by James Oswald
‘Mind your head.’
It’s a curious thing for someone to say when they’re intending to kill you, but I’m grateful nonetheless. There’s a hatch in the floor on the far side of the office, stone steps leading down into darkness. This would explain how they could get into the church without opening any doors, I guess. As I descend, someone flips a switch and bare bulbs light up a narrow passage not unlike the crypt at Harston Magna. Damp, vaulted ceiling. Cobwebs. The flagstones underfoot glisten with oily moisture, and wobble as I tread on them.
At the end of the passage, a heavy wooden door reveals more steps down. At least the ceiling is a little higher here. I’m not as tall as the two men leading me, and I’ve had to crouch a little. Now I can stand without worrying about getting my hair full of grit from the ceiling. It’s a small comfort.
The crypt, once we reach it, is larger than my family’s resting place. The centre of the room is filled with a stone sarcophagus that looks to be far older than the church rising up above it. Alcoves line the walls, but they are all empty as far as I can tell. Except for the fat tallow candles that burn in each one, giving the room a low orange light that dances with the shadows as we disturb the air. Aside from the sarcophagus, which doesn’t really count, the only piece of furniture in here is a stout wooden chair. It looks like something you might find in a late nineteenth-century American prison, and with wires attached to the local grid. As we approach I can see it’s bolted to the floor. There are thick leather straps, padded with wool, on the arms and front legs. No guesses where I’m going next then.
‘Sit,’ the larger of the two men orders. I hesitate, looking around the room in the vain hope there might be some kind of escape route. The only way in other than the one we came through is an ornate iron gate, beyond which I can see more stone steps leading upwards into the body of the church.
‘Sit!’ This time the command is backed up with force. The other man grabs my arms and shoves me down into the chair. I put up a bit of a fight until he smacks me hard enough across the face to make my eyes water. The momentary shock is enough for them to pin my wrists and tighten the straps around them. They don’t bother with my legs.
‘Don’t go anywhere now.’ One of the men has a sense of humour. I glare at him, doing my best to memorise his face. You’re going to get out of this, Con. You’re a fighter. A survivor.
Even I don’t believe myself, but I need to try.
They leave me alone, going out the way we came in. I test the straps, but they’re stronger than me, and too tight to slide out of. My chair faces the sarcophagus, a gap between it and me of maybe a couple of metres. The gate and steps out into the church are on the other side. The ceiling rises to a point above me, shadows twisting in the candlelight. Stone carved faces leer at me, some devils, some green men, some creatures of nightmare. What is this place? Older than the church, sure. Older than the religion the church was built to serve.
Something moves at my feet, and I look down to see a lone rat sniffing around the chair legs. That’s when I notice that the floor here is discoloured, the stone of the sarcophagus too. Stained dark by the blood of the poor bastards who’ve sat here before me. Dan Jones, the acolyte whose first name was Tim, the unnamed body in the park, the victims I saw in Bain’s folder, their bodies dumped all over the country. How many more were never found?
Oh fuck. This is bad, Con. This is very bad.
‘You are blessed, my child. Few ever see this place. Fewer still will know the bliss of becoming one with God here.’
Edward Masters emerges from the shadows, his eyes glinting in the flickering light. He was wearing his suit when I saw him before, bursting out of it as ever. Now his chest is bare, his dark skin slick and sweaty despite the chill air of the crypt. I had thought him fat, but his bulk is all muscle, pumped up like he’s on steroids. He doesn’t approach me at first, keeping the stone of the sarcophagus between us as if he’s somehow frightened of me. That distance is reassuring, if nothing else.
‘Who are you?’
It’s maybe not the most obvious question, in the circumstances, but it’s the first one that comes to me. Masters stops, his head tilted to one side as if he’s considering his answer.
‘I am the high priest. The giver of life and the bringer of death. I hold the power of God in my right hand.’ He holds it up, clenching massive fingers into a fist just in case I don’t know what he means.
‘What is this place?’ I strain against the straps holding my wrists, but they might as well be made of steel. Relaxing my arms, I nod at the sarcophagus. ‘Whose coffin is that?’
‘Coffin.’ Masters echoes the word, not quite a question this time. Then he laughs a deep belly rumble that could be a bus passing by in the road, a Tube train down below. ‘No coffin could hope to contain the spirit that sleeps within.’
‘What is it, then? Dracula’s last resting place?’
Masters unclenches his fist and lightly strokes the stone top of the sarcophagus. Anger blazes in his eyes now. I didn’t like him calm, but I’m not sure this is an improvement.
‘This tomb was here before London rose from the swamps around the Thames. It was built by the Roman invaders led by Julius Caesar himself. They brought this casket with them, all the way from Africa.’
I look at the unexceptional stone sarcophagus again. There really is nothing all that special about it, although it certainly looks old. And it’s made of different stone to the rest of the crypt, which would suggest it’s not local. Of course, it might just be that Masters is a madman.
‘I thought you were a Christian. Isn’t that what your church is all about?’
‘God takes many forms, child.’ Masters moves out from behind the stone and I see now that his legs are bare too, and his feet. I’m shivering with cold and I’ve got clothes on. How can he be sweating in nothing more than a loincloth? ‘Before Christ came into the world, He was Yahweh, Jehovah, Ahura Mazda. To the Romans who brought Him here, he was Mithra. Many names, one God.’
Now I know he’s mad, but that doesn’t exactly help.
‘And this God of yours, he likes human sacrifice, does he?’
Masters looms in close, his face mere inches from mine, massive hands easily enclosing my wrists and the straps that bind them.
‘You cannot begin to understand his ways, child. You do not even believe. God cares nothing for those who cast Him aside, but there is power in their lives, just there for the taking. Power that can be used to help those more deserving than you.’
I open my mouth to say something pithy, but before I can even think of anything he grabs my face, squeezes my cheeks between thumb and forefinger with one hand. With the other he reaches in and grabs my tongue.
‘Take a man’s tongue and you gain the power of persuasion.’
He lets me go. It’s all I can do to stop myself from gagging for a moment. Saliva floods my mouth and I spit out the taste of him as best I can. It spatters the floor beside the chair, soaking into the soft stone and highlighting the dark stains. I’ve barely recovered my composure when he grabs my crotch, pushing me back into the chair as he squeezes hard. Nothing sexual at all about the action, this is pure violence.
‘Take his manhood, and you will be fertile in all your endeavours.’
I try to hold back the scream, but it escapes from me anyway, even as I stare deep into his mad, bulging eyes. He holds my gaze again, for long, drawn-out seconds. And then he releases me, steps back, breathing heavily as if he’s just run here from the other side of the Danes Estate. He stalks away, hand resting on the stone lid of the sarcophagus, and as he goes I can see his shoulders heaving. His back is a mess of scars, raised out of his ebony skin like cords sunk into his flesh. His slow circumnavigation of the tomb takes long enough for my pain to subside, but I know this isn’t over yet. Not by a long chalk. When he finally comes back to me, it’s in a rush, his hand pressing
hard against my breast, crushing it underneath his palm.
‘Take a man’s heart, and you gain all of his strength. All of his life.’
I can’t breathe. He’s so strong, so massive, my lungs are useless. Is this how women accused of witchcraft felt, when the stones were piled on top of them? Not choked, not strangled, but crushed. Still bearing down on me with all the weight of the world, Masters once more leans in close.
‘You are not a man, so none of these things are yours to be taken. None are mine to gift to those who might better use them. Your death will not be in vain though. It will let someone else live. Someone who deserves God’s grace far more than your uncaring soul.’
I kick out with my feet, take a little satisfaction as he grimaces when my boot catches his shin. But my efforts are weak. I’m desperate for air, squeezed against the back of the chair, the pressure on my chest crushing my ribs, threatening to break them into shards that will pierce my lungs, pop my heart. I kick again, and this time he barely notices. I have no strength, no fight left in me.
The candles are growing darker now, shadows creeping out from the carved monsters on the ceiling as my vision begins to tunnel. I can see only that face, mad staring eyes, bulging with exertion. They are yellow, not white, the pupils tiny despite the lack of light in here. Thin capillaries snake over the surface like rivers of blood, glistening. This can’t be how it ends, it’s so stupid. Chased from my home by a bunch of third-rate hacks and wannabe YouTube stars. What a fucking epitaph.
‘Good, good. I can feel your life in my hands now. Rejoice in the knowledge that it goes to one far more worthy than you. I will take your vitality and use it to heal.’
I barely hear the words. I can’t feel anything but the pressure in my chest. Not my arms, my legs. My head is a heavy weight my neck no longer has the strength to hold upright. Nothing left at all, I surrender to the blackness.
And at that last moment, he releases me. My lungs suck in air on reflex, a deep, noisy gasp. I’m too far gone to notice Masters as he brings his other hand around, open, directly in front of my face. He leans close, lips pursed as if to kiss me. Only then do I see, through the unfocused fog, a small pile of powder on his palm.
‘God be with you, Lady Constance.’ He breathes the words, and his breath blows the powder into my face. It stings and numbs, filling my nose, my mouth, my throat.
And I am gone.
47
Am I dead?
It’s dark as pitch, but I don’t feel dead. There’s too much pain for that. My chest throbs like I’ve been in a car crash. Every breath hurts, but at least I’m breathing. That’s important, even though I can’t think why. My brain feels like it’s grown too large for my skull, a pressure in my sinuses and behind my eyes like the worst migraine. Hard to think with that pulsing, flashing light. Where am I? What’s going on?
For a long time I can’t remember anything. I know who I am, but my name eludes me. This should be more worrying than it is, but that’s something else that I can’t quite muster, the energy to be worried.
There’s an itchy spot on the side of my nose, but when I try to raise my hand to scratch it, I hit something hard and rough. Stone directly above me, maybe no more than six inches away. Part of me knows this should be a reason to panic, but right now I’m calm. The pain in my chest is intense, but I can angle my arm, reach my nose. Getting rid of the itch is a small release.
The pulsing in my head begins to subside, and as it goes so I begin to remember things. My name’s Constance. Con. It seems stupid that I would have forgotten that. Who forgets their own name?
I’m lying on my back. Not sure how I didn’t know that before, but like my name it’s obvious once I realise. Lifting my head hurts, and when I rest it back again, I feel hard stone beneath me. Where the fuck am I? What happened?
Flashes of memory begin to form into a more coherent picture. Being captured, strapped to a chair. Edward Masters crushing my chest. Well, at least that explains the pain. He blew some powder into my face. I couldn’t help but inhale it. I still don’t know what happened after I blacked out, where I am.
And then it dawns on me, in a flurry of cascading images. The crypt with its candle-lit alcoves, monstrous carvings writhing like shadow snakes on the ceiling, the chair bolted to the flagstone floor, stains all around it where countless victims have been butchered. And there, in the middle of it, like some prop from a bad horror movie, the ancient stone sarcophagus.
Fuck.
I’m inside it.
Panic batters at me from all sides. I lift both hands, heedless to the pain in my chest as I push against the solid rock on top of me. It’s rough on my palms, cold and unyielding. I push harder, lungs screaming, but it doesn’t budge. I bunch my hands into fists and hammer against the stone. Might as well try to punch through a cliff. There’s no escape.
How long I lie in despair is anyone’s guess. I can only take shallow breaths, the pain in my chest worse after my brief attempt at escape. I’m fairly sure at least a couple of my ribs are cracked. How strong was Masters that he could do that with one hand? How mad? In the darkness I can see his bulging eyes, hear his insane words about tongues and balls and hearts. Thank Christ I’m not a man, or he’d have cut me up like all the others. But what did he mean by it all?
I will myself calm, or at least as calm as it’s possible to be, trapped in a stone coffin that was ancient when the Romans brought it here over two thousand years ago. Or maybe was hacked out by some incompetent mason a few years back when the good reverend doctor lost the last of his marbles. Muti. That’s what Bain was talking about. I know the basics of it, faith healing and shamans. A bit more honest than homeopathy, and just as effective. It begs the question why Masters has been doing it though. Not for himself, that’s for sure. If he’s taking tongues and bollocks, hearts and God knows what else, he’s got a market for them. Peddling cures like the best snake-oil salesmen. And just how much would a suspicious banker pay for good fortune in all his endeavours? How credulous would you have to be?
I have another small panic attack, smacking at the stone lid until I can feel my hands turning sticky with blood. Brilliant, Con. That’s really helped. At least the pain in my knuckles distracts me from the pain in my ribs. I steady my breathing as best I can, try to relax even as the panic edges around me.
Masters’ words echo in my head as I lie here helpless and frustrated. ‘Your death will not be in vain though. It will let someone else live. Someone who deserves God’s grace far more than your uncaring soul.’ What the hell did he mean by that? I have a horrible feeling I know, at least what he intends. Even if it’s all bollocks anyway. I’m distracted though, by two things. First, it occurs to me that sealed in a stone sarcophagus, even breathing shallowly due to cracked ribs, I ought to be running out of air by now. The other is that as the pounding in my head clears and the flashing in my vision subsides, I realise it’s not completely dark in here. I can see the rough carved marks on the rock a few inches above me.
Gently, I bring one hand up in front of my face, then the other. My fingers are caked in blood and sand. I can see them move as I flex them. Light is getting into the sarcophagus from somewhere. I just need to find out where.
I can’t move my head much. Whoever this thing was built for wasn’t all that much bigger than me across the shoulders. They were taller though, or the stone was carved with space for a few keepsakes to take over to the other side. Tilting my head back, I can’t see anything but darkness. I shuffle a bit, then twist as much onto my side as I can, grunting in a very unladylike fashion at the pain that jabs through my chest. It’s agony, but I can see light past my feet. And not just any light. It’s the orange flickering glow of one of the candles. There’s a crack in the end of the sarcophagus big enough for me to see out through.
I’m too far away from it, but a few minutes of agonised shuffling has the soles of my boots pressed
lightly against the stone. I draw my knees up towards my chest as far as I can, then kick down.
The pain drags a scream from my lungs, which only makes it worse. Stars flash across my vision, and the pounding starts up again in my head. I wait until it subsides before peering down at the crack. Is it bigger now? Did anything move?
Another kick and another wave of nausea. This time I don’t wait for it to pass before kicking again. The lid of this coffin might be too heavy for one damaged woman to lift, but the sides are surely weaker. Again and again I kick out, convincing myself that the stone is giving way. Any moment now Masters and his acolytes will come running, stop me breaking their sacred relic, pull me out and kill me like they killed the others. But at least I won’t die helpless, alone.
They don’t come. No one comes. I kick and I kick, ignoring the pain, desperate and angry and frightened. Each time my feet hit the stone, the jarring sends shockwaves up my legs and spine to the base of my skull. The headache grows brighter and brighter. And then, with a noise like the gods at war, the end of the sarcophagus explodes outwards.
I am free.
I can’t move for a long time. I’m too exhausted, too relieved, in too much pain. Only the nagging fear that Masters and his acolytes will be back gets me moving, and even then slowly.
It’s not easy to slide and shuffle your way out of the end of a stone sarcophagus that’s sitting about a metre off the ground. Even less so when your ribs are cracked and bruised. I manage eventually, sliding to the floor in an ungainly heap. The room is much as I remember it from before, although some of the candles have burned themselves out. I’ve no idea what time it is, how long I was unconscious, or how long it took to escape my prison. Half-escape, I should say. I’m still in the crypt, still in mortal danger.
The door to the tunnel they brought me in through is locked. Given the solid wood and iron nails of its construction, I don’t think I’m going to break through there any time soon. Across the other side of the crypt, the iron gate is also locked, but the gaps between its ornate bars are wide enough for someone desperate to squeeze through. I never appreciated just how painful cracked ribs could be until I was that desperate. It’s just as well I’m not as busty as my aunt.
