by R D Shah
‘Thank you, Bishop, we might just do that.’ Harker replied.
‘Very well, I will see you after the service.’ Canard gave a friendly wave of his hand as he headed back towards the main nave leaving Harker and Chloe starting at each other in disappointment.
‘Well, that was a let-down.’ Chloe scowled. ‘I honestly thought the box was going to unravel a mystery or something.’
Harker glanced down at the note still sitting in the palm of his hand. ‘I did too. I really did,’ he replied, before slipping the note into his jacket pocket. ‘Apparently Marcus Eckard was plain crazy after all, but it still doesn’t explain why that psychopath McCray turned up.’
‘Maybe he was conned into believing there was something more to this, just like we were.’
‘Maybe,’ Harker agreed, ‘but it still doesn’t make any sense.’
‘Nope, and it probably never will. God, I can’t believe I allowed myself to get dragged into all this through the heeding imaginative ramblings of one of my patients.’ Chloe looked humiliated and downcast by the whole escapade.
Harker rested his hand on her shoulder reassuringly. ‘Don’t forget the murderer who almost killed both of us.’
She pulled away with a genuine look of shame now. ‘That may be true, but to allow myself to be so influenced by a patient’s flights of fancy is unforgivable. I should have just gone back to Blackwater in the first place and explained what happened, instead of jumping on a train to Paris with a complete stranger, and with grandiose and idiotic hopes of unravelling some spiritual mystery.’ Chloe clapped her hands over her face and let out a lengthy frustrated sigh. ‘Jesus, when I say it out loud, it sounds even crazier.’ She slumped back against the thick stone wall of the treasury and stared down at the floor miserably. ‘What the hell was I thinking?’
The sorrowful figure in front of him elicited a tinge of sympathy from Harker but, considering the good doctor had pretty much blackmailed him into coming along, he was also finding it hard to feel any real empathy. Still there was something about her he genuinely liked, but whether that was down to pure physical attraction he wasn’t sure. ‘You did exactly the right thing. Remember your supervisor told you to go home and wait for his call, right?’ The remark drew a slow nod. ‘And he still hasn’t called you yet, has he?’
Chloe’s eyes remained fixed on the weathered tiles below her feet. ‘I suppose that’s true.’
‘And you survived an attack on your life, which I consider a success in itself. So what if this little trip of ours came to nothing – big deal. I don’t care and neither should you.’
Harker’s upbeat words made her glance towards him with an encouraging glint in her eyes.
‘Look, Chloe, whatever this Secrets’ malarkey was about it was a long shot at best. And besides,’ he glanced up at the impressive stained-glass windows and the sunlight pouring through them, ‘how often do you get to visit Notre Dame Cathedral and, more importantly, Paris.’ Finally, a smile began to emerge on Chloe’s lips and she stood up straighter with renewed composure. Harker continued, ‘We have the rest of the day to spend in one of the most exciting cities in the world, and we can be back in the UK by this evening and then you can call your boss and get an update.’ Even as he said it, the idea of McCray and any unfinished business was still resonating in the back of Harker’s mind like a foghorn, but there was little he could do about it at this point in time. He also had to consider that this dead-end at the cathedral may have been just what the psychopath was hoping for, and perhaps their paths would never cross again. ‘So what do you say, Doctor Stanton, shall we take a taxi and see the sights?’
The words had barely passed his lips when somewhere in the distance a high-pitched shriek shattered the surrounding stillness, only to be followed by another even louder scream.
‘What the hell was that?’ Chloe exclaimed and she quickly followed Harker who was already making his way through the treasury entrance and down the corridor. He had only just reached the access door to the cathedral when another scream erupted and he went bolting through the entrance with such speed that he failed to see the woman standing just beyond it, so the two collided. This caused Harker to stumble but sent the woman flying face first onto the marble floor. Within moments Harker was at her side. ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you,’ he offered apologetically, then he gently clasped both hands around the woman’s shoulders and carefully turned her over to face him. She had hit the floor hard and in those few frenetic seconds Harker expected to see maybe a badly blooded nose, but the sight that greeted him was far more shocking and he shuddered in astonishment at the distressing image that confronted him.
The woman’s skin was a sickly ashen grey with, just below the surface, a dark network of black veins and capillaries weaving through her flesh, adding to the woman’s rapidly darkening skin colour. A tight grimace pulled back her lips to reveal bleeding gums that seemed to recede further with each passing second, and her tongue was so purple and swollen she was clearly struggling to breathe. The woman’s eyes peered blankly upwards, the whites replaced with a deep crimson red where the capillaries had completely burst. The life fluid ruptured through small tears in her eyeballs, squirting globules of frothy blood over the eyelids and rolling down the woman’s cheeks.
Harker heard Chloe gasp in shock behind him, then felt her hand grasp his shoulder for support. That gasp clearly caught the attention of the deathly-looking woman and those two blood-red eyes slowly rolled towards Harker and her body began to tremble, then shake violently, until her whole frame went rigid. This climaxed in the expulsion of a high-pitched shriek, before her body went limp and those staring eyes became glazed and lifeless.
Harker was already shouting out loud. ‘I need help here. Please, I need hel …’ His words tailed off the moment he looked up and towards the rows of pews up ahead. There must have been over a hundred visitors to the cathedral that day – men, women, and children of all ages – and, as far as Harker could see, every one of them was now writhing in pain while displaying the same ghoulish features as the dead woman before him. Some simply stood shaking uncontrollably, whilst others where punching at their own faces or tearing at their clothes as if the fabric itself was burning into their skin. Nearby an elderly man started banging his head repeatedly against a pillar which such force that the front of his skull finally crumpled inwards and he collapsed to the floor leaving a long bloody smear down the stonework.
One by one, visitors began to replicate such macabre acts, with some fighting against their pain more violently than others, but all eventually were left trembling uncontrollably until finally, with high-pitched screams, they fell to the floor and lay still.
Harker could not tear his gaze away from the gruesome sight and it was only the feeling of Chloe slipping her hand into his own that finally snapped him out of it.
‘Alex, we have to go,’ she yelled loudly over the ear-piercing wails of the dying and Harker felt a surge of focus returning until every cell in his body demanded one single response. ‘Run!’
Chloe pulled him to his feet and took the lead but within a few steps Harker had outpaced her, their hands still gripping each other’s tightly. They began making a path around the outer perimeter of the cathedral. The inner sanctum containing the altar was hidden by internal screening walls but as it came into view, they could see that the same madness was gripping the priests and choirboys, who were all tearing at their robes and screaming for a release from the pain that was clearly overwhelming their bodies.
The screams grew louder as Harker guided them both towards the twitching mass of people, each trapped in their own bloody death throes. At first he attempted to avoid direct contact but it soon became clear that these poor souls were not out to harm anyone, but merely struggling to endure their own hellish torment. Harker ploughed straight into the thinning crowd, stepping over scores of fallen and convulsing bodies, and headed on towards the cathedral’s main entrance, with Chloe clamped close to his si
de. The hefty wooden doors lay wide open, with cleansing sunlight pouring through, and they reached them just as a high-pitched scream, far louder than the rest, caused both of them to turn round. Halfway down the main aisle, Bishop Canard stared after them with burning red eyes, his face a sticky grey and his mouth wide open. Slowly raising his arm, he pointed a long grey finger towards Harker, then stood thus poised for a few moments before unleashing one final ear-piercing shriek and dropping to the floor in a heap.
As Harker felt Chloe tug insistently at his arm, he observed an odd calm descend all around the cathedral and the thrashing of bodies began to ease. Some continued swaying from side to side but most of them became still as statues, with dark red eyes fixed upon nothing but space, until the pain that had consumed them moments earlier was replaced by an unnatural peacefulness. Harker watched in astonishment as one by one each individual then dropped silently to the floor, just as Canard had done. There was no pattern here but all of it totally random. One by the altar, a group in the pews to the left, followed by a woman and her young child over to Harker’s right … until finally the last victim sank slowly to the floor, leaving both himself and Chloe the only ones standing. Harker remained transfixed by the sight until Chloe finally dragged him away and out into the fresh air outside.
‘Oh, my God,’ she choked as Harker turned his gaze from one nightmarish spectacle to another. Scattered across the plaza beyond and up the cathedral steps were yet more corpses with the same distorted features. The sound of sirens drew near and he looked across to see two police cars each containing a number of officers just arriving at the scene. The proximity of a police station had allowed for such a quick arrival and some were already attempting to hold back the shocked onlookers, who were staring in Harker and Chloe’s direction and then at the bodies at their feet.
Harker struggled to control his nausea and the hazy numbness in his head, and he turned to see Chloe was now beginning to shiver with undoubtedly the onset of shock. Harker pulled the woman close and rubbed at her shoulders and arms instinctively, trying to keep her warm even though it was a sunny day. ‘Are you OK?’ he murmured.
‘I think so,’ she replied, her breath coming rapid and shallow. ‘What the hell just happened?’
Harker still held her close as a small group of police began to advance cautiously in their direction with guns drawn. ‘I honestly don’t know, but there’s something else that needs answering.’ Harker voiced the question he had no answer for but which was making him doubly anxious. ‘Why are we the only ones still alive?’
Chapter 10
A grey Mercedes Benz made its way down the muddy dirt track with ease, its tinted black windows glinting as it passed the numerous path lights leading into a forest clearing and on up to a solitary run-down barn. The car stopped with a skid, its wheels struggling for grip on the damp earth. The headlights cut out and the deep growl of the engine dwindled to silence, as overhead the full moon glowed brightly.
With a click the rear passenger door swung open, revealing a wine-red lit-up interior and a solitary figure in an overcoat stepped out onto the muddy path and made his way over to the entrance to the barn. The man took a moment to glance around before then he rapped firmly on the wooden door. Within seconds it opened to reveal an old man dressed in a set of dirty work clothes. The beige flat cap on his head was just as filthy as the muddy pair of green wellington boots on his feet, and he would have looked altogether the typical farmer had it not been for the silenced Luger pistol held tightly in one hand.
‘I’m here to see the owner,’ the new arrival stated.
‘Do you have the necessary paperwork?’
‘No, I find documentation causes unnecessary scrutiny,’ came the reply.
Satisfied that the password was correct, the gatekeeper stood back and allowed the visitor inside.
The barn’s interior looked as dilapidated as the outside, with all the appearance of a working building. Various pieces of farming equipment hung from the walls and several bored-looking Romanian Simmental cows occupied a number of stalls.
‘This way.’ The old man instructed and led his guest across the hay-strewn cobbled floor to a small room opening off to the left. It was lined top to bottom with what had once been gleaming white tiles but years of use had left the majority yellow and cracked, and a row of toilet stalls along the back wall had fared no better.
The farmer made his way to the end and stopped in front of one filthy and disgusting, ill-used looking toilet. The pan itself was cracked, but not seeping, and the thick brown crust covering it hinted at the abuse it had suffered over time.
‘Just for show,’ the farmer explained with a grim smile before he reached over to the flusher and gave it a firm tug. The floor immediately emitted a deep grinding sound, followed by a series of vibrations directly underneath the men’s feet and then the entire toilet sunk into the ground, revealing a set of stone steps leading down to a passageway below.
‘Follow the corridor,’ the old man urged, gesturing into the dark void.
The passage itself was no more than twenty metres long, and the visitor made his way between unpainted cement walls leading eventually to a metal security desk. The guard occupying it wore a black balaclava, bullet-proof Kevlar vest and had a M4 machine-gun hanging by a leather strap from his shoulder. The guard said nothing, he simply offered a nod and stood up before leading his guest into a larger room beyond which, although painted a pleasant magnolia colour, was lacking any décor and was currently occupied by five neatly dressed individuals labouring intently at secured grey work desks. There were several doors leading out of this room but all were closed and the guard ignored them and continued to make his way towards an impressive-looking wood-panelled door upon which he administered a single firm knock.
‘Come,’ hailed a muffled voice from inside and the guard swung the door open, allowing the visitor access, before gently closing it behind him with a click.
At a large oak desk slumped John Wilcox like a wearied monarch, sitting in an expensive-looking blue leather armchair his hands drooping limply over the arms. ‘You took your time.’
‘I apologise, sir,’ the other man replied, ‘but there were some important issues the Council needed me to attend to before I left.’
Wilcox slowly pulled himself to his feet and made his way around to the other side of the desk, coming to a halt within a foot of the new arrival. He then leaned in closer, his face within inches of the visitor and his lips were twitching in annoyance. ‘Well, David, you should have informed me, then, shouldn’t you?’
The man he called David gave a regretful nod, keeping his eyes directed front and forward throughout. ‘Yes sir, but I think I may have picked up a shadow and I didn’t want to risk having your location compromised.’
‘A shadow?’ Wilcox questioned. ‘You mean the Templars?’
The Magi Council’s go-between gave a brief nod. ‘It’s hard to say, but maybe. They have been driving pretty hard recently. Many of our station houses have been raided over the past few months.’
‘Of course, they have,’ Wilcox replied with a smirk. ‘They’re looking for the child, no doubt.’
The response drew an uneasy glance from his visitor. ‘Actually that is one of the reasons I am here.’
The go-between’s vague admission made Wilcox’s face sag apprehensively, and he eyed the younger man with disdain. ‘There’s not a problem, is there? Come on, speak up,’ he snapped, ‘I’ve been hidden away in this underground tomb for months, so if I’ve been kept out of the loop…’
David offered a solemn nod. ‘I understand, sir, but having one of the most famous faces on the planet has its drawbacks when making travel plans; even with the surgery, which I must say looks far better than I had expected.’
‘Yes, not a bad job, if I do say so myself,’ Wilcox replied and rubbing at his transformed cheeks. ‘But what about the child?’
‘The child has disappeared.’
‘Disappeared
?’ Wilcox spat, as his face began to redden and his eyes rolled angrily as a distracting thought came to mind. ‘And what about Claire Dwyer?’
‘She has also disappeared,’ David replied sternly. ‘We waited at the meeting point, as planned, but she never turned up. And as of this moment, we have no idea where either she or the child are.’
Wilcox exhaled a deep gasp before slumping against the side of his desk. ‘When did this happen?’
David opened his mouth but hesitated for a moment, his lips wavering. ‘Just over a month ago.’
‘A month!’ the other man hissed, his whole body becoming tense. ‘And why am I only now hearing about this?’
‘The Council thought it best that they deal with the matter themselves, considering your current notoriety,’ the younger man replied, seemingly unmoved by Wilcox’s increasingly agitated demeanour.
‘Oh, they did, did they,’ Wilcox fumed, with the last vestments of his restraint evaporating. ‘And what have the Council done, in their infinite wisdom, to rectify the situation?’
‘I am afraid they have so far drawn a blank,’ David conceded, now looking embarrassed by such an outcome.
Wilcox took a step back and shook his head disappointedly. ‘Do you have any idea of the importance of that child?’ he yelled loudly. ‘He is the very embodiment of the reason we exist.’
‘Maybe so, sir,’ the younger man agreed. ‘But there are many who believe that the child is of little relevance to the Magi at this time.’
‘No relevance?’ Wilcox continued to shout. ‘Now, why would he not be relevant to us, as protectors of the Catholic church? Oh, I don’t know,’ Wilcox’s jaw muscles were tensing furiously and his eyes beginning to bulge. ‘Maybe it’s because he is the fucking son of God!’
