The kitchen stank so badly, he unlocked the back door and threw it open, taking gasps of the cool, fresh air. He turned back and made for the cellar door. Locked. He looked around. No sign of a key. Not the first time. Keys always seemed to go missing right when you needed them.
He gave the door a well-aimed and practiced kick. It shuddered. Two more thunderous kicks later and the wood splintered.
The thick, cloying stench nearly knocked him over. He retched, dashed outside and threw up in the yard.
Del joined him. “Nothing upstairs. God this fucking smell. Not surprised you got sick. Have you been down the cellar yet?”
Gavin, still retching, couldn’t speak. He shook his head.
“Don’t worry, I’ll go.” He left his mate. No more than a couple of minutes later, he came back, white-faced and shaking.
“Gavin, you’re going to have to come down with me. I need a witness. And then we have to call the police.”
“What?”
“Look, come with me. Now. Please.” Del had already made it back to the kitchen, and Gavin staggered after him.
Faint daylight filtered in from a small window at yard level. On the floor, what looked like a jumble of old clothing had been stashed in a dimly lit corner, barely visible.
“Switch your torch on.”
Gavin did so, as did Del, and the two beams shone over the mass of clothing.
Seconds passed before Gavin dared to believe what he saw. His torch reflected the white bones of a skeletal hand.
Del moved closer to the pile. “There’s five of them. Five women by their dress.”
He stepped back and fished in a pocket for his phone. He dialed the emergency services. “Police. I need to report a body—more than one. Women… By the looks of them, they’ve been here for years.”
A sigh echoed through the cellar.
Gavin clutched his chest. A sharp pain snatched his breath away. It tore through his chest and down his left arm. Dead before he crashed onto the floor.
Del screamed into his phone for an ambulance, then knelt down beside the man he had known since childhood. Tears streamed down his face. Unseen by him, and wreathed in shadows, the pages of the discarded book rustled and it fell open at a well-thumbed page.
A whispered chant floated across the cellar.
“We are the thirteen, and we are one.”
On the far side of the room, Josiah Underwood smiled and, in the shadows, five women wept.
The Darkest Veil Page 10
