by John Glasby
‘That’s right. He has more powers than you could dream of. One of them is lycanthropy.’
‘You mean he’s a werewolf?’
‘Exactly.’
*
Early the following afternoon, they visited Dr Reeves. Rodminster was not a very large community. Nayland had the impression of small buildings, crowded very much together, huddled as if for warmth and protection around the small square in the middle of the village.
They turned into the small, well-kept garden fronting the doctor’s house. Nayland knocked sharply on the glass-paneled door, then opened it as a voice called on them to enter. They went inside, Nayland closing the door gently behind him, meanwhile studying the man who had risen to his feet as they entered. A tall man, slightly-built, with iron-grey hair and brown eyes that studied them curiously in return.
‘Well, gentlemen, come inside. Sit down and make yourselves comfortable.’
Nayland slid into the tall, comfortably-padded chair that stood across the desk from the doctor. Blake lowered himself into the other chair a couple of feet away.
‘Doctor Reeves,’ Nayland began hesitantly, ‘I realize that a first interview like this is likely to be a little difficult for you. No doubt, you’ve probably guessed why we’re here, in Rodminster, but I’d like to make the position quite clear to you from the very beginning. It isn’t going to be very easy for you to believe what we’re going to tell you.’
‘You mean about Black Magic?’
‘Exactly. You’re a doctor, so I gather that you don’t believe in such things.’
‘No, Mr. Nayland. I strongly disbelieve in them. I don’t think you’ll be able to convince me of any truth in the supernatural. Not unless I see some of these things with my own eyes.’
‘Then what about that dead man on the moors last night?’ interrupted Blake.
‘I examined the body quite thoroughly later,’ the doctor remarked stiffly. ‘All of the available evidence was sufficient to support my original argument. Something — or someone — attacked him, inflicting such severe lacerations to the head and body that even if they weren’t enough to kill him outright, the shock would do so.’
‘It may interest you to know that we knew this man,’ said Nayland.
The other rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘Somehow, I gained that impression last night,’ he said. ‘That’s one of the reasons why I agreed so readily to this meeting.’
‘His name was Chalka. He visited me about a fortnight ago, concerning some relics which he claimed had been stolen from his tribe in the African jungle and brought over to London.’
‘Just what were these relics, Mr. Nayland?’
‘The mask and headdress of Shabaka, one of their earliest witchdoctors. He claimed there was a voodoo associated with them; a curse placed on them by Shabaka when he was treacherously slain. Anyone who came into contact with them when the moon was either full, or I believe now in a certain position in the heavens, became inhabited by the soul of the witchdoctor. Indeed, it’s my belief that while wearing these relics at these particular times they actually become this witchdoctor!’
‘And you believe this foolishness?’ The doctor uttered a harsh laugh.
‘I’ve seen too many of these inexplicable things happen not to believe in them. But that’s beside the point. What is important from our point of view is that we know what has been happening here during the past two weeks.’
‘Very well, I’ll tell you all I know,’ said the other. He leaned back in his chair. ‘To the best of my knowledge, it all began about a fortnight ago. The old mansion near the top of the hill has been empty for many years. The last of the Lowrey family died almost thirty years ago and I doubt whether anybody has lived in it since. It’s an evil place, with an equally evil reputation.
‘That’s why we were all surprised to learn that someone had taken it for the winter and intended living there. I don’t actually remember who started the rumors although it was probably one of the gamekeepers on the estate. Something about a dark, hideous shape running loose in the woods if I remember correctly. At first, we put it down to his imagination. Moonlight and shadows can play tricks with you at night when you’re all alone. We searched the woods of course, just in case there was anything out of the ordinary there, and found very little to pay us for our trouble.’
‘Ah, but there was something?’ interposed Nayland.
‘Well, there were tracks in the undergrowth especially where the rain had turned it into mud. They showed that someone had been there recently.’
‘What kind of tracks were they?’
‘Human footprints,’ said the other. ‘Someone had been running in the woods in their bare feet.’
Nayland shivered. Bare feet! Only a native would do that naturally, his mind told him. A witchdoctor? Was he correct in believing that Shabaka actually reincarnated himself once he had taken over a host’s body? It certainly looked that way.
‘There have been other rumours too, of course. Some don’t make much sense at all, and one in particular I’ve never been able to understand.’
‘Maybe you’d better tell us about it,’ suggested Nayland. ‘There’s just a chance that it could be important and may throw some light on the whole thing.’
‘Very well, if you wish. It happened about seven nights ago. A young couple was returning from a dance in Melchester about twelve miles away. Their car broke down somewhere along the road, quite near to the Lowrey house. It was moonlight and so they decided that rather than wait for some other car to come along, a rather unlikely occurrence at that time in the morning, they would walk it back into Rodminster, a matter of a mile or so.
‘I want you to understand that, so far, we’ve only been able to piece together what happened from what we’ve been able to learn from the man. His wife, when we found her, was in a state of profound shock, bordering on coma. At the present time, she’s in the nearby hospital undergoing treatment.
‘They were making their way along the road which leads past the old mansion, when they noticed a light flickering in one of the windows —’
‘Like a candle-flame,’ suggested Nayland.
‘That’s almost exactly how he described it to us when we questioned him later. They stopped to watch for a few minutes. At that time, neither of them knew that the house had been taken and thought at first that it was somebody sleeping there for the night — a tramp, probably.’
‘Did either of them go inside to see?’ asked Blake
‘No, I gather they thought better of it, perhaps because it was none of their business anyway, and they were anxious to get home and report what had happened to their car.
‘It was just as they reached the end of the road that they noticed something lying in the bushes. Here the man’s story becomes hard to believe. He says they walked forward to have a closer look, thinking that it was an injured animal of some kind and found that it was a mask and a peculiar headdress made of skin and feathers.
‘The man swears that the things moved of their own volition. There was no wind so that wasn’t the explanation. They apparently scuttled over the ground towards them. He shouted a warning to his wife to run and tried to drag her along the road towards the village, away from the trees. Then he says, he looked back to see why she seemed to be resisting him and saw that —’
The doctor hesitated at that point and shrugged helplessly.
‘Go on,’ prompted Nayland tensely.
‘He says that something indescribable happened to his wife, as soon as those things came into contact with her. She — well, she changed.’
‘Ah, so there we have it.’ Nayland stood up and took a quick, nervous turn about the room. ‘It means that as far as Simon is concerned, we may have less time than we thought.’
Dr. Reeves looked up at him curiously. ‘Just what are you talking about. Mr. Nayland?’ he asked.
‘These people who’ve taken the old house on the edge of the village are preparing for the ceremony of the Black Mass.’
‘The Black Mass!’ The doctor looked shocked. ‘But surely such superstition can’t still exist nowadays?’
‘It can exist — and does. I myself have seen it at work more than once. It may surprise you, doctor, to know that in this country alone, there are thousands of people, outwardly men and women like ourselves, who celebrate these evil and obscene rites.’
‘But how on Earth can you be so sure?’
‘Quite easily. You see, these ceremonies are often celebrated by an unfrocked priest or someone who has risen among them to the rank of Grand Ipsissimus. They must use a silver chalice which has been consecrated in some church and then stolen — and these thefts can be ascertained through the usual channels.’
‘But why do they do it?’ muttered the doctor, sinking deeper into his chair. ‘Surely they can’t be completely sane, these people?’
Nayland shrugged. ‘As to their sanity, doctor, I’m afraid that I’m not a competent person to judge their condition, but from what I know of them personally, they do it for a great many reasons. Many of them have lost their loved ones and almost all of them, at some time or another, had prayed earnestly to God to bring them back safely, or deliver them from illness.
‘But their prayers went unanswered, and their loved ones died. That’s why these people turned their faces away from God and all He stands for and became easy prey for such inhuman monsters as these. If God wouldn’t listen to you and give you what you asked for, they are told, then the Devil would. He could give you anything you desired.’
‘It’s feasible, I suppose, when you put it that way,’ agreed the doctor.
‘Too feasible, I’m afraid,’ muttered Nayland. ‘But unlike Christianity, or any of the other religions, they can’t back out of it whenever they wish. These people rule by fear and horror — and the trouble is that most of the tales you hear about the power possessed by their High Priests of Satan are true.
‘The majority of their converts are ordinary men and women. But the true adherents to this evil faith, the men who have crossed the abyss and attained the position of Grand Ipsissimus, possess great powers of darkness and evil.’
‘And you really believe all of this, Mr. Nayland?’
‘I’ve seen it all for myself,’ said the other simply. ‘I know.’
‘Then all I can say is that you’re either a fool or a very brave man, Mr Nayland, and somehow, I can’t bring myself to believe that you’re a fool.’
‘Do you think that you could help us, doctor?’ Nayland asked deliberately.
‘I’m not quite sure how I can. What you’ve said has been extremely interesting, I’ll admit, but scarcely the kind of thing a country doctor could dabble with.’
‘We’ll put our cards on the table, doctor,’ Nayland said. ‘A friend of ours, Simon Merrivale, has been taken by force from his home in London and brought here by these people. From what little evidence we have and from what you’ve just told us, it’s quite obvious they’re holding him prisoner in this old mansion near the village.
‘We’ve good reason to believe that a man named Ernest Caltro is preparing to conduct the Black Mass in order that he may become a Grand Ipsissimus. This, I ought to tell you, requires a human sacrifice and we believe that Simon Merrivale is destined to be the victim.
‘Unless we can get him away from there very soon, I’m afraid that they’ll kill him. They tried once before, but we heard of it and managed to prevent it. This time, they’ve been forewarned and it isn’t going to be so easy.’
‘But if they’ve taken him away by force, why don’t you go to the police?’
‘I’m afraid that wouldn’t solve anything,’ Nayland said tautly. ‘If they didn’t kill him out of hand before the police arrived to prevent it, they would have him safely locked away somewhere where no one could find him and you can’t do anything to these people without evidence.
‘So far, we only have circumstantial evidence that there’s something strange happening here. Imagine what the police would say if we told them that this man, Caltro, was going to carry out the ceremony of the Black Mass at full moon with Merrivale as the sacrifice. They’d laugh at us or lock us away in a madhouse.’
‘Then what do you propose to do?’
‘Somehow we have got to get in there without being seen and get Merrivale away. I think it’s also important that we get hold of this mask and headdress. The sooner they’re returned to their rightful place, the sooner we’ll put an end to the evil associated with them.’
‘And if these people discover you?’
‘That’s another thing you can do to help us. We’ll need protection against them. I don’t mean guns and things. Those aren’t the weapons they normally use. If we can get some holy water and a piece of the Sacred Host from the local priest, it will afford us the greatest protection possible.’
The doctor was silent for a moment, then he said slowly: ‘Mr Nayland, I don’t know why I believe you, but somehow I do. If there is anything in what you’ve told me, then I agree that the sooner we stamp it out, the better.
‘Your method may be unorthodox to say the least, but if it works, then it will have served its purpose. I’ll see Father Handon this evening and put your request to him. If you could come and see me first thing tomorrow morning, I’ll let you know what the position is.’
‘Thank you, doctor.’ Nayland moved towards the door with Blake. He felt a little easier in his mind, but there was still that little voice of fear, deep down, muttering inside his brain.
Chapter Ten – The Dark Ones
Stephen Nayland stood at the end of the long, overgrown drive where the path ran steep and straight up the hillside and looked again at the great, dark building, stark and oddly unreal, that stood perched on the side of the hill.
Up there, above the village, a mile from the small houses that nestled as if for warmth where the roads crossed, the Lowrey mansion looked grim and forbidding, turreted and towered like some medieval castle. It looked exactly as he imagined it would, just the sort of place Caltro would have chosen for his diabolical plans.
Beside him, Blake stirred uneasily and a couple of feet away, clearly uncomfortable, although he was doing his best not to show it, stood the doctor,
‘I trust that you know what you’re doing, Mr. Nayland,’ he said. ‘It’s only because I don’t believe in these demons of yours, and that I don’t want to see you making a fool of yourself when you try to break into this house, that I agreed to come.’
‘Don’t underestimate these fiendish creatures,’ Nayland said, keeping his voice low. ‘They may look human to you when you see them for the first time, but that’s only a devilishly clever act of theirs to lull the unwary into a state of false security. But at least we’ve got the protection of the Sacred Host, thanks to you, doctor.’
‘From what I was able to gather from the priest, he seems to think there may be something in what you say. Whether he really believes all this superstitious nonsense about black magic, I’m not sure. But he seemed quite willing to allow you to have some of the host and holy water.’
Directly in front of them, reaching up to the moonlit sky, were the tall poplars that Blake had described so accurately during that brief spell inside the circle and the pentagon.
There were no lights showing in the house and to all intents and purposes it seemed empty, utterly deserted, the home of rats and spiders and nothing more. But, looking at it, Nayland felt a little shiver of fear pass through him. Unless he was gravely mistaken, the place was more crowded now than at any other time in its evil history.
Peopled by creatures in human shape but intent on inhuman practices, he wondered vaguely what was going on in there at that very moment. There was the feel of eyes watching them from the darkness — evil, unfriendly eyes, peering at them from the curtained windows, following their every move, plotting their destruction.
‘All right,’ said Nayland. ‘We’ll gain nothing by standing here in the moonlight. Let’s go. But be careful!’
Deliberately, he thrust his way forward. The wind was suddenly a savage force, tearing at his coat, threatening to hurl him back along the path, clutching at him with savage, ripping fingers, shrieking past his ears, stinging his face. For a brief instant, the sharp smell of the pine needles in the undergrowth beneath their feet gave way to something foul and decaying and rotten that clutched at the back of his throat, almost choking him.
For an instant, he was taken by surprise. Madly, he fought off the illusion, recognizing it for what it was. There was a moment when he was almost suffocated, then the smell was gone, leaving him gasping for breath, a little unsure as to whether or not he had simply imagined it all.
The moon suddenly broke free of the swarming clouds which had appeared as though from nowhere to engulf it; and there was a flooding of pale light all around them again.
It took all of his willpower to keep from glancing continually over his shoulder, expecting to see a multitude of black shapes coming after him, hunting them down in the moonlight — creatures conjured up by Caltro.
He moistened his lips and turned his head a little towards the others, stumbling along behind him. ‘They know that we’re coming,’ he said thinly. ‘That was only a foretaste of what they’ll do to stop us from getting Simon back.’
‘Do you think they’ll kill him out of hand now that they know we’re here?’ Blake asked.
‘I don’t think so,’ Nayland muttered. ‘It’s likely that Caltro will decide to go through with the Black Mass tonight, hoping to hold us off until it’s completed.’
He almost stumbled over the body before he saw it. He tensed as he recognized the upturned face that stared up at him, etched by the moonlight with a multitude of tiny shadows.
Blake peered over his shoulder. ‘God — it’s Simon!’
‘Your friend?’ The doctor came forward hurriedly and looked down. ‘But he’s badly hurt. We’ll have to get him back to the village and attend to him at once.’
‘He must have got away from them somehow,’ said Blake. He went down on one knee and rolled the other over. ‘He still seems to be alive. Now, thank God, there’s no need to go through with this affair. We can —’
