The Parliament of the Dead

by T. A. Donnelly

  Father Thomas’s body began to shake. Iona panicked for a moment, thinking he was having heart failure. Then she realised he was sobbing.

  “Dear Lord forgive me!”he cried over and over.

  Iona gently put her hand on his forehead and he began to calm down. After a few minutes of silence he spoke in a whisper, “The building is protected by secret rituals using holy water. The only way of breaking the barrier is the spilling of innocent blood. Innocent blood on the walls will let them through.” Father Thomas closed his eyes. “You will need some of your blood.”

  “Erm, why mine?”asked Iona,“after all, there’s plenty of yours around.”

  The wounded priest looked shocked.

  “I know” Iona said quickly,“Mum always says I’m insensitive.”

  “No”Father Thomas’s voice was getting weaker,“It’s not that. It’s just that it must be innocent blood. My blood is not innocent.”

  Iona touched the priest’s forehead and smiled, “If you talked to my teachers I don’t think any of them would describe me as innocent either. If you don’t mind I’m going to try yours first.”

  Father Thomas smiled back“You can try, but…”

  Iona gently placed a hand on the priest’s bloody chest. She looked at her hand and then made a red print on the wall. She moved towards the window, which had black iron bars fitted in front of the glass.

  Chapter Fifty

  The Red Hand

  When Tiggy realised that Iona had ignored her instruction and sneaked into the Exorcist’s Church she bit her knuckles to stifle a scream.

  “Iona!”she cried, close to hysteria. “My daughter is in there with those evil men!”

  “Oh yes, of course she is,”said the Grey Monk innocently,“she asked me to talk to you while she nipped inside.”

  Tiggy made to slap the ghost across the face, but her hand just passed through his head.

  She ran up to the open window to follow her daughter inside.

  Morag raced to catch up with her,“Wait, hen, I’ll have a look in the other windows and see wha’I can see afore we do anything.”

  “But she might be hurt or captured.”

  “Aye, but getting yessel’hurt or captured too won’t help the wee lassie. Let’s see what we can see through the windows. Mebbe we’ll see what the lassie’s up to, and then we can work out wha’we’re gonna to do.”

  Tiggy reluctantly agreed and carried on towards the building at a more cautious pace.

  Morag floated ahead while Tiggy leaned over an overgrown rose bush to try and get a look into one of the windows.

  Morag arrived at the window first. “Oh ma good Lord!”she cried as she looked inside.

  “What is it?”hissed Tiggy trying to untangle herself from the thorny branches. As she looked, a hand covered in blood pressed its palm against the window, leaving a dripping red print.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Break-in

  The bloody hand was followed by Iona’s face, also smeared with Father Thomas’s blood. She peered out of the window, struggling to see past her own reflection.

  * * *

  Tiggy managed to pull herself through the bushes to the window in one movement. The branches scratched her face and tore at her clothes.

  “Iona!”she screamed, nearly hysterical,“are you all right?”

  Iona looked at her red stained hands and smiled grimly at her mother. “Yeah, of course. The blood isn’t mine.” She motioned with her head back towards Father Thomas, lying bleeding on the table.

  The priest looked up at the window, tried to look at Tiggy, and when he found he was unable to focus dropped his head back onto the table.

  “I think I might have broken the barrier,”continued Iona,“get a ghost to try and come inside.”

  Morag was listening to the whole conversation just outside of Iona’s view. She swooped gracefully through the wall with a triumphant“Weeeeeeee!”

  “It can’t be right...”muttered Father Thomas as he tried to follow Morag’s form floating around the room,“my blood is not innocent. It can’t be...” He coughed again, and more specks of blood appeared round his lips.

  “Tell the others to come quickly and quietly,”said Iona urgently,“I’ve got a plan.”

  Slowly the kitchen began to fill with ghosts. As soon as the nurse who had attended to Iona arrived, she floated over to Father Thomas and began to treat his wounds.

  Tiggy was increasingly frustrated as she tried to see what was going on inside.

  Sweeney Todd stood in the centre of the room and opened his razor with a flick of his wrist. “Now we’re’ere, I say we kill every bleedin’breather in the buildin’.” He looked very deliberately at Iona as he spoke.

  A ghost surrounded by a swirling mass of clanking chains let out a mournful wail and then spoke. “We should not have come here, they will destroy us all. We must flee!”

  “Wait!” Iona spoke quietly, but with such authority that everyone in the room turned to listen. She was in the headquarters of a group of priests who had shot her, together with a group of ghosts, some of whom wanted to kill her, and others who would abandon her to the priests. She was aware that her life could depend on how this conversation would go. She mustered all the confidence she could and continued,“We need to take this slowly,”she looked the demon barber in the eye,“and without violence.”

  Sweeney Todd shorted,“Why should we listen to a breather?”

  “Because,”Iona replied,“I found this place for you, and Imanaged to get you in here. I think listening to what I’ve got to say is the least you owe me.”

  Sweeney Todd saw that the others wanted to listen to the girl, and closed his razor reluctantly with a grunt. He muttered so only Iona could hear,“If you seriously think no one is going to die tonight you are a foolish little girl. But have it your way. For now.”

  “Your Parliament thingie was attacked and you’ve lost friends. I know you’re afraid and I know you want revenge.”

  There was a murmur of agreement.

  “But the video disk of them messing up the House of Lords can stopthem. They will be put in prison, and their work finished. It’s better to stop them, and keep them stopped than to start a war. If there is a war you’ll lose more friends, even if you win in the end.”

  Iona could tell that the ghosts were almost convinced, but she needed to win them over totally, so she tried a different tack. “And anyway, do you really want these guys causing trouble in the spirit world, in your world?”

  This last argument tipped the balance in her favour; Iona knew they had come round to her way of thinking.

  “If you are with me I need some water, some poltergeists, my fridge team and a distraction.”

  Tiggy, who had been squinting in through the window, struggling to hear, finally chipped in,“The Grey Monk and I have been working on some scare-tactics.”

  “Excellent,”enthused Iona,“tell me all about them.”

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Mass of Thanksgiving

  The priests and monks were meeting in the main church room to say a Mass of Thanksgiving for their victory over the Parliament of the Dead.

  The chapel was of medieval design, with frescoes behind the solid stone altar depicting the torturing of condemned souls in hell. The painting continued up towards the arched ceiling, where heaven was depicted, but barely visible in the dim lighting.

  Statues of martyrs stood in alcoves around the walls, interspersed with cracked wooden‘Stations of the Cross’that portrayed the sufferings of Christ with brutal relish.

  Father Pious was wearing the richly embroidered white robes he wore when leading worship. “Who is on guard?”he asked looking round the assembled group as they sat into the long wooden pews.

  “Brother Augustine.”replied one of the monks.

  “Excellent.”nodded Father Pious. “And has everyone still got all their weapons with them?”

  “Yes”mumbled his congregation clearly irritated at their le
ader’s insistence that they remain armed, even in chapel.

  “We cannot be too careful,”insisted Father Pious, “our great work has earned us many enemies.”

  He clapped his hands, and changed his voice to a gentler, more ecclesiastical tone“Let us pray...”

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Occupied

  Outside Iona had instructed the poltergeists to pour water all along the frames and handles of the doors to the chapel where the exorcists were at prayer. Then the ghosts who could lower the room temperature worked together to freeze the water to ice that would jam the doors shut.

  Meanwhile Tiggy attempted to climb into the building through the toilet window. She grabbed the sill with her hands and started to haul herself up as quietly as she could. When her head was level with the small opening she stifled a gasp as she realised the toilet cubicle was occupied. There was a head with close-cropped hair and a cross shaved into it.

  She toyed with the idea of finding a brick or length of wood to try and knock him out, but in the end decided to go back to the kitchen window and tell the others.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  The Chill of Night

  As their prayers continued they began to feel colder. Father Pious paused for a moment looking around the room before continuing with the Service. His followers nervously felt for their weapons. One, with head still bowed, took out his shotgun and checked it was loaded.

  * * *

  Brother Augustine hobbled out from the toilet, his trousers around his ankles, surrounded by a mass of swirling toilet paper. Nubkheperra, the mummy, had struck his first blow. The monk tried to call for help, but paper gagged his mouth. He tried to bang on the walls and floor, but toilet paper muffled every sound he tried to make.

  “Lock him in the crypt,”instructed Iona,“and get this water frozen solid. The search is taking longer than I’d hoped, I can’t find the disk anywhere!”whispered Iona, as she crept from room to room in an increasingly frantic search.

  “Keep looking!”hissed a mournful-looking spirit surrounded by clanking chains.

  Iona looked anxiously at it. “Can’t you keep the noise down a bit?”

  “Its my curse, I’m afraid.”whined the ghost, trailing its chains behind it.

  A woman dressed in a black ball-gown rolled her eyes,“He got the idea from A Christmas Carolby Charles Dickens. He read it just after he died.”

  * * *

  “The Mass is ended, go in peace.” Father Pious’breath was a pale frosted cloud as he spoke the words that finished the Service.

  The monks and priests chorused,“Amen.”

  They sat in silence with heads bowed for a few moments. Then Father Pious produced two pistols from under his robes. He motioned towards the door. “This cold is not natural. Some evil is at work here. Take care.”

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Dead Good

  In the corridor outside the chapel Iona jumped when she heard the door rattle as the exorcists tried to get out.

  She looked at the ice around the door-frame and hoped it would hold them in.

  The door started to shake as the exorcists started to push against it in earnest.

  “We need a distraction in there now!”

  * * *

  A small group of the noisiest and most agile ghosts swooped through the wall and into the chapel. They spiralled round the ornate ceiling hurling Prayer Books and abuse at the priests and monks as they tried to open the door.

  A shot rang out and one of the spirits disappeared with an explosion of light.

  “Stop!”roared Father Pious,“This is holy ground, there will be no firing of weapons in the chapel. We cannot damage God’s house.”

  Several of the monks cursed, but they all obeyed, and started to make a concerted effort to push against the jammed door.

  * * *

  Iona was frantically rummaging through the suitcases and bags that were at the foot of each iron-framed bed in a large room that resembled a dormitory.

  “Found it!”called Iona, holding up the disk to show the ghosts who had been whizzing round the corridors and rooms like demented pinballs. “It was in this pocket.” She indicated a cleric’s long black cassock.

  “Get everyone out before the priests get loose, we’ve got the video disk to expose them! We’ve won!”

  Ghosts started to hurl themselves through the walls with cries of“We have them!” “Victory!”and even,“Dead good!”

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  A Moral Dilemma

  Tiggy was half way through the tiny toilet window when the ghosts started to rush past her with cries of“Victory!” She had just managed to crawl all the way inside when she came face to face with Iona brandishing the disk.

  “We’ve got it!” Iona exclaimed with a grin.

  “Iona!” Tiggy cried,“After everything that’s happened, being shot, being chased, nearly killed, I can’t believe that you would just run off back into that dreadful building; I blame myself - I should have kept a better watch over you - not just tonight, always. I should have kept a better watch over…” She was in danger of hyperventilating, when she registered her daughter’s grin, and the disk clutched in her hand and began to calm down. “Gosh! Well done!” Tiggy smiled weakly back, then looked doubtfully at the small opening she had just taken almost ten minutes to scramble through. “Do you think we could leave by the front door?”

  “If we’re quick,”replied Iona, taking her mother by the hand and leading her towards the main corridor. Then she paused. “What about the injured priest?”

  Tiggy looked annoyed,“These people tried to kill you, Iona. Forget him.”

  “But their boss tried to kill him. We can’t just leave him here to die!”

  “Well,”Tiggy considered for a moment,“we can call an ambulance when we are safe.”

  “I know I pretend never to listen to anything you say, mum, but you always taught me to help people when I could: to try and make a difference.”

  “OK,”Tiggy replied slowly, looking at her daughter intently,“can he be moved?”

  Iona bit her lip. “I don’t really think…”

  She was cut short by a crash from the corridor. The exorcists had broken out of the chapel.

  Tiggy ran back to the window.

  Although Iona didn’t mind her mother going ahead, she did think it was really Tiggy’s maternal duty to let her daughter go first.

  Tiggy stood on the toilet seat, stuck her head out of the window and shouted,“Your big moment has arrived!”

  Then she turned back to face Iona. “I hope this works.”

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Monkey Business

  As the priests ran out of the chapel into the corridor a loud and insistent knocking struck up on the outer door.

  “Wait!”called Father Pious,“that might be the cardinal. You, you and you,”he indicated three of the monks,“show him into the chapel while the others come with me to deal with the infestation.”

  * * *

  At the door was a slightly overweight man with a grey trench-coat and grey trilby. He had a large old-fashioned grey camera around his neck and he seemed to be sweating.

  “Ah, brothers, hello,”he spoke with an odd accent that the monks could not place,“I’m a reporter from The Times of London. I’ve received information that places members of your Order at the location of an incident at the House of Lords earlier this evening. Do you have any comment for our readers?”

  The monks were momentarily dumb-struck, then they slammed the door in the reporter’s face.

  “Everybody out!”they called as they ran back towards the others,“Our cover is blown! Everybody out!”

  * * *

  Outside the reporter punched the air with glee as his face started to dissolve and reform into the shape of the Grey Monk.

  “Yes!”he cried,“At last! I was scary, I was really, really scary!”

  * * *

  Inside the monks dashed through the rooms gathering
evidence of their presence so they could leave without a trace.

  “Where are you going?”snapped Father Pious at one of the monks who was fumbling with the straps of his rucksack.

  “The press are here!”the monk replied, anxiously nodding towards the front door.

  “Let them come,”snarled Father Pious,“we need to ensure the disk is safe or destroyed and eliminate as many of those devils as we can before we leave. You are here to help me, to follow my orders.”

  The monk shook his head,“I am sorry Father, you don’t understand. Our Order can only exist by secrecy; if we are exposed it will be the end for us. Our Abbot gave us strict instructions to leave if we were even threatened with exposure. We have to go.”

  “Cowards!”spat Father Pious after the monk’s retreating back.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Peace with God

  Iona and Tiggy watched the monks gather at the back of the building and then run out into the night. When the corridor was clear they hurried to the kitchen to see if there was anything they could do to help Father Thomas.

  He was very pale, and his breathing seemed irregular, but they were relieved to see he was still alive.

  Suddenly a voice from behind them made Iona and Tiggy spin round.

  “Ladies,”Father Pious stood with a pistol in each hand,“this has gone too far, you know too many secrets. For the good of our work I think the easiest solution is for me to kill you both.”

  “But...”began Tiggy.

  “No buts,”interrupted Father Pious,“just make your peace with God and we can finish this. You are standing in the way of the work of the Lord. You have sown the wind, and will reap the whirlwind.”