The Devil in Amber

by Mark Gatiss

  The amber-shirts staggered slightly under the youth’s weight but still they held him firm, like a trussed chicken. Despite the terrible rapture that seemed to be consuming Mons, he spared a moment to glance aside and wink at me. I whimpered with sheer impotent fury, calling upon all the saints to help me.

  For answer, Mons produced a tiny silver blade, like a fruit knife, and slipped it quickly across the youth’s throat. The boy made no sound at all and the commotion in the chamber suddenly ceased. The heavy wet bubbling of arterial blood from his throat was the only noise to be heard, splashing horribly to the floor of the chamber in a great, frothing rush.

  Mons stooped to catch the blood in a chalice, then, lifting it to his lips, he drank deep.

  ‘Oh my Christ,’ groaned Flarge.

  Mouth befouled with the boy’s blood, Mons suddenly flung the remainder in a wide arc over the curve of Agnes’s smooth backside. At this, the girl began to stir and turned her face towards us three bound together. I prayed for her to remain insensible but she seemed to take in the full dread of her situation all at once and let out an awful scream.

  Two more animal-masked followers leapt forward and, grasping her by the wrists, swung her over onto her back. From the blond braids of one and the flabby little body of the other, I knew them to be the amber-shirt elite who had stood with Mons on his Manhattan platform.

  The ‘congregation’ responded to Aggie’s scream and the grunting, squealing and frenzied dancing took up again, a pounding drumbeat sounded from close by.

  I turned away in disgust at the dark rime of blood that clung to Mons’s black moustaches. The dead body of the sacrificed youth was dropped to the rocky floor and then, with a whoop of bacchanalian delight, Mons gestured towards the corpse, inviting his acolytes to rub the foul substance onto their naked torsos.

  Pandora rushed to the altar and dipped her hands into the ghastly wound on the youth’s throat that gaped like an empty sleeve. She smeared blood carelessly over her breasts and face and then reached out for Mons as though seeking praise–but he pushed her aside with some violence. Appallingly, I could see that beneath his black robe, Mons had become as priapic as a goat. Pandora fell back, looking, I have to say, a little put out.

  ‘Choose me!’ she yelled. ‘Why can’t it be me?’

  Mons glared at her, apoplectic with rage. ‘Get back! Get back, you worthless drudge!’

  Pandora wrang her bloodstained hands. ‘I know she’s the Perfect Victim, but, please, after the ritual’s done. You know how I feel—’

  Mons’s face was growing black with fury. ‘You bother me with such trivia now? At the very moment of my greatest glory? You loathsome sow, do you think I could ever, ever even spare you a solitary thought?’

  Pandora looked as though she’d been cracked across the chops.

  Mons shook his head and laughed. ‘You were only chosen to join my side after your luckless brother was selected to be the one. He Who Comes All Unknowing. You pathetic parasite! Now get back amongst the rest of my worthless slaves and keep your mouth shut.’

  Pandora literally staggered where she stood.

  ‘Oh, crumbs,’ I cried. ‘Boyfriend trouble again, sis? Just like old times.’

  Expecting the usual scowl, I was shocked to see the utter blankness in Pandora’s face. She looked completely undone and her skin showed waxy and deathly pale beneath the streams of blood and stinking unguents that covered it.

  Now Mons returned his attention to poor Aggie. He moved slowly, almost reverently towards her, his hands gory with haemoglobin, his cock twitching in anticipation of the diabolical coupling to come.

  But it was not to be. I was suddenly aware of a muttering voice from close by. At first I assumed that some hellish ritual was to accompany the dread moment, but to my astonishment I saw that Pandora had moved to one side, bending over the Jerusalem Prayer on its frame, her lips moving quickly as she declaimed the ancient and forbidden text.

  Mons span round, appalled. ‘What are you doing? It’s too early! Too early, you senseless fool!’

  He threw aside the little knife he’d used on the poor boy, sending it clattering down the steps of the altar as Pandora’s voice raced on, chattering through the ritual with almost supernatural speed. Mons dashed towards her, his fist raised to strike, but then stopped dead and whipped about as all the flaming torches and the beastly candles in the chamber suddenly…winked…out.

  My scalp prickled and I felt as though a great weight were pressing on my chest.

  ‘Bloody ’ell,’ gasped Delilah. ‘What’s going hon?’

  ‘Yes,’ whispered Flarge. ‘I feel it too.’

  A freezing draught crept through the darkness, colder than the snowy journey to the mountain, colder than anything I had ever known.

  ‘My God,’ I hissed. ‘Something’s coming!’

  ‘He is coming,’ croaked Flarge, his voice tiny and broken in that dreadful, dark place.

  And then I felt once again that curious blanket of silence, as though we were all spinning in the total vacuum of space. In the sepulchral blackness, there was suddenly a form of light, a dreary, ghastly light like something rotten and long buried that has been unwisely disturbed. In this greenish phosphorescence, I became aware that all of Mons’s acolytes were silently creeping closer to the altar. Despite their ambitions, they were as terrified as us. In the shadows, though, something else was approaching. At first I took it to be more of the naked, animal-masked throng, but even in that weird luminescence I could see that the flesh was somehow wrong. What I took to be several people was in fact one great lumpen thing, its pale and spindly body thrashing about as it slobbered and crawled its way towards us. It was covered all over with eyes, tiny black orbs like those on a spider, yet somewhere in that mass of disgusting tissue there was the semblance of a human mouth. And to my unutterable horror, it was singing.

  It was some kind of bastardized plainsong, rather like a gramophone record of monks chanting that has somehow gone awry. And between gasps of this foul cacophony, the thing began to giggle.

  As I looked, a second creature shuffled and crawled towards us, extruding itself from the darkness like an obscene sausage skin. This one had a vast maw that sparkled with filth and spit and waves of corruption seemed to spill from it. It was a thing of the grave, a thing of utter and profound darkness, and I shuddered to my very soul in its presence.

  Something moved behind me and I yelled in terror–but it was only Flarge. ‘Shh!’ he hissed. ‘If you value your life, Box, silence! We haven’t much time!’

  I thrilled with shock as I saw that the enterprising chap had managed to grasp the sacrificial knife–abandoned by Mons–between his heels and was dragging it towards him.

  Delilah and I, with our backs towards him, could be of little aid but I was grateful for any distraction from the grisly apparitions. In seconds, Flarge’s straining hands had grabbed the knife and we had it between our hands, sawing desperately at the ropes that bound us.

  “Ow we gonna get out hof ’ere?’ hissed Delilah.

  ‘We can’t escape,’ said Flarge flatly. ‘But there is a chance, a chance, we might be saved.’ To my surprise, he waved the little old book he’d retrieved from Daley’s pocket on the train. ‘It’s a dangerous business, this. None more dangerous. So there are safeguards. In here.’

  I felt him jerk away and realized he was suddenly free. He looked wildly about but the entire wretched coven had eyes only for the filthy, squealing beasts that were undulating towards them.

  With the book in one hand, Flarge got into a crouching position and grasped a small, powdery rock. In seconds, he had made a circuit of me and Delilah and I realized that he was scrawling as though with chalk on the rough floor of the cave. But it was a five-pointed star that he drew, not a circle as I’d expected. Flicking through the brittle pages of the book, he muttered under his breath and then frantically scrabbled some words and symbols that it was impossible to make out in the queer light.

&nbs
p; ‘If only there were more time,’ cried Flarge, hoarsely. ‘It’s a bad job! Hod, Malchut, Kether, Binah, Cerburah! A bad job. But the best I can do. You see, your sister’s intervention means the invocation hasn’t been properly performed. Like the cad Reynolds said, there are rules–and that might give us hope.’

  He froze and I too turned to see that all of us, Mons, Pandora, the acolytes, were completely surrounded by legions of the unspeakable creatures, rolling and slobbering over one another like maggots in a fisherman’s basket. The stench was so overwhelming that I gagged.

  But it was not this that arrested us. For over the altar, forming in the very air, was the strange, hazy smoke that I had seen out on the Stiffkey and again on the Norfolk marsh. Just as before, twin points of red light suddenly blazed into life but this time the apparition rapidly assumed a terrible solidity.

  The thing was gigantic. The wreaths of smoke wound round and round each other like the bindings on a mummy until massive furry haunches, greasy and bestial, emerged from the murk. As though for dramatic effect, the flaming torches and candles relumed and an awed gasp rippled through the assembly.

  The great muscular legs of the creature terminated in hooves, black and smeared with filth that was even now creeping upwards in concert with the pall of strange smoke. This too began to solidify and a great human torso rose up above the legs, the skin oily with sweat, yet the stomach was covered all over in lurid green scales like those on a fish.

  Now, with great rapidity, the rest of the monstrous beast took shape. Mammoth female breasts, firm, ripe and blue, rose from the torso, the swollen nipples dripping with black milk. At last the head was revealed, resolving itself around those pitiless red eyes in the shape of a sheep’s head, vast shining horns projecting from the furrowed brow, patches of bare bone showing through amongst the long, lank human hair that spewed from its scalp.

  ‘Oh, God!’ gasped Flarge. ‘He’s free! Banebdjed! The Witch Lord! He comes to conjoin with the Lamb in mockery of God!’

  The creature–this devil, whatever it was–began to turn its head. It was such an uncanny sight that my guts turned absolutely to water. The furious eyes blazed within its withered, skull-like face, a face covered in matted hair, fur and feathers. Immense leathery wings projected from the shoulders.

  I was stupefied with terror and almost didn’t notice as Delilah suddenly seized my hand as the pentagram was completed. Flarge did the same, his own palms pouring with sweat–and put his mouth right by our ears. ‘If you value your souls, don’t look in its eyes. We’re face to face with the very Devil himself. Keep hold of each other’s hands and pray. Pray as you’ve never prayed. And believe! Believe!’

  I needed no urging. What I had considered lunacy only scant days ago was there before my eyes: profound, abject, undiluted evil. I strained to recall every schoolboy prayer, every catechism, but my mind was like a stone, refusing to dredge up even the slenderest memory.

  Mons alone seemed not to fear the apparition. Stretching to his full height he strode towards it, cape billowing behind him, his handsome face alight with energy and triumph. As he smiled, his lip curled up over his fanglike tooth.

  ‘Lord of the Sky! Banebdjed! I, Olympus Mons, have summoned thee back from the darkest place. I shall shatter the bonds that have laid thee low these past millennia. And in return you will grant me power! Power over these feeble scum and millions like them! This world shall be mine! Everything refashioned into my image! Nothing will live, nothing will think without my granting it leave to do so. I have made all this possible, Banebdjed. I am your saviour!’

  Still I struggled to remember anything even vaguely holy. Jesus’ hands were kind hands, ran a ludicrous voice in my head. Onward Christian soldiers! insisted another. But then something did come to me. Not a half-remembered prayer from schooldays, nor any invocation to the forces of light. It was something from that wretched silk relic. The part that Reiss-Mueller could not fathom. ‘And only he who makes himself alone in the world can defeat the Beast’.

  The ram-headed creature had dropped its mighty head to gaze with horrible, patient desire at the prone body of Agnes Daye: the perfect victim whose sacrifice would release it from its earthly prison. Putrid saliva coursed from its wet mouth as it reached out one vast, human hand towards her. The unholy conjunction was only moments away. Then this force of destruction, this rampant evil would be once more unleashed upon the world.

  And only he who makes himself alone in the world can defeat the Beast.

  I stood up within the five-pointed star. Flarge grabbed at my ankle but I shook him off.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he hissed. ‘Sit down! Sit down, you fool!’

  ‘Mr Box!’ gasped Delilah.

  I stepped out of the pentagram and immediately felt that awful, draining misery that I had endured before, as though every depressive thought, every wasted moment had been condensed into a liquid transfusion that now crept into my very bones.

  But I fought back, struggling towards the terrible monster, my every step weighted down as though my shoes were made of oak.

  ‘Banebdjed!’ I gasped. Then, louder–‘Banebdjed, hear me!’

  Mons turned in surprise then let out a peal of laughter. ‘Oh, you really are persistent, Mr Box! Well, then, Lucifer. Meet LUCIFER!’

  I ignored him and turned my face towards the creature, averting my eyes from its own and focusing instead on the abomination that was its body. ‘Banebdjed! I don’t care what this…specimen here says. I have brought you back. I was the one who transported the last fragment of the Jerusalem Prayer to this unholy place. I am the one spoken of in the forbidden texts. I brought it here, all unknowing, as the prophecy states!’

  ‘Box! Box, what are you doing?’ screamed Flarge.

  Pandora jerked towards me, the tendons on her neck standing out like cords. ‘Get back! Get back, you pathetic little man! This is our moment! The glory is ours!’

  I didn’t even look at her. ‘I am the one who found the Lamb of God! I am He That Is Spoken Of! Is this not so?’

  Mons shrugged. ‘I cannot deny it. This man has done all these things. But I am the one who seeks your freedom! I am the one!’

  ‘Banebdjed!’ I yelled. ‘Do you acknowledge that I am He That Is Spoken Of? DO YOU?’

  The ram-headed abhorrence seemed to consider for what felt like hours, rancid breath streaming from its nostrils and the black, black hole of its poisonous mouth. At last, the great head inclined downwards just a fraction.

  Adrenaline surged through my body. I felt a kind of thrilling victory.

  ‘Then!’ I bellowed. ‘Being thus, I claim the right to send you back whence you came!’

  Mons laughed again. The creature made a low, grumbling roar that ran through me like an earth tremor.

  Now Pandora was chuckling. ‘You fool! You blind fool! You don’t even know what you’re saying. Only one who makes himself all alone in the world can do that!’

  I looked at her. ‘And I’m not alone, am I? I have you!’

  My hand flew to my coat and I whipped out the knife that Flarge had used to slice through our bonds. Pandora’s carmine smile fell. Then I dashed forward and with one smooth action cut a new and redder smile in her throat.

  24

  The Charm’s Wound Up

  Well, we’d never got on, had we?

  Hell, having already broken loose, was content to bide its time at this singular intervention. Pandora slipped to the rocky floor, her neck fountaining blood and soaking her hair, a last look of complete surprise on her cruel, pallid face.

  Mons staggered backwards, his bare feet clapping on the cold stone. ‘What have you done? What have you done?’

  Then a strange primal howl began to escape from his breast, immediately silenced by the shattering and ghastly cry of the foul sheep-headed monster that towered above us all. Its great red eyes rolled in its head, and stinking black smoke began to billow from its nostrils and vast mouth, filling the chamber as though a four-alar
m fire had broken out. Then the Beast’s hooves began to beat an enraged tattoo on the floor like a Spanish bull venting its spleen, and the whole chamber shook with the percussion.

  Behind me, Flarge was frantically intoning prayers but I found myself filled with renewed confidence. The game was up. I’d played this Devil by his own rules and bested him.

  The creature’s dreadful maw fell open and a hideous belching moan erupted from deep within its cavernous chest, great ropes of saliva hanging like slug-trails from its cracked and blackened lips.

  Mons pushed me aside and staggered towards the abomination, his hands plucking at its rancid fur. Already it seemed to be diminishing, as though it was being propelled backwards down a long, fathomless tunnel.

  ‘No!’ screeched Mons. ‘Come back! You must come back!’

  The creature’s body was unravelling, great strips of flesh and bone turning once again into the strange wispy blue smoke. One by one the dreadful crawling horrors that surrounded the creature were absorbed into it as though sucked up by a hurricane.

  ‘You!’ raged Mons, pounding up to me and pummelling at my chest with his bare fists. ‘You have done this! After all these years of planning and hoping and—’

  Suddenly he caught sight of the Jerusalem Prayer, still on its frame, and his face lit up as he raced towards it.

  ‘It’s not too late! Of course it’s not! I shall simply summon him back again!’

  Grasping the edges of the frame he bowed his head and began rapidly to intone the forbidden text.

  I was on my feet at once and haring towards him but Flarge was suddenly at my side, laying a restraining hand on my arm. ‘Let him finish, old boy.’

  ‘Are you insane?’ I yelled. ‘I’ve just slit my bloody sister’s throat so that he couldn’t unleash that blasted monster—’

  Flarge shook his head. ‘The Jerusalem Prayer has already been misused once. For the same person to try again is suicide. One must play by the rules.’

  Joshua Reynolds seemed to know this too. He raced to his master’s side and tried to drag him away from the lectern. ‘You mustn’t!’ he screeched. ‘You know what will happen!’