Black Cathedral (department 18)

by L. H. Maynard

  ‘I’d guess it’s the beetles that attacked when I was with Sian,’ he said.

  McKinley turned his attention to the door barring their way. ‘Let’s see if we can get through this.’

  It was difficult in the dark but his hand located the handle, and he feathered the fingers outwards on the wood so he could feel across to the lock.

  ‘There’s no key.’ He turned the handle. The door opened inwards.

  Kirby screamed.

  Beetles had leeched onto her neck, needling into the skin, trying to burrow inside.

  Bayliss grabbed her arms, propelled her round so she was facing away from him, then slapped her hard on the back. He sensed rather than saw her body as it lurched forwards. She stopped herself from hitting the wall by bracing her arms against the rock.

  Some of the beetles had fallen off as he slapped her. Now he ripped off as many as he could locate on her neck and shoulders.

  Carter took Kirby by the hand. ‘Come on,’ he said.

  With McKinley pulling at Bayliss they pushed at the open door, shutting it behind them as dozens of the rattling beetles scraped against the other side.

  ‘Are there any still on you?’ Bayliss said.

  Kirby shook her head. She was quivering with terror.

  You’ll be fine. You did well.

  Carter injected the words into her brain and she smiled. She hadn’t done well at all, she knew that. If it hadn’t been for Bayliss she’d have let the things…she pushed the thoughts out of her mind.

  ‘Thanks, Nick,’ she said.

  ‘I never did like creepy crawlies.’

  This side of the door the air was warmer, slightly stale, as if it was a long-closed cellar. The tunnel was still evident but it was wider, opening up like a river delta. The floor was still stone but smoother; more care had been taken when it was built.

  That was the conclusion Carter couldn’t expel from his mind. This had all been built. He hesitated to use the phrase ‘man-made’ because he suspected man had very little to do with the construction. He was in no doubt that the natural ley lines that flowed beneath the island had been amplified over the years by what ever had used them as a line of transport.

  They moved slowly along, feeling the walls with their hands, noticing the rock was becoming less rough as the tunnel progressed. Gradually light began to filter around them, so visibility became easier.

  A slight bend in the tunnel took them round an outcrop of rock, and when they could see straight ahead again they stopped and stared.

  They couldn’t believe what was in front of them.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  It was as though the inside of Planet Earth had been scooped out, hollowed and emptied, leaving just this vast cavern that soared above them to a ceiling they could barely see.

  A pale gray mist floated through the air, concealing the walls except for occasional glimpses of black stone. Set in the stone at regular intervals were high stained-glass windows, through which piercing sunlight flooded, even though they were deep beneath the earth.

  The rays of light picked out features half hidden in the mist. Row after row of ornately carved wooden pews, on each of which sat an embroidered cushion, ready for kneeling at prayer. The pews were large and sturdy, but carved with delicacy, the figures and motifs unclear; they needed to be closer. There seemed to be flowers and trees depicted in the wood, amongst which creatures moved, some seeming to have horns on their heads, others apparently half human, half beast. The cushions were brightly colored, scenes of ritual and elaborate worship. Where there might be a crucifix there was an inverted cross, where there might be a Bible there was a skull.

  ‘This isn’t just a huge cave, is it?’ Kirby said.

  It wasn’t possible that this far underground there could be light entering through the windows, but the sunlight was pure and bright. As they moved a little further into the cavern they began to see the images captured in the stained glass. They were all mockeries of the scenes familiar in any Christian church. The nativity scene of Mary holding baby Jesus in swaddling clothes was shown as a huge misshapen goat figure giving bloody birth to a monster, while all around creatures bayed and celebrated. These were not shepherds and wise men bearing gifts; these were twisted abnormalities leering and ranting. A scene that would normally be of Jesus on the cross was shown as a grinning devil clinging to the wooden cross by its lizard’s tail.

  High above them the ceiling could be glimpsed as the mist began to fade. Somehow they could breathe easily, far more comfortably than back in the winding tunnels. There was a source of fresh air despite the depth. The ceiling was carved out of wood, unseasoned oak by the look of it. Huge chandeliers hung from crossbeams, black candles of thick wax set in holders, flickering flames casting sullen shadows onto the floor below.

  As they made their way further inside they realized that they were walking along what in a church would be the aisle. Ahead of them, yards in front of them, was a wide altar, where more candles burned, next to incense burners and decanters of filmy red liquid. To one side of the altar was a font, the large stone lid removed and propped against the side. Steam rose from the water in the font.

  ‘This is a vast underground cathedral,’ Bayliss whispered. ‘I never read about this.’

  Keep your mind closed.

  McKinley heard Carter’s words spoken inside his head. It was the right advice. They didn’t know what they were walking into.

  Along the stone walls, between the windows, were what seemed to be huge nets, hung from iron hooks set in the walls. The nets were coated in a wispy, grayish white material that resembled dried frog spawn. Inside the nets things were stirring.

  As they reached the end of the aisle and stood in front of the altar lowly pitched, discordant organ music began to play. It was a twisted theme on Wagner’s Wedding March. The mist had almost cleared now, and they looked around them, once more experiencing a kind of awe at the sheer magnitude of the place. It was huge, but the perspective was unreal, the walls seeming miles away yet close enough to touch; the ceiling barely visible yet crowding in over their heads.

  Noises behind them made them all turn. Kirby gasped.

  ‘How did we miss those?’ Bayliss said.

  On the pews were dozens, hundreds, of shapes. Coated in the off-white material, cobwebbed and cocooned, they became visible as people. Hundreds of people seemingly stored, seemingly in suspended animation, sitting on the pews in mock devotion, waiting…but waiting for what?

  They wouldn’t see them, there were too many there, but Michael Bennett, Farrant, Anderson, Casey Faraday, Sheila Thomas and Jo Madley were amongst those preserved.

  Rustling above them made Carter and the others look around the walls. The nets were shaking, layers of the weblike material slewing off as the people inside struggled to get free. There was a low murmur as they moved, combined voices creating a hum of anticipation.

  ‘We should get out of here,’ Kirby said, her voice shaking with barely contained fear.

  Carter wasn’t listening. He walked back down the aisle to a pew about ten rows from the front. ‘Sian?’

  Staring sightless into space, tears cascading down her face, there was a ghost of a smile on her lips. It was Sian, wrapped in the restricting material, sitting calmly while all around her the others were shaking back to life. Suspended in the moment of their death and now being brought back to some kind of existence.

  Carter put his hand on her shoulder and felt the viscous stickiness of the gauzelike webbing that coated her. Her mouth opened but no sound came out. She began shaking her head from side to side in a futile gesture of denial.

  ‘Sian, let me help you,’ Carter pleaded.

  Someone coughed and a cultured voice with a pronounced Spanish accent said, ‘I am afraid she is beyond even your help, Mr. Carter.’

  Kirby gripped Bayliss’s hand, and both of them moved instinctively closer to McKinley. Carter looked at Sian, who had sunk back within herself at the sound of the
voice. The movement in the pews and on the walls also stopped, and it was as if the whole cathedral was holding its breath. Carter walked back to the others and stood next to McKinley.

  The man in front of them was of medium height, average build; nothing about his physique was in any way remarkable. His thick black hair was swept back from a noble forehead, and his strong nose merely heightened the effect of his piercing blue eyes. A smile danced on his full maroon lips, a small neat beard emphasizing the line of his jaw. He was handsome but looked ordinary. He wore expensive clothing from centuries ago, the silk and velvet revealing he was a man of wealth. At his side was a sword sheathed in an ornate scabbard encrusted with jewels.

  He affected a small bow. ‘Allow me to introduce myself,’ he said, the accent originally from the Valencia region of Spain. ‘My name is Alphonse deMarco. Welcome to my home for the past few hundred years.’

  Sounding like a thousand cicadas waking simultaneously the figures on the pews and on the walls began their struggle to get free with renewed energy. The noise was almost deafening but deMarco had no difficulty in making his voice heard.

  ‘You are curious, naturally, especially you, Mr. Carter, as to why I have gone to such lengths to attract you here. Such elaborate planning, such extreme effort to recruit people you might wish to…to save. People like Mrs. Talbot.’ He flung his arm out to the right and Carter and the others automatically flicked their eyes in that direction.

  Laid out on the altar, smothered in the hazy material, was Jane Talbot. Her eyes were opened, and she was tearing at the coverings. Her eyes were staring at Carter.

  Carter began to move forwards but deMarco held up a hand to indicate he should stay where he was. ‘All in good time; a time to reap and a time to sow, as your good book says.’

  ‘If it’s me you wanted why did you have to…’

  ‘Why take Miss Davies, Mrs. Talbot…why take the many hundreds I have recruited through the centuries? The dear ladies ensured you would grace me with your presence; the others…the others are my soldiers, my army. I have been collecting them, recruiting and storing them, here in my humble cathedral; waiting for the moment when I can unleash them on my enemies.’

  Bayliss stepped forward tentatively. ‘How can you have enemies? Those you fought are long dead, and no one else has ever heard…’

  DeMarco laughed, and for an instant the writhing figures on the walls and the pews were still. ‘Please don’t accuse me of nonentity, Mr. Bayliss, it doesn’t sit well with my ego. You have heard of me, with your ceaseless research, though I accept that the world at large is unfamiliar with my name…for now.’ He walked a couple of steps from the altar and Bayliss shrank back. ‘Ask in the corridors of the Vatican, ask His Holiness, even now, even after centuries have passed, and my name is known.’

  DeMarco allowed a cold smile to twist his mouth. He raised a hand and snapped two fingers.

  The huge room seemed suddenly to be active, yet Carter couldn’t immediately see anyone or anything. At least nothing that stayed still long enough for him to identify it. The writhing figures were frantic with action now, some beginning to tear free of their bindings. In dark corners beyond the nave, hidden by stone pillars and arches, scuttling shadows darted about.

  A sound like liquid flesh squeezing and pulling made him look upwards. From the ceiling indistinct shadows were erupting above his head and dropping like rain. Globules of darkness forced their way out through the wood and the plaster until they were in the open, and as they floated down they coalesced into shapes that were nearly human.

  Then a large shadow fell upon him from behind and he was pulled to the floor. In the increasing blackness Carter thought he could see a black-robed form lying motionless on the floor beside Jane, holding her. Candles flickered around them, and quiet, frightened figures tried to hide in the shadows. The robed form had the shape of a man but was no longer a man. There was no face, just ruffles of hanging white skin, crinkled like paper, no eyes, and no mouth. The black robes hung deformed from the shriveled body, wasted, lifeless. The figure was like a cloud of smoke formed into a man-creature, a withered husk on the brink of death.

  Carter felt pressure around his neck, as cold claws clamped into his skin. Talon fingers gripped the flesh, cutting deep, drawing out blood. He swung and turned to try to prize the fingers from him, and as he turned he saw what was attached leechlike to his neck. It was large, folded wings hanging to the ground, misshapen horns protruding from the head. The skeletal arms wrapped around Carter were covered in coarse black hair that had worn away in places, to reveal dark, paper-thin skin.

  As Carter struggled against the creature he began to feel weaker, and the shadows reflected his weakness. And as the beast was draining the life from him, so the figure on the ground was stirring into new life, the black robes filling and swelling as Carter drifted into the darkness. All the time Jane lay quietly conscious, but her mind was switched off from the horror she was watching.

  McKinley opened his mind and sent flashes of power surging into the creature attacking Carter. At the same time he probed into Carter’s brain, trying to send additional strength.

  Carter felt the grip of the talons weaken as McKinley’s psychic surges began to take effect. He stoked energy in his brain, letting it coil like a snake until with a fierce flash he poured it into the creature. At once the skeletal arms fell away and the wings drooped to the floor.

  By the altar the stirring figure lay still, larger than before but seemingly still weak.

  DeMarco looked concerned, and a look of almost fondness masked his face. He turned to Carter, barely glancing at the creature floundering in the aisle. ‘My…my friend, Prime,’ he said, indicating the altar. ‘He has not survived the years as well as I.’

  Carter kneaded the back of his neck. The claws had opened a wound but it didn’t feel too deep. Kirby took off her sweatshirt and was dabbing at the blood. ‘It’s just superficial. So long as there isn’t any infection.’

  The creature that had attacked Carter still flopped on the floor. Kirby stood over it, raised one leg, and brought her foot down on the throat. Moments later, after she leaned all her weight into it, there was a snap of bone.

  DeMarco turned and looked all about the cathedral. The shadowed figures that had seeped from the ceiling were pulling at the webbing on the walls, tearing it from the hooks that held it in place. As the material tore, the figures captured within were able to jump free, onto the stone floor, where they milled about like a crowd at a railway station. They made very little sound; Bayliss watched them for a few moments until he realized what was strange about them. Although they were clearly all human beings, men, women, some young, others older, and all were naked, there was blankness in their eyes. It was as if they were dead but hadn’t been told to lie down.

  McKinley probed into the minds of some on the pews nearest to him — numbness rather than emptiness. It was a kind of suspended life that hovered between existence and death itself.

  ‘A technique I found in Haiti,’ deMarco said. ‘Not yet tested in battle but I have no fears about its efficiency. We have done several tests.’

  When all the people on the walls had been released the gray-shrouded figures began to free those in the pews. Soon there would be thousands of them, silent but waiting.

  ‘When I say Prime has not fared as well as I have, I omit to reveal I do have a slight advantage. Prime is of course only human.’ DeMarco let a strange expression settle on his face, neither a smile nor a frown. It was the kind of expression that speaks of acceptance, of the end of resistance. He made a movement that looked as if he was scratching the back of his neck. Gradually the skin around his lips seemed to loosen. The folds of skin on his neck draped forward like a woman letting a silk nightdress slide to the floor. The shifting of his skin was accompanied by the most odd noise — the sound of wet tissue paper being folded, very quiet, very soft. The skin on his head flopped forwards onto his chest. With imperceptible movements behind
his back deMarco continued to ripple his skin away from his body so that after a few moments it fell in rivulets from his waist. Still it continued to cascade away from him, the sound of faint tearing joined now by sighs of almost sensual pleasure. Carter realized the sounds were coming from the creatures around him, a kind of worship. As the skin finally peeled from the torso and dropped obscenely without a sound to the floor Carter was astounded when he bent casually, picked it up like a discarded towel, and hung it from a hook on the wall. What was left, without the cloak of human skin, was a nightmare.

  There have been many depictions of the Devil over the years, from horned goat-beast, to sophisticated man about town. What stood in front of them was nothing at all like the artwork, nothing seen in the movies.

  The face was ghostly pale, life long since extinct. Tatters of raw skin hung from the forehead and cheeks as if torn billboard posters that advertised an event that was a vaguely restored memory. Thin tufts of hair coated the bloated skull, coarse and gray and congealed at the sides where there should have been ears. Instead of ears a pair of thick, dark brown horns pointed upwards and slightly forwards. The body was heavy at the chest, bulging with muscle; beneath the ribs and across the stomach the skin protruded outwards where things captured inside the body were pushing for escape. Simian arms folded across the knees of legs that were powerful and long. The hands were thick at the wrist, with elegantly tapered fingers that waved in the air with talon-sharp nails of deep yellow. The legs were bent at the knees, hiding their length and width. The feet were webbed between stubbed toes that were curved into claws at the ends. From the pronounced backbone two white, withered wings hung forlornly, as though distant relatives long forgotten.

  By far the worst aspect was the eyes. Burning red like the hot fires of Hell, they flared with anger and hatred. Ceaselessly open, with no lids or lashes, they were pools of evil that beckoned like beauty to embrace them.