had to know the truth about the malevolent subculture that had taken root in their society. As shocking and upsetting as it would be for them, they needed to open their eyes to the reality of the evil forces that walked in the corridors of power.

  Ben said, ‘Ready?’

  Jeff nodded grimly. ‘I’m ready.’

  Wolf said, ‘Let’s get it done.’

  They checked their weapons. Ben unlocked the doors of the banquet room and they walked in. The crowd of prisoners shrank away in fear at the sight of the guns.

  Three against fifty. If the Pandemonium Club had known what was in store for them, they’d have rushed their captors in a last-ditch bid for freedom. Those who died would have gone down fighting, like men. But these weren’t men. They were cowardly subterranean slime creatures who still thought they could bargain and wheedle their way out of this.

  Wolf turned and locked the doors shut. A sea of bewildered and terrified faces stared at the three gunmen. ‘What do you want with us?’ quavered a voice from the back.

  ‘You can start by telling us where Van Brakel and Saunders are,’ Ben said.

  Someone replied, ‘If you mean Fitzroy, they were here, but they left before the ceremony.’

  ‘Fitzroy. So that’s his real name,’ Wolf said.

  ‘Why did they go?’

  ‘I don’t know!’

  ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘I don’t know!’

  ‘But you do know plenty,’ Jeff said, taking out a phone. ‘And now you’re going to start talking. It’s confession time, ladies.’ He set the phone to video record and aimed the camera at the sea of faces.

  ‘Let me go and I’ll confess everything!’ one of them shouted, cracking. ‘I am a member of the Order of Thoth! I—’

  ‘Quiet!’ yelled another voice from the crowd, and a gaunt, bald man stepped forward. His face was flushed and contorted with rage and he jabbed an accusing finger at his fellows. ‘Don’t tell them anything, Brothers!’ He turned to Ben. ‘If you think you can expose us, think again. Who do you think owns the media, you fools? We’re the ones who tell the newspapers what to write. We dictate the facts that the public believe. Your claims will be discredited as fake news. Conspiracy theories. Hate speech. Nobody will ever take you seriously. Nothing you can do will make a jot of difference!’

  ‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that,’ Wolf said.

  ‘Set us free and we’ll make you rich beyond your wildest dreams!’ screamed another man, pushing the gaunt one out of the way.

  ‘Think you can buy anything, don’t you?’ Jeff said, recording every word. ‘How much did you pay the kidnappers to bring you the girl you were going to murder tonight? How much for the baby?’

  ‘Ask them how much Tristan Dudley stood to gain from sacrificing his daughter Annie to them,’ Wolf said. ‘Ask them how much their Grand Master paid to have Anthony Abbott murdered before he could blow the whistle on the whole gang.’

  ‘Fuck you!’ screamed the gaunt man, veins writhing like snakes in his temples and his eyes popping with hate. ‘May the wrath of our Lord Lucifer drag you to hell and roast the flesh from your bones! Death to the unbelievers! Ave Satanas! Ave Satanas!’

  Ben wanted to step in and beat him down, but the camera was rolling and it was giving them exactly what Jasper Shelton needed to blow the world away.

  Then everything changed. As the gaunt man opened his mouth to scream something more, his words were overlaid by a clattering roar from outside that seemed to have come out of nowhere and was suddenly so loud that it rattled the banquet room’s window panes.

  Ben looked out and saw the lights raking the trees and the surface of the lak
e. A helicopter was coming in to land close to Karswell Hall.

  Chapter 64

  Ben’s first thought was that it was a police chopper, reacting to an alert put out by the fleeing security men. If that was the case, then any second now the whole grounds would be swarming with rapid response vehicles and SWAT troops.

  He raced to the bow windows and craned his neck up at the sky past the corner of the house, just in time to see the descending aircraft disappear behind the trees to the rear of the house. UK police helicopters were black and yellow. By the moonlight he could see that this one was red and white, making it a private aircraft.

  And his next thought was Saunders.

  ‘Ben?’ Jeff said.

  But Ben was already running for the door. Unlocking it and tearing it open. Wolf read the look on his face and said, ‘I’m coming too.’ Jeff was right behind them. The crowd of prisoners tried to surge towards the open door but Jeff slammed it in their faces and secured it shut, to the sound of muffled screams and heavy pounding from within.

  Tuesday had left Reaper’s rifle propped against the wall outside the banquet room. Ben snatched it up as he ran, sprinted for the French windows of the members’ lounge and burst outside. The chopper was still on the ground, partially out of sight. The blast from its rotors was like a hurricane ripping through the treetops. The pilot keeping his turbine revving hard, in a hurry to take off again any moment. Which meant he was picking up passengers.

  Ben jumped the body of a dead security guard and raced full pelt along the side of the house and across a stretch of moonlit lawn that sloped down towards the meadow where the chopper had made its landing. Veering a few degrees off course to give himself a line of sight around the edge of the treeline, he made out two figures hurrying towards the aircraft, bent low against its rotor blast. They were less than a hundred yards away and Ben could see them clearly. One was the figure of a very old man, hobbling on his feet, frail and stooped and carrying what looked like a cane. The other was a younger man, but no spring chicken either. He wasn’t tall, wasn’t short, wasn’t fat, wasn’t thin. The wind of the helicopter tore at the thick, unkempt grey hair that receded from his high forehead. The lights of the chopper reflected in his glasses.

  And Ben recognised him instantly. He didn’t care what Saunders’ real name was. All that mattered was that the man was still here. Saunders was wily enough to have got wind of the imminent attack on his cult, but luck had been against him if he’d thought he could get away fast. He and the old man must have been hiding in the house while the helicopter flew in to evacuate them.

  They mustn’t get away.

  Ben kept running, but saw that he wasn’t going to catch them before they took off. Saunders reached the open hatch and shoved the old man through it, then clambered aboard after him. The turbine screeched. The blast of the rotors became a tornado. The skids flexed as the aircraft found its grip on the air and started to go light; then its nose dipped and its tail lifted and it was away, banking hard and gaining altitude. Its sound was deafening and the wind tore at Ben’s hair and clothes as it blasted directly overhead.

  Ben turned to watch it go. He saw Wolf running hard to catch up, and Jeff close behind him. The chopper had overflown Karswell Hall on its way in, and now it was heading back the way it had come. Soon it would be gone.

  Not if Ben could help it.

  He raised the rifle and saw a magnified flurry of movement and lights in the lens of the scope. The target was too close to be focused and there was no time to take a properly aimed shot. He worked the bolt hard and fast. Felt the .338 Lapua Magnum shell slide and lock into the chamber. His finger found the smooth curve of the trigger and he fired.

  The report of the rifle was a sharp, harsh bark in his ears and the recoil hammered his shoulder. It was a powerful rifle but it was no anti-aircraft weapon. Like shooting a .22 at an elephant. Bolt back, eject. Bolt forward, chamber, lock. The chopper was flying hard away, almost directly above the roofline of the house. Wolf and Jeff had almost caught up with him now. Jeff yelled something that Ben didn’t hear because he was too intent on his target.

  He fired again. He reckoned on having six rounds left in his magazine, and he’d keep pumping them into the fleeing chopper until it was empty.

  But then he realised that he wouldn’t have to. A dark plume of oily smoke suddenly belched from the rear of the aircraft and blotted out the moon. The roar of the helicopter’s turbine changed note and became a yowling clatter. Whatever he’d hit, it had hurt it badly. Now the chopper was banking dramatically. Its nose dipping. Altitude dropping. Yellow flames appearing in the tail of black smoke.

  Ben watched in amazement. He heard Wolf yell ‘Shit!’

  And then the out-of-control helicopter hit Karswell Hall. The rotors scythed into the apex of the roofline and shattered into wreckage like bursting shrapnel. The chopper flipped and smashed through the top of the house as though it were made of balsa wood, and was swallowed in a giant fireball that lit the sky and made Ben, Wolf and Jeff shield their eyes from its blinding flash. In seconds, an inferno engulfed the interior as hundreds of litres of aircraft fuel burst from its shattered tanks, ignited to thousands of degrees and poured like liquid napalm through to the lower floors. Fire erupted from the ground-floor windows with volcanic fury.

  All Wolf and Jeff could do was gape and shake their heads in disbelief. Ben began running a few steps towards the house, but then stopped and turned away from the sudden scorching heatwave as a second and far bigger explosion ripped through the building and shook the ground under his feet. The helicopter crash had ruptured a gas main.

  And now the three of them watched the rapid and total destruction of Karswell Hall. In seconds, most of the roof had fallen inwards and become a giant crater from which fire and smoke leapt high into the night sky. Sections of blackened stonework began to crumble and lean and fall. The inferno was pouring from the bay windows of what had been the banquet room. Nobody inside could have escaped being roasted alive.

  The Pandemonium Club had wanted to create Hell on Earth. Now they’d found it.

  ‘They’re toast,’ Wolf said.

  ‘Crispy bacon,’ Jeff said.

  Ben was about to say something when a movement near the house caught his eye. A small, dark shape moving slowly in the midst of the smoke and patches of fire that had broken out all across the lawn. He thought it was an animal, but it couldn’t be.

  Ben brought the rifle back to his shoulder and peered through the scope. What he could see moving about over there was the broken, crawling, torn and crippled shape of a man. Blood covered his face and his glasses were gone. He was clawing himself away like a half-crushed spider from the burning house, dragging one leg behind him.

  Saunders must have been thrown clear of the helicopter when it hit the house and flipped over. He must have come tumbling down the slope of the roof as the shattering rotors diced the air all around him, then fallen three storeys to the ground below. And he was still alive.

  Ben could have just shot him then, clean and surgical. Instead he lowered the rifle, tossed it to Jeff and drew out his pistol.

  ‘Stay back. He’s mine.’

  Ben walked towards the blazing house. The billows of black smoke stung his eyes and the heat of the raging conflagration was tremendous. He kept walking. His grip on the pistol was relaxed. He felt calm.

  Saunders had managed to crawl about a dozen yards with his broken left leg trailing behind him. He seemed to be trying to head for the lake, as though he thought he could swim away to freedom. Then he must have noticed out of the corner of his eye the approaching figure silhouetted against the flames of the house, because he stopped crawling and wedged himself up on one elbow to crane his neck around and look. Recognition dawned across his face as Ben stepped closer.

  ‘Hope.’

  Ben stopped. Smoke drifted across the lawn and floated over the lake like mist. Behind him, another section of roof came down with a crash and entombed the r
emains of the Pandemonium Club deeper in burning wreckage.

  It was almost over. But not quite.

  ‘You and I weren’t supposed to meet again,’ Ben said to the wounded man. ‘Looks like your plan didn’t quite work out, did it, Saunders?’

  ‘The name is Fitzroy.’

  ‘I know,’ Ben said. ‘But to me you’ll always be the man who sat beside me on the plane. That was the biggest mistake you ever made.’

  ‘You really are quite a fellow. You seem to have been a step ahead of me all along.’

  ‘Not all along,’ Ben said.

  ‘Now I suppose you’ve come to finish me off. A merciful end for the dying.’ Saunders, or Fitzroy, or whatever his real name was, coughed and spat red.

  Maybe he was dying, or maybe he wasn’t. Ben nodded. ‘You’re done, one way or the other. But I won’t shoot a man who’s down.’

  ‘How very sporting of you, Major. Then you’ll have to help me stand up. I don’t think I can quite manage it on my own.’

  Ben stepped closer, stood over him and put out a hand. Saunders reached up and took it. He was hurt and bloody and racked with pain, but he was tough. He didn’t cry out as Ben hauled him to his feet, but stood there swaying with his weight on one foot and the damaged leg hanging limp. The red glow of the flames reflected in his eyes and made him look reptilian.

  Saunders smiled and said, ‘You’re a damn fool, Hope.’

  And then, quick as a snake and far more aggressively than a dying man should be capable of, he dipped a hand inside his torn, tattered jacket and came out with a big black Colt automatic that he thrust towards Ben’s face and fired. Blue-white muzzle flash exploded from its barrel and the blast split the night like a bomb.

  But Ben was a quarter-second ahead of him. Because he’d seen it coming even before the man began to move. Because it was exactly the kind of low trick that men like Saunders had been pulling since the beginning of time. And because it was exactly what some crazy part of him had wanted Saunders to do, so that he could kill him properly, face to face. The way he’d wanted to do since the day they’d met.