“No, not yet.”
“Excuse me!” said a new voice.
Erin looked up to see a balding, gray-bearded man in black religious robes approaching.
Oh crap, she thought. There's probably some ancient English law against fondling places of worship.
“May I ask what you ladies think you are doing?” demanded the clergyman.
“Ah, Reverend Fortescue,” said Louise, moving between Erin and the newcomer. “We met recently – at the Lord Mayor's Christmas party, do you recall? Those awful mince pies?”
While Louise made a big deal of introducing herself to the priest, Erin tried to concentrate on the stones under her hands. Closing her eyes, she tried to remember all the encounters she had had with the seven ghost boys. The sound of voices gradually dwindled.
Thanks, Louise, she thought. You give good diversion.
Gradually in her mind's eye, a vision formed of the tower around her. Instead of a gloomy edifice of gray stone, it was made of some transparent substance, and brightly lit. Within the walls and foundations were clusters of red and white filaments. Dark nodes pulsed. Erin gradually made out skeletons, too, curled up inside small spaces within the thick foundations or walls.
Hearts, blood vessels, brains, nerves.
Beneath Erin, the remains of five bodies were arranged symmetrically, one at each corner, one directly below Erin. Above her were two more trapped beings, one embedded in the floor halfway up the tower, the other imprisoned in the roof. As the vision cleared, she saw that all seven were interwoven. They had grown into one another, not just the stonework.
“Free us,” said a small voice. “Please free us. We are very weary.”
“Send us to the Good Place,” said another boy. “Send us home.”
“How can I?” Erin whispered. “How can anyone untangle you from this – this nightmare?”
“See! She is not the One Foretold!” snarled a third voice, angry. “A betrayer, not a deliverer!”
“No! There must be an Intercessor,” the first voice insisted. “I was foretold. And she is the first one of the line to come here for so long.”
“So long!” came a collective wail. “So many years!”
Erin could feel their minds now, not merely hear their voices. She experienced their terrible longing for release, the coldness of the stones that held them, the fear of the being they called Master Nicholas. He had trapped them to secure the tower, employing evil sorcery making it proof against seven centuries of weathering and subsidence.
But why? Why do such a thing? Not for gold, surely, thought Erin. Nick's clearly not human so he doesn't need money.
The voices of the Seven echoed her thought.
“Not for gold,” they said, “no, not for gold.”
“Then why?” she demanded. “Why go to so much trouble? Not to oblige some medieval bishop? So what's the big idea? Why?”
Erin felt a sense of resistance, as if the Seven were trying to hold something back.
“We must not tell!”
The words echoed inside her skull. She sensed the fear behind them, raw terror of Master Nicholas.
“Guys, if you don't trust me–” she said.
“We cannot tell!”
They're still just little boys, she thought. Keeping very still under the sheets. Scared that Uncle Nick is gonna come upstairs.
“Okay,” she said, “leave it. That's not why I'm here.”
She sensed relief, a lifting of a cloud of fear.
“I want you to stop killing people. Stop hurting people. Not in my name, not for any reason.”
“Help us!”
The chorus began again, plaintive, heartbreaking. These beings had done horrific things, but they remained human, vulnerable, pitiful. Their suffering was too real for Erin to condemn them.
“I will!” she promised. “But no more crazy stuff! Promise me! No more bloodshed!”
A touch on her shoulder jolted Erin out of her inner reverie. She looked up to see Reverend Fortescue looking down at her in disapproval.
“Young lady, I must insist,” he said in a whiny voice, “that you do not indulge in bizarre pagan practices, or whatever it is you're doing!”
Erin got upright, slowly, feeling twinges in her hands and feet.
“Sorry, your vicarage,” she said, with a bright smile, “I was just communing with spirits. You know? Those dead kids nobody talks about?
Even in the shadows under the tower, she could see the man turn pale.
“They say hi, by the way,” she added, taking her cane from Louise. “Maybe they'll drop by sometime when you're on your rounds.”
Erin began hobbling back down the aisle, with Louise scampering along beside her trying to keep up.
“He's only doing his job,” Louise said, trying to mollify Erin. “I know he's a bit of a pain.”
“I nearly got them to promise,” said Erin. “Until that clown came up to me. Still,” she said, slowing and smiling down at Louise, “thanks for distracting him for a couple of minutes.”
Louise looked baffled.
“But – but I only talked to him for a few seconds! That rude old git just pushed past me and grabbed you.”
Erin stopped and looked around at the cathedral.
“Time flows differently here. Figures.”
Chapter 4: Mixed Signals
“There he goes,” said Jen Deighton into her phone. “I'll follow him at a distance, but I think it's clear where he's going.”
“Roger that,” replied Carr. He was sitting in his car opposite the Masonic Hall. Within ten minutes, Roker had parked his Audi and gone inside, carrying a parcel. Jen parked her car behind Carr's, got out, and joined him.
“What's the betting that's his robe?” she asked, shoving fast-food wrappers off the front seat. “And have you ever considered a healthy diet?”
“Yes, and no,” he replied. “It must be a role. It's all very strange. I wonder if there's kinky sex involved. All the rumors say there is.”
Jen looked at him reprovingly.
“I'd say you had a one track mind, but that would be flattery. How about the gadgets?”
In reply, Carr opened a small laptop and tapped an icon. An interface appeared showing a room from four different angles. The images were in black and white.
“Your friend at the hall has been busy,” said Jen admiringly. “He installed the cameras very discreetly, I trust?”
“We'll soon find out,” said Carr, tapping a panel that showed the entrance to the upper room. “Look, here they come.”
A group of men entered the room and began to mill around, clearly waiting for someone. Carr began recording.
“Wow,” said Jen, pointing. “Isn't that Bradley, the Assistant Chief Constable?”
“Yeah,” said Carr. “If we get caught, we'll be on traffic duty for a decade.”
Roker appeared and after a couple of minutes, things got underway. Carr switched cameras and they saw the Shadow Council form a semi-circle facing a large, ornate mirror. The men put on ceremonial robes.
“Big Brother it ain't,” remarked Jen. “What do they do next? Bingo? Line dancing?”
“Sshh,” said Carr. “Let's see if the microphones work.”
He touched a control and a small voice became audible. It was Roker, repeating some kind of chant. The rest of the councilors joined in, the chant rising in volume until the detectives could make out some of the words.
“This really is tedious as hell,” griped Jen. “I thought at least there'd be black candles, maybe daggers, an upside-down crucifix. What's the point of a secret society if you don't have any fun? Just one little ritual murder is all I ask.”
“Shush, I can't make out the words,” hissed Carr. “Is that a name?”
“Just a minute,” said Jen, leaning forward. She switched the cameras again so that they were seeing the mirror from above and behind Roker's head. “Can you see something? A glow?”
Jen looked closer. The mirror did appear to
be glowing, and now the chant faltered.
“He has returned!” shouted a small voice.
The video image began to break up in a flurry of electronic snow. The laptop speakers emitted a sharp crackle. Jen could just make out a voice under the static. It was a pure, sweet voice, that of a young man. She could not make out the words. But something about it gave her the chills.
“Can't make out what Roker's saying, now,” complained Carr, fiddling with the controls. “Too much interference.”
“Whatever it is, it's real,” said Jen. “I didn't really believe it till now.”
“I thought you believed in the curse, all that stuff?” said Carr in surprise.
She nodded.
“Yes, but I thought the Shadow Council were just a bunch of daft old geezers playing at being black magicians.”
“And I thought it was all about perversion and naughty ladies in leather gear,” sighed Carr. “Life's chock-full of disappointments.”
They sat watching the screen flicker, catching glimpses of robed men gathered around a light that was now shining too brightly for the spy camera. Where the glowing rectangle had been was now a blot of darkness.
“That's a hell of a bright light,” observed Carr, lamely. “Coming out of nothing but a sheet of silvered glass.”
“Think it might be coming from Hell?” murmured Jen.
“Always thought demons lived in darkness, lurked in the shadows,” replied Carr. “Angels glow, don't they?”
They fell silent, watching the glow increase until the entire screen went black.
***
Reverend Fortescue hurried back to his small office. His duty as sacristan entailed checking the church for intruders, ensuring that nothing was stolen or vandalized. More senior clergymen held services, made plans, acted on instructions from the bishop.
Whereas I, he thought, am a glorified caretaker.
The American woman had rattled him. He had known, just by looking into her eyes, that she had encountered the Seven. Everyone who so much as glimpsed the ghosts was marked by it. But there was something more to this particular witness. Something new and disturbing.
Was she really communing with the stones? With the spirits trapped inside them?
Fortescue had pondered the cathedral's strange, bloody history many times. He had never really made sense of it. He shrugged, made himself a cup of tea, foraged for scones, butter, and strawberry. In a few minutes, he had prepared a pleasant supper. He turned on the radio, something he normally disapproved of. But tonight even the banal chatter of a Weyrmouth FM disc-jockey was preferable to the uneasy silence of the cathedral. Then it was 'the top of the hour', and the news jingle blurred out.
“Today's headline story,” the announcer began, “is of course yet more shocking violence in the city. A local man was found dead in his apartment in the East End this morning, while a pensioner was viciously attacked …”
Fortescue turned the radio off. The silence surged back. He could just make out the murmur of distant traffic through the window. He thought of opening the window to the night to admit more sound, balked at letting out what little warmth there was.
The stones. Some say they are alive.
The unwelcome thought circled around in his imagination. He looked at the wall, ancient granite blocks worn and pitted. It was the wall of the cathedral, but not the tower. Its walls remained smooth, inside and out, devoid of all the signs of aging. Scientists attributed the preservation of the stones to some unspecified ingredient in the mortar. Some experts at the university felt that detailed analysis would detect an exotic chemical, perhaps of great commercial value. The church officially endorsed that theory, but had for many years rejected all requests to take samples of the stones. That had not gone over well in Victorian times.
Fortescue checked his watch, and realized that he was late starting his final round of the evening. He had never liked the cathedral, and he suspected none of the other clergy did, either. But it was not considered proper to talk about such reservations.
Never give way to superstition, he thought. Faith in God will see us through. We weak mortals can draw upon Him for strength.
Fortescue ran his fingers over the crucifix he wore, tried to console himself with the thought of an all-seeing, all-powerful deity watching over him. But he found himself imagining scrutiny of a different kind. His route to the main entrance took him under the tower. Despite the use of powerful lights, it always seemed darker there. Fortescue picked up his pace, not quite running, but aware that he was hurrying in a manner unseemly in a priest.
No one can see me, he told himself.
“Yes we can,” said a small voice. “We can see you all the time.”
Imagination, he thought.
There was a giggle, somewhere behind and to one side. Then another, ahead of him. A shadow moved in his peripheral vision. A small figure dodged behind a pillar just as he turned to look. Fortescue picked up the pace, and now he could not tell himself he was walking quickly.
“You shouldn't have upset her,” hissed a child's voice. “We don't want her to be annoyed, do we?”
“She might go away.”
“She might leave us!”
“We can't have that!”
“Bad man!”
Sharp pain stabbed at one of his ankles and he stumbled, crying out. His voice echoed in the lofty spaces of the great, empty church.
“There's nobody to hear you,” said a new voice. A hooded figure, diminutive and very thin, stepped out from behind a stone column. Others appeared as Fortescue hesitated, casting about for an exit. All the Gothic archways were filled with robed forms. He did not need to count to know there were seven.
A bony hand fell on his shoulder. He didn’t dare turn around, or even turn his head. The small voice, when it spoke, was almost pitying.
“You stopped her talking to us when you saw her. So you'll never see her again.”
***
“Did you find out anything?” asked Louise, as they set off towards the main entrance again.
“Maybe,” said Erin. “Our friend, Nick, set this whole thing up for a reason, and the Seven know something. But they're too scared to say what.”
“What possible purpose could building a simple stone tower have?” asked Louise as they emerged into the night. It was starting to rain again and Erin turned up the collar of her coat.
“No idea,” said Erin. “But I recall there was one in the Bible that really annoyed God. Babel, remember? Men building a tower to reach Heaven?”
“That's just a folk tale, a garbled account of a ziggurat in Babylon,” protested Louise, trying to dredge up memories of her Biblical studies. “I mean, nobody takes that sort of thing very seriously now.”
Erin shrugged, and they set off across Cathedral Green towards Louise's car.
“Maybe nobody you know,” conceded Erin. “My mom sure did, probably still does. And if men could try to storm the gates of Heaven with a tower, why not a rebel angel? Isn't that what Nick is? One of those that fell, but didn't fall all the way with Lucifer? Kind of a cosmic mercenary, right?”
“That's my best guess,” said Louise, cautiously. “A neutral angel trapped on Earth, caught between Heaven and Hell. There are some ancient texts that support the idea.”
“And perhaps a being like Nick can accomplish the Devil's aims?” suggested Erin. “If he's free to roam the Earth, while Satan and his gang are pretty much trapped down below?”
Louise gestured back at the tower.
“Perhaps, but Nick's taking a long time to get things done, isn't he? Even as fiendish master-plans go, isn't seven hundred years quite a long time?”
Erin made a noncommittal noise.
“How long is a long time, when you can never die?” she asked. “If a man makes long-term plans for an ant-farm, how many generations of ants are involved?”
Louise had an unpleasant vision of angels and demons looking on as humans scampered around, fighting, dying, re
producing. She felt cold at the thought of such beings observing her life with the mild interest of a child observing captive insects.
Suddenly Erin stopped walking, turned around, stared up at the tower.
“God, I'm dumb, sometimes,” she muttered, and walked back the way they had come.
“Where are you going?” asked Louise, hurrying to keep up. “We can't go back in. Fortescue will be locking up any time now.”
“I don't need to be inside to touch the stones of the tower,” said Erin. “You can go back to the car and wait if you want.”
“I don't mind a bit of rain,” Louise interrupted. “I'm not leaving you alone. Not with them.”
“Thanks!” smiled Erin.
By the time they reached the wall of the tower, the rain was pouring down. The tower itself provided little protection. Louise took Erin's cane again, and watched as her friend put the palms of her hands against the cold, damp stones. The glare of the lights placed around Cathedral Green gave the scene a look that was both harsh and somehow unreal.
Are we both insane for doing this? Louise wondered. But I can't argue with facts, however crazy the ideas behind them may be.
“If it gets too bad,” Louise said, “just pull away and–”
Erin fell backwards, and Louise tried to catch her. The taller woman was too heavy for her and they topped onto the sodden grass. Louise found herself looking into Erin's face. Her eyes were pale blanks, terrifying in their nullity. For a terrifying moment, Louise thought Erin was dead. Then the younger woman's eyes rolled back into place.
“We must stop meeting like this,” said Erin.
They burst out laughing and managed to scramble upright.
“Did it work?” asked Louise.
Erin looked up at the dark tower.
“I think so,” she said slowly. “They are kind of confused and angry. Just kids. You know how hard it is to get kids to do anything, especially a bunch of 'em.”
“But they will stop killing folk, right?” asked Louise.
Erin looked down at her, smiled.
“For now, at least.” Erin picked up her cane and they set off for the car again. “But you know, it's kind of cool to have a bunch of ghosts willing to take out your rivals.”
Blood of Angels (Curse of Weyrmouth Series Book 2) Page 6
