Dark Coven

by Nick Brown

  “Not like in a TV series, is it? No endearingly quirky police pathologist to give an immediate analysis of what’s happened.”

  Giles didn’t know how to respond, he just looked at him blankly. Anderson paused, then said:

  “It’s not like a crime scene at all, more like some ancient atrocity.”

  But slowly Giles’s years of interpreting scant evidence on excavations began to indicate what he was looking at. This made it worse. He could make out the body of the victim now. It was strangely unmarked, with no sign of even the slightest wound, a state which made the open mouth full of black feathers all the more gruesome. But in many respects, this was the least terrifying aspect of the scene.

  DI Campbell was standing by him now; he smelt the sickly odour on her breath as she spoke and felt a surge of pity for her. This was her burden, not his.

  “I know this can’t be easy for you, Dr Glover, but please do your best.”

  By now he was beginning to piece together elements of the tableau at their feet.

  “All right, this is my best for now. Can’t say anything about the body but the rest of this stuff couldn’t occur naturally. It’s an assemblage.”

  He could tell this didn’t mean anything to them.

  “An assemblage is what we call a collection of things that have been put together in a single context.”

  He found that slipping into academic jargon made it easier.

  “Look, I’d need a team out here for days to do this properly. But my initial guess is that what we’ve got here is an assemblage of organic and non organic material, all of it as out of context as your victim. I can see elements of limbs, fingers from different time periods, flints, sherds of pot and a scatter of shells. Even now I’m pretty sure this stuff spans several time periods. It isn’t natural it must have been put together artificially for some purpose.”

  Anderson said:

  “But there’s been people long dead dug out of here, Lindow Man and all that, you worked on those bodies yourself.”

  Giles was wondering how he could explain to them that this mixture all came from different times, different places, and that each element would have occupied its own discrete patch of earth at different levels, that the only way they could all be there was if some huge giant with an enormous spoon had stirred the whole of Lindow Moss up as if it were a bowl of soup. But he didn’t have to.

  Walking towards them, picking his way gingerly across the bog, was a smartly dressed man - Theodrakis. Both Anderson and Campbell stared towards him expectantly. Theodrakis nodded to Giles and stared at the crime scene. He stared for a long time before saying into the expectant silence:

  “There is something essential about the now which is just outside the realm of science.”

  Viv spat back at him.

  “If you think we’re going to stand here listening to clever bugger remarks…”

  Theodrakis put up his hand and she stopped. It was clear from his face he was as shaken as they were.

  “Sorry, I was quoting Einstein, it seemed appropriate. You won’t find anything here; get the body moved to the lab where you’ll find he died of a heart attack. Turn this place over to the archaeologists. Then I’ll talk to you.”

  Giles looked out over the Moss toward a distant strand of trees. A few hundred yards beyond them, hidden in the gloom, lay Claire’s cottage. He stumbled off towards it, through the thickening snow.

  Chapter 34: Strange Affairs

  Theodrakis knew his time had come. This was what he’d been brought here for, this was his destiny. Explaining it to his colleagues wouldn’t be easy. He was mulling over using Impressionist painting as an explanatory metaphor when he saw that DI Campbell was crying; the tears smudging her carelessly applied mascara. She pushed past Anderson, who was trying to console her, and blundered towards him.

  “You take this over, I can’t, I just can’t do it anymore.”

  He gently placed his hands on her shoulders.

  “Yes, you can, in fact, you’re the only one who even has a chance, and it’s why you’ve been brought to this place.”

  She didn’t look convinced, just stood there head bowed with the light snow dusting her coat and hood. He felt pity but not too much, you couldn’t deal with these things until you’d been broken and no one understood that better than he did. Now she seemed pretty much broken.

  He looked across her to Anderson, who was fumbling in embarrassment near the body.

  “Nothing else we can do here, it will be better back at HQ, this is a bad place, it feeds off misery.”

  Anderson didn’t react but Campbell did, she was beginning to understand. Theodrakis didn’t look at the body, knew it wouldn’t help him in any material way; it had served its purpose - whatever was happening now was taking place elsewhere. He turned round and supporting Campbell under one arm, headed for the car. Behind him he heard Anderson mumbling some instructions to the scene of crime officers before following them.

  *******

  Giles was fumbling for his keys when the front door opened. He recognised the heady musk of Claire’s perfume, looked up and saw her. She was wearing the body hugging floor length white dress she wore on certain occasions, and he knew what would follow.

  He was aroused as soon as he crossed the threshold and the gnawing pangs of anxiety slipped away without trace. She twined her left arm around his neck and pulled his face towards hers, her lips open. He slipped into the kiss, she bit hard on his lower lip.

  “You took your time, lover, here, drink this.”

  She handed him a drink. It smelled like mulled wine but was spiced with something he couldn’t place.

  “What’s this?”

  “It’ll give you strength and, believe me, you’ll need strength for what I have in store for you. Now drink it before it goes cold, I was expecting you earlier.”

  He didn’t bother to ask how she could have been expecting him. The drink was good: warming and rich, not like the sickly stuff with too much cinnamon they peddled at the Christmas market. It slid down his throat and spread through his nervous system; a lotus-eating concoction of lassitude and lust.

  She took his hand and led him to the stairs, then up them. Inside the bedroom she helped him out of his clothes, pushed him down on the bed and straddled him. Giles wriggled beneath her trying to pull up the hem of her dress and open her to receive him.

  But she stopped him, stopped him with surprising strength.

  “Not till I’m ready, not till I’ve told you some things, some things you won’t be able to remember afterwards.”

  He lay trapped beneath her, writhing in desire, hearing the words but not listening, just wanting the sharp burning need satisfied. She bent her head low over him so that her long, silky black hair covered his face, tickling his skin. She began to whisper.

  “You manage to get things so wrong every time, don’t you, you and your little friends? Only two bones to harvest now, the one beneath the women’s house and then the one we need to grow, which will link them all into the necklace. Now poor little Ed and that butch bruiser think that Lisa is the key to this, can you imagine that?”

  She stopped and laughed to herself, before adding:

  “There’s nothing in Lisa, she’s empty; I emptied her. Their attempt to take her out of the house will lead to nothing except Olga being expelled and the others becoming my creatures. There will be a birth. There has to be to create the bone that will link all the others. That’s the problem with having to work across dimensions, isn’t it?”

  The question was rhetorical and Giles made no attempt to answer.

  “It means we have to dabble in backwater spheres like this where everything is so literal. But sadly that’s the only overarching law in what you primitives call physics; you have to play by the local rules. You know gravity, religion, relativity, magic, all that childish nonsense. Believe me, it’s all too too boring, but sadly that’s how the game has to be played.”

  She raised her head a
little to see if Giles was listening, but from his writhing about beneath her it seemed his mind was on other things.

  “Anyway, lover, the birth will happen where none of your poor deludedfriends will think of looking. Then it will be a relief to leave the basic metaphysics of this tediously limiting dimension.”

  She looked down at him almost affectionately, then shrugged her shoulders.

  “But while I’m here I may as well get the pleasure that your low level life form is programmed for. Better get ready for a rough ride, Giles baby.”

  When it was over and they lay, post coital, Giles bruised, torn and sweating, she began to giggle.

  “Sorry, honey, I don’t know why but this human form makes me do childish things and I can’t resist this one, so come on, wake up, I want to show you something.”

  He showed no sign of listening so after slapping his face a couple of times she picked up the half empty glass of water from the bedside table and dashed it onto his face. He opened his eyes and stared at her. She squealed with delight and said:

  “You’ll love this; want to see the image that Alekka took to her death? Watch.”

  He gazed up at her through the levels of sedation and saw the slim woman next to him. Then something else: something like a cross between a decomposing woodlouse and a hairy spider with large, wobbling mandibles and exterior veins, something whose boundaries were constantly shifting in a way that the physical laws governing the universe couldn’t accommodate. He began to scream.

  “Don’t be so childish, Giles, can’t you take a joke? Well, that’s the last time I’m showing you my real beauty.”

  She sat back against the headboard, laughing as he screamed. Then she muttered to herself:

  “Well, I suppose the fun’s over, time to wipe your memory.”

  *******

  All she could hear was the voice, the voice and the chant, the unspeakable chant of hate and terror that had once been hers.

  Lisa was dreaming, it had to be a dream. If not she was back in Hell. The voice was in her head again, the chant. The chant that had destroyed her humanity last time, the chant that had consumed her, eaten away her real self and transformed her into a hate-filled, lustful fiend. Most of it she couldn’t remember except in snatches: the taste of blood, elements of fear, rage and darkness. She needed to get away from here but she couldn’t move. Why was she chanting?

  She’d thought the terrible thing inside her had gone; moved on to some other host from where it could expedite its inconceivable purpose. Even the thought of this and the sporadic patches of memory froze her blood.

  The fear was so extreme. She emitted an involuntary squeal and as she was doing so the chanting continued. So the chanting wasn’t her. Awful though this was it brought her to her senses. She must be awake, awake and in bed in her room in the women’s house. So, if she wasn’t performing the ululation of the chant, then who was? It sounded very near, almost near enough to be coming from inside her.

  Her eyes were closed and she feared to open them. But now she could sense not only the chant building to its climax, but something else too. The presence of others, very close and edging closer. This threatening proximity was unbearable with eyes closed, so she forced them open.

  They were in a circle round the bed, which had moved to the centre of the room. Seven women, hands joined, circled her bed. Claire, at the bed’s foot, looked down on her. Claire, even the thought of her plunged Lisa into spasms of horror. Claire who had felt inside her and taken out the spirit of the demon which she now wore herself, even though nobody else seemed to see it. Claire, who was as far from being human as nuclear fission.

  Claire, Margaret, Jenna, Ailsa, Rose, Ruth and Leonie; their eyes like owls, their noses like beaks. Through their distended mouths the ululation of the chant moved to its climax. The chant ended, they dropped their hands and their faces returned to normal as they looked to Claire for leadership.

  Lisa realised she wasn’t meant to see this, she should have stayed asleep. Claire looked at her and smiled, a smile like a fridge door opening, and Lisa felt her bowels turn to water. None of the others noticed, they’d eyes only for Claire who motioned for them to leave the room.

  They drifted out; Rose and Jenna grinning, feeling the power, the others in a state of trance. Claire looked at Lisa from the foot of the bed, smiling as her human form shifted around her. Lisa realised she wasn’t important enough for Claire to bother hiding her real nature. She spoke.

  “Did you enjoy my little performance, mad girl? Do you like what I’ve done to your housemates? No? I thought not. But don’t worry, you don’t matter now, what’s left of you can go and drift from mental breakdown, to care in the community, to asylum. I don’t even need to warn you, do I? No, you’re too frightened to say anything; not that anyone would believe you, would they?”

  Lisa knew Claire was right, she started to sniffle, could feel the fat, wet tracks of tears sliding down her cheeks. Claire smiled, amiable but chilling.

  “Ah bless, little mad, empty Lisa’s crying. Just to cheer you up I’ll let you know how this ends, shall I? Only fair really seeing as you were part of it before this body I’m currently wearing was, although I’ve got to tell you, Lisa, this body gives me a lot more fun than yours did.”

  She patted Lisa on the head with something that vaguely resembled a hand, but which was ice cold.

  “Anyway, as I was saying, I’ve almost finished here now, everything is in place, just a couple of bits and pieces to tidy up then I’m off back to where I came from. Long before they manage to get their new Watchers into working order. I quite miss the old ones: Alekka, Vassilis, Father John and the one that used to flit around Skendleby. Still, nothing lasts forever, does it?”

  She paused and then corrected herself.

  “Except for us, of course.”

  She threw back her head and pealed with laughter.

  “I will miss laughing though, everything here is so funny, isn’t it? Oh come on, lighten up, Lisa, share the joke.”

  She waited for a reaction, Lisa just lay sniffling.

  “Suit yourself then, but as I think you might be beginning to understand, Lisa, we’ve moved way beyond what you understand as time. Sorry, have to go now, things to do, you know how it is? Then I’ll be off leaving your little dimension to whatever consequences our little joke has created. Ciao, Lisa, good luck with forgetting all this.”

  Claire chuckled to herself then followed the others towards the door as Lisa wept.

  Chapter 35: Understanding Makes it Worse

  As they were walking into the Manchester police headquarters a uniformed sergeant shouted across the vestibule to Anderson.

  “Hey Jimmy, don’t forget the drinks for Twiggy.”

  Theodrakis looked at Anderson quizzically, so he explained.

  “There’s a do in the City Vaults.”

  Theodrakis looked more confused.

  “City Vaults, it’s a pub.”

  “I know that. What is Twiggy?”

  “Oh, Twiggy; he’s a fat bloke from traffic who’s retiring. Before the disciplinary he used to work with us.”

  Anderson could see from Theodrakis’s expression that this exegesis of the sergeant’s message hadn’t helped so he cut his losses, mumbling:

  “Maybe we should go, just show our faces for a few minutes.”

  He hadn’t expected a positive response to the suggestion but to his surprise Viv spoke. They were the first words she’d uttered since Lindow.

  “Yes, lets, some normality would be good for us, we can talk afterwards. I could use a drink.”

  She and Anderson turned back towards the door leaving Theodrakis staring after them in amazement; of all the strange things he’d seen recently this struck him as the strangest, but then this was England, a barely civilised state miles from the Mediterranean heart of European culture. He scuttled after them.

  He caught up as they were entering the packed square which every Christmas housed the European m
arket. He found being crushed and jostled against his colleagues by the dense crowd strangely comforting. A small silver band of men and women in a type of military uniform was performing one of the more sentimental of the canon of Anglo Saxon carols, and he felt his eyes begin to water.

  He thought of Samos and Hippolyta then, and this took him completely off guard, an image of Mrs Carver, ‘call me Suzzie-Jade’, jogging round the side of the Hall towards him seeped into his consciousness. Then they were out of the market with its bright lights and Christmas odours and walking down an old street in the shadow of the gothic town hall.

  The pub was packed, warm and convivial. Looking round, Theodrakis recognised several faces, it seemed the pub had temporarily become the recreational centre of the police department. Anderson pushed a large glass of beer into his hand and he realised he would be obliged to drink a pint of the liquid for which he had no relish.

  It seemed that no one had any interest in talking to either Viv or himself, so he pushed a way through the crowd near the bar to a smaller, quieter room at the back where they found a table in the relative gloom of a corner. He asked Viv:

  “Shall I ask DS Anderson to join us?”

  “No, let Jimmy enjoy himself with his mates. You can fetch me another of these though.”

  She knocked back the remnants of the large glass of white wine she was drinking and Theodrakis pushed his way back to the bar, noticing Anderson whispering something into the ear of an attractive WPC who was standing close enough to lean on him. He bought two large glasses of wine, taking the opportunity to lose his pint. Back at the table he passed a glass to Viv. She took a long swallow, then said:

  “Ok, I’m ready, talk to me, tell me, I need to know. What the hell is happening here? What are we meant to do?”

  “Finish the wine first then I’ll buy you dinner, I’ll tell you as we eat.”

  Sometime later they sat by the plate glass window of a Greek restaurant at the side of the town hall. Outside in the cold and dark, crowds of heavily laden shoppers were shuffling through the snow towards bus and tram stops. Theodrakis knew what he was about to say would change Viv’s life; he pitied her but there was no alternative. Clearing his throat he began.