Church of Sin (The Ether Book 1)

by James Costall

  A perfect night for the world to end.

  He trudged calmly across the graveyard towards the church. He was in no hurry. As he neared the entrance he knew instantly that Grigori was dead. But it didn’t matter. The Prophet had played his part well but wasn’t written into the final scenes in any event.

  He stopped just before the entrance and glanced down at the gun in his hand. A 9mm Glock 18 with a lever-type fire selection switch allowing the user to change between automatic and semi automatic modes. It was used mainly by American counter-terrorism units but, through certain contacts, it had been easy for him to pick one up for less than a thousand pounds. It was small but powerful. At a short distance, the bullets penetrating a body would feel more like the size of a milk-bottle.

  It was a beautiful weapon to kill with.

  He flicked the safety off, wiped his nose on his sleeve and entered the church.

  Chapter 85

  For the first time, they held each other close. It occurred to Alix that, whatever she felt for Asher Fielding – that private flame that flickered persistently at the back of her mind – she had never been so close to him, never felt the warmth of his skin against hers, the touch of his hand, the smell of his hair. It was the utopian moment she had lived for so long in fear of.

  “Because why?” she whispered in his ear, begging the truth to spill out onto the floor and surround her. She felt his breath on her cheek. The rise and fall of his chest, the beating of his heart quicken. She thought back to Harker and the last tick of the old grandfather clock in the corner of her office. If she could stop time, she would freeze this moment forever.

  But it was as fragile as it was wonderful.

  Hearing the door of the church open, Ash stood and the spell was at once broken. Some troubling cloud had descended down on him.

  A figure emerged through the dimness and began walking down the centre aisle.

  “Guv,” he said, “Does your radio work? I can’t get a damned signal here.”

  An alarm bell sounded in Alix’s head.

  Something was wrong.

  Alix, said Azrael uneasily. That’s... wait. Alix, can you stand?

  She used the pew to support herself. Her feet hurt like Hell but she managed to get up off the floor. There were red marks where the nail had penetrated her and the wound looked angry but the Necromire had begun to repair her broken bone and muscle. It was a disillusioning feeling, to heal so abnormally fast. But she was thankful for it.

  Ash had stepped forward, blocking her view, but the sound of footsteps on the flagstone meant that Baron was still advancing.

  “This is going to take some explaining, sir, but Katelyn Laicey-”

  “No, No!”

  The shot resonated round the stone building, startled a flock of birds perched in the branches of the old oak tree. The sudden noise, amplified tenfold by the echo, caught Alix off guard and she stumbled, the pain in her feet forcing her back down to the floor.

  The bullet burst through Ash’s chest, knocking him off his feet and sending him sprawling past her. She watched him land a few yards behind her. At first, it didn’t register. He lay before the crucifix, silent and still. She turned back to Baron, her eyes wild and disbelieving.

  “No,” she said quietly. This wasn’t real, wasn’t happening. A thin cloud of wispy smoke meandered skywards, seeping from the barrel of the Glock like a serpent from its lair. Baron looked at her, almost apologetically, and lowered the gun.

  “Wha’... Why?” was all she could say.

  But she knew why.

  Because he’s the one, Alix. He’s the one.

  Baron looked at her, the way one might look at a wounded animal, a mixture of pity and nonchalance.

  “A regrettable incident,” he said. “But collateral damage was always a risk. If I could have achieved this without harming Ash I would have done so but he is so persistent. I guess, ironically, I only have myself to blame for that.”

  “You fucking Judas,” she whispered, barely able to speak. Trying to soak up the nonsensicalness of what she had witnessed.

  “No, no,” he replied. “A common misconception. Judas didn’t betray Christ; he was simply acting out a part written for him by a higher power. Christ wasn’t betrayed. He was fully in control. How else could one so powerful have been deceived by a mere mortal?”

  The horrible truth began to bleed into her brain. She looked back at Ash. Was he dead? She gritted her teeth, swallowed the pain and rose to her feet again but Baron levelled the Glock at her head.

  “If you could remain where you are, doctor Franchot, I would be obliged.”

  She looked into his eyes, saw only madness. Resolute, unwavering madness. Every inch of her yearned to turn to Ash, pull him round, see his face. Feel the blood pulse through his veins. But she remained still, knowing he held all the cards. She could hardly walk at the moment anyway. She lowered her eyes, every part of her exuberating hatred for him, the man who had sent her back to Innsmouth. The man she had trusted. The man Ash had trusted.

  They had all been deceived.

  “In Dante’s Inferno,” said Baron, “Judas Iscariot is depicted as writhing in agony in the jaws of a Three Headed Satan where he will stay for all eternity in the very lowest circle of Hell, or the Ninth Circle for Traitors. And yet he was, arguably, merely the participant in a pre-planned coup engineered by God to lead Christ to suffer on the cross and die for the sins of mankind. It’s always fascinating to me how wrong you creatures can get things.”

  “Your friend is dead,” she told him.

  He looked uninterested and merely glanced at Grigori’s bent figure on the floor.

  “The Prophet?” he said. “He had outlasted his use in any event. His company was entertaining for a short while but I have no further need for his assistance. I have everything. The Portal, the Spear of Destiny, the Vessel.”

  He looked at the Laicey children, sat quietly and still in the corner and to the Spear abandoned by the altar.

  “The Spear of Destiny,” he said. He strode past her. She was powerless to stop him but managed to turn to see him scoop the ancient weapon up in his hand and examine it. “I find it upsetting, doctor, to see that you still don’t fully understand what’s happening.”

  Baron took the Spear and sat down facing her on the front pew, crossed his legs, spread his long coat out so it fell open revealing a pin-striped three piece suit. He looked perfectly groomed, hair swept back showing a widow’s peak, beard cut and trimmed, eye brows slanted in that permanent frown. There was something very vampire-like about his face that drove a cold fear into her heart.

  Alix, said Azrael, listen to me. The Harbinger and the Necromire within him, Belial, are very powerful. He will try and get inside your head and drive the sanity from you, like he did with Anwick. You must focus and you must beware of whatever he says. It is likely to be a lie. He will influence you, you must not let him in. Do you hear? You must not let him in!

  She made to move again but Baron lightly tapped the gun, the barrel of which was just visible on the inside of his coat, a reminder of her untenable position. She stopped, half crouching, half sitting, and looked at him, her eyes burning with hatred.

  “Harker will stop you,” she said. Baron laughed.

  “Harker? Oh dear, how misguided you are, doctor Franchot. No, Harker isn’t going to swoop in and save mankind. She and her blasphemous Necromire have no interest whatsoever with what happens to the Ether. Harker has and has always had her own agenda, although quite what it is, is both elusive and irrelevant.”

  She couldn’t think straight. Baron remained quite still, appraising her from the pew. He seemed in no hurry. She looked at Ash. A small pool of blood had accumulated beside him. She couldn’t tell whether he was breathing or not.

  “Do you believe in fate, Azrael?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “You are there aren’t you, my old friend? That’s how you managed to escape the night I set a small fire in Innsmout
h, isn’t it? Lucky for all of us that the good doctor was there to provide you with sanctuary.”

  A conceited grin had formed on his face. She wanted to rip it off.

  “I’m not sure I like the idea myself. Fate, I mean. If everything was pre-determined then the prophecy will be fulfilled, tonight, and the world will be destroyed by two young girls who haven’t even reached puberty yet and are, in their present state, not even technically alive and I find that rather unsatisfying, don’t you? Cronos worked hard on this world. Its life forms are some of the most unique, bizarre and varied out of all of the Nine Great Worlds and the most intelligent species – which I shall call man for convenience – are one of the most illogical and complex as any I have encountered.”

  Ask him what he means. I don’t understand. He is a man, said Azrael.

  “But you’re one of us,” she said. “You’re part of this world. Whatever demon is driving you to destroy this world... it’s your home as well as mine.”

  Baron laughed again, but this time it came out as more of an unpleasant cackle, not too dissimilar from an engine misfiring.

  “Oh, doctor. You and that creature inside you are rather charmingly naive. I’m no more part of this world than you are.”

  “What do you mean? I am part of this world. Azrael-” was that the first time she had said her name out loud? It sounded odd, unreal, “- isn’t but... But I am.”

  Baron’s expression had changed from someone lightly entertained to someone gravely concerned.

  “Very well. A history lesson for you, my dear doctor.”

  His words sounded distant, and the room seemed much smaller all of a sudden. Like she was a child again watching the cardboard theatre her father had made for her. Little characters stuck on to ice cream lolly sticks bobbing up and down to her delight.

  “Of the Nine Great Worlds created by Cronos, the Ether is the last, and his most volatile creation. But its history is comparatively short when one considers the eons of time that the other Great Worlds have existed for. As one might expect from such circumstances, some of the beings that inhabit other Worlds have evolved to a state far beyond the comprehension of man. You yourself have already discovered the power that a simple Necromire has. Not quite God-like, but certainly supernatural at the very least, wouldn’t you agree?

  “But then again, a powerful Necromire and Host can achieve the unthinkable,” a nod in the direction of the Laicey twins. “Not quite resurrection, because that suggests the reanimation of the body and the soul. But regeneration. Our ability to heal is so advanced that, given the right circumstances, we can regenerate bodies. Just look at your wrists. Anybody else would have died from blood loss by now or at the very least passed out. This is exactly, of course, what I did with Megan and what I would have done to Katelyn had Anwick and your new friend not intervened. Never mind. I was able to acquire Katelyn’s body and was fortunate to find the decaying process wasn’t advanced enough to frustrate my attempts at regeneration.

  “Despite these near miracles, most of the creatures that inhabit the Nine Great Worlds have limitations. More particularly, almost all are unable to cross from one World to another. So it is that I need the Laicey girls and of course the Spear to assist me. But there once was a species, doctor, that had mastered inter-dimensional travel without having to go via the Inter-World and, albeit at great risk and at the great expenditure of energy, pretty much at will. These beings are known as the Ancient Travellers.”

  The Ancient Travellers are a myth. Don’t listen, Alix, he’s lying. It’s just some mind trap.

  “They exist, doctor, despite the Necromire’s protestations. Or at the very least, their descendants do. They came to the Ether ten thousand years ago, a time when man had finally put down the stone implements he was hunting with and began developing language and trade. An age of cities, of civilisations, of houses, of society. A vulnerable, scared age. A time that coincided with the Confinement. And they left their mark with us, doctor, although only a few came. Quite why they bothered visiting a world so infantile in its evolution has always puzzled me. Curiosity perhaps. But whatever attracted the Ancient Travellers to the Ether – and, by the way, I have no idea where they came from because no one knows which World they first migrated from – they obviously found some connection with it because it seems, for a short while at least, they stayed.

  “And they procreated. Taking human women as their own, appearing before them in the form of man and, well, doing what man does best.”

  “This is bullshit,” she said.

  “Oh, but your own texts record the story. The Book of Enoch, for instance, is a Jewish text and part of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It tells the story of the Watchers – or angels as perhaps you would better understand them – who were sent to Earth by God to watch over mankind but who, on getting here, abandoned their task and lusted after human women instead. Perhaps it is just coincidence but I like to think there is some truth to the tale. But whether or not the Book of Enoch tells the story of the Ancient Travellers is neither here nor there; the important thing is that they were – are – very real indeed.”

  But your beloved Sin isn’t one of them, said Azrael.

  “No. He isn’t.”

  “You can... you can talk to him directly?” she stammered.

  “We can do many things, doctor.”

  She paused, watched the dust particles sparkle like Saturn’s rings along a strip of silver light separating them. It seemed like the Church was holding its breath, the air thick and oppressive. Everything was waiting for something to happen.

  “So what about these Ancient Travellers?” She said. “So what if they were real.”

  “It isn’t necessarily the Ancient Travellers, doctor, that interest me. It is their legacy. What they left behind.”

  “And what did they leave behind?”

  “Offspring, doctor. Children. Children like you.”

  She exhaled slowly, a bead of sweat trickled down her temple.

  “When they came to the Ether from afar,” continued the Harbinger, “the Ancient Travellers looked much like man. Tall, handsome, pale - but still quintessentially man. The records of their visit were lost in the destruction of wars centuries ago along with the memories of their time here. They found man to be a primitive species but found their company acceptable for a short while. And after time had passed they began to spread their seed. Today, the bloodline of the Ancient Travellers runs thin and there are but a handful of descendants left. Whereas the world was once run by those men and women whose veins flowed with alien blood, there are only isolated pockets of them left now.

  “But there is a significance. The Ancient Travellers controlled a powerful energy, powerful enough to allow them to defy Cronos and pass between the Nine Great Worlds unchecked. Part of that power survives amongst their dwindling numbers and is practically of little value, save that it does have one particular property.”

  Her eyes remained resolute as she stared at him, sat holding the Spear before her, as if he had just come in from battle, victorious and still high on bloodlust. Every inch of her burned with hatred. Beside her, almost within reach, Ash’s body lay still.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she told him through gritted teeth. “What do you mean children like me?”

  “I mean exactly what I say, doctor Franchot. You are a descendant of the most powerful species of humanoid that ever existed.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Because all Hosts are. That is, only those that are capable of hosting a Necromire are descendants of the Ancient Travellers. Which is why it surely must have been fate that brought you two together.”

  So Anwick, Harker, Alix... you... you’re all- what? Related?

  “We are family, Alix.”

  “No,” she shook her head. Didn’t believe, didn’t want to believe.

  “Actually, we’re very alike, you and I.”

  “No, we’re nothing like each other.” Her eyes sca
nned the church for a way out but she knew her movement was limited. Her feet were swelling and the pain was unbearable if she put any weight on them.

  “In fact we are. All of us. Zara to.”

  The words rasped through her ears like sandpaper on wood, seeming to shave off a little of the skin as they penetrated her. Fresh anger rose up within her, formed at the back of her throat making her voice sound hoarse.

  “What do you know about Zara?” she demanded.

  Baron smiled and got up from the pew, the Spear of Destiny in his hand. He walked a little way towards her and she leant backwards, trying to expand the gap between them.

  Then silence before-

  Baron advanced on her with unnatural speed. In a second he was on her, his weight pressed up against her, their skin touching, the Spear lodged deep into her stomach. He felt her relax into his arms, supporting her weight with his arm before gently lowering her to the floor.

  The blood drained quickly from her face and she felt herself descending quickly into the shadows of unconsciousness again. There was a horrible sound – like a fist through a watermelon – as the Spear was hauled from her body, taking with it a bloodstained chunk of skin.

  Her heart slowed, every beat ached. Her lungs deflated and his words grew fainter and fainter.

  Chapter 86

  Ernst’s lip quivered as he slowed the old Ford to a halt on the outskirts of White Helmsley. Ahead of him, a roadblock had been set up. He had been told that access to the village was restricted but he wished that he didn’t have to speak to any policemen.

  But it was not to be and a burly policeman indicated that he should wind down his window. He fumbled for the handle. The cold swept into the car. The smell of the skunk was obvious.