As they passed underneath, the traffic noise became markedly muted. There was, Noel thought, an unearthly stillness about the place. Lichen-coated tombstones stood in the damp, autumn afternoon exactly as they had for centuries. And again there came that crawling feeling in the nape of his neck. Instinctively, he glanced over his shoulder towards the oldest part of the graveyard, to where a cluster of moss-coated Celtic crosses was slowly sinking into the earth. A row of yews lined the perimeter, the branches bowed and heavy with rainwater; and abruptly he turned back - remembering all too vividly the night a ghostly figure had been standing there with a black dog, observing him intently.
Harry pulled a ring of keys from his pocket and opened the wooden door to the vestry.
“We’ll go in through here.”
Behind him, Noel’s steps slowed and Harry looked round. “Are you okay? What is it?”
Noel was drained of colour. “I don’t know - I feel rough – really rough, like I’ve got the flu or something. Maybe when I’m better – next week?”
“Don’t let it win, man. We have to do this.”
Noel’s stomach twisted into knots and his legs dragged. “I don’t think I can.”
“Keep coming. Have you got any pain?”
He put a hand on his stomach to indicate where it was, finding he couldn’t speak. Then to his abject horror, on sight of the members of the prayer team waiting for him inside, a tirade of profanities flew out of his mouth. “Oh, my fucking, good God! What’s this then? The fucking, happy-clappy band?”
“Start now,” Harry instructed the others, reaching to pull him through the door.
Noel clung onto the frame, gagging with nausea, the muscles in his face contorting with spasms.
“Come on, Noel. This isn’t you, we know that. You must not be afraid. Trust in God. He has more than enough power for this; and just think how well you’ll sleep and how good you’ll feel when you are rid of this parasite.”
Noel stood in the doorway, soaked now in sweat, fighting down an overwhelming feeling of vertigo and sickness.
“One more step, Noel. Come on. Make your body do it.”
He nodded. Then threw himself into the church and immediately crumpled to the floor, the hard parquet slamming into his hip.
“Somebody help me get him on a chair.”
He came-to for a second, finding himself bent double with his head between his knees. Someone was telling him to take deep breaths.
“I’m going to be sick.”
The world turned black.
When he came-to again Harry was a blurry figure in front of him holding a cross. Noel’s head lolled as he lurched in and out of consciousness, sweating profusely, his heart banging too hard and too fast - the caustic stench of vomit and urine searing through his senses. Something was digging into his wrists – had they tied him to the chair? He tried to stand, an animalistic roaring resounding in his ears.
“Noel, stay with me. Look directly at me.”
His eyes burned, unable to focus. “I–”
“Look straight into my eyes no matter how difficult it is and don’t speak unless you need to tell me something. If you feel anything rushing up from your throat let it come. If it’s full of profanities don’t worry, we’ve heard it all before. Just let it come out and then let it go. Nod if you’re with me.”
He nodded.
Harry then began the rites of exorcism.
A tiny part of him, the essence of his soul, immediately shrivelled into a tiny shell somewhere deep inside as the storm raged around him. Silently he prayed – reciting over and over, The Lord’s Prayer. Please God, please bless and save my soul…
Miles and miles overhead, coming as if from the surface of a vast ocean, voices that were not his own screeched and roared, screaming around his skull in a chorus of scathing hatred. The chair on which he sat rocked violently, slamming repeatedly onto the floor. Still he clung on. Still he prayed. And still he trusted, hoped and kept the faith.
Until all concept of time had vanished; and it was dark; soft, velvety and quiet.
He opened his eyes. A tiny light flickered in the distance and he focused on that until it made sense. Candlelight. It was a candle. And he had died. Had he not?
***
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ruby
Drummersgate
It’s the time of year that seeps under my skin, reawakening the old things…that smell of decay and chimney smoke mixed with damp leaves…still grey days, candyfloss mist wrapping round the trees...That’s all it takes – the turn of the season – and I’m back there. Crouching behind the ring of oaks, tiny as a mouse, watching the hooded ones dance and chant, torches aflame… wanting to see what they do… needing to know, keeping out of sight, out of mind…
But she smells me on the night air, turns with a smirk on her lips.
“Bring her out!”
Think of something else, something else, something else…
The waxing moon is travelling across my window in a ring of radiant gold; eventually reaching the right hand corner, swallowed then by clouds. Tonight is one of those bonfire-scented nights, shrouded in fog, dampness heavy in the air. Curtains are drawn early, lamps switched on. We must keep the darkness away.
It’s coming, though.
She feels it too, I know she does. A prickling urgency.
“Did you lose time again, Ruby?”
What?
I see one of us is blinking, trying to make sense of the moment. Who am I? Where am I? Isn’t it dark? Wasn’t it dark just now?
This room is painted stark white with colourful pictures on the walls. It’s hot in here – too hot – overheated, and blinds filter out the light of a sunny day; the sky such a deep blue you could dive right into it and somersault with joy. Too beautiful, too exquisite. It causes pain.
I’m aware now of vacantly staring at the woman opposite. My hand is holding a paint brush.
“It was nice of Jes to send you a red rose, wasn’t it? Was it Jes? He was your boyfriend, wasn’t he? How lovely! Is it a special anniversary for you two or something? Ruby? Are you with me? Am I speaking to Ruby?”
A rose? What rose? What’s she talking about?
She is right though, whoever she is, to ask if she’s speaking to Ruby. I think it might be a while since I was in the driving seat. The chatter has been nonstop inside here because we’ve been discussing the message – the one from Celeste – but we can’t remember it exactly. Have we given it to this woman? I know her well, don’t I?
“I’m Amanda, Ruby. Don’t you remember me?” She smiles slightly, a cool, elegant blonde with slender hands and a nose slightly too long for her face. The white shirt threw me. For a second there I thought she was an official, but it’s okay, I recognise her now. God, that took a moment.
She passes me a fresh piece of paper. “Show me again, Ruby. What is it about the rose? I don’t quite understand.”
There is something about this rose then. I’m blank on it. And then whoosh…my hand flies across the paper.
“What’s this?” She frowns and picks up the drawing.
One of the others must have done it - sometimes I don’t understand what happens - but we know, we know about this rose, don’t we?
Suddenly there is an interruption. The door behind clicks open and a shadow falls across the paper, blocking the light.
“What the hell’s she doing?”
The very sound of her voice makes me flinch, and just as my hand reaches out to snatch back the paper, Amanda smartly folds it in half.
Thank you… thank you… Amanda can be trusted. We can trust Amanda… It filters down, my words echoing through the system.
The fear of her, though, triggers a switch. Too late. It happened the second that bitch came into the room.
No, not yet, it isn’t safe.
“Will someone stop her doing that?”
“Ruby, Ruby, come back to us. Sit down, please. Ruby, it’s okay.”
; But it is not okay. When you get a rose… has she had the rose? Someone sent us a rose…
They know where we are. That’s it. They know where we are and what we are thinking. And they know where Alice is. There is no escape, not ever, and now they have sent in this spy, this bitch from the coven. They are coming for us. It’s started.
Stopping dead, I suddenly realise I’m in the middle of the room staring at two people, one sitting down and one standing up. Who are they? A blonde lady and another one – the one with eyes like flints of coal.
“It’s all right,” says the blonde lady. “Ruby, you are safe now.”
“Ruby’s not here,” says Eve.
The one with the hard eyes is watching us, her lips forming words only I can hear. The voice is deep, echoing far back in time like a slowed-down record. “It’s time to go home now, Ruby. We’ve found you. You didn’t think we’d let you go, did you?”
I have to go away now. I have to go to the park.
“You know what happens if you betray us.”
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie… hmmmmmmmm…
The blonde lady fades to a dot - down there from my bird’s eye view - clearing away the desk, glancing at her watch, throwing things into a large bag. She shares a quip with the other one, laughing as if she cannot see what she is, as if she cannot see the sludge-dark aura around her and the empty pit of her eyes.
“Ugh, that infernal nursery rhyme…” says the demon. “She’s off with the fairies again, isn’t she?”
The blonde lady turns to Eve and smiles. “Eve – is it Eve I’m talking to? I’m off home now, love, but I’ll pass your message to Noel, I promise.”
My head is shaking.
“What message?” says the other. I can see her skin hardening and cracking, the hissing serpent uncoiling inside her.
The blonde lady continues to gather up papers and we hold our breath. Will she remember to do it? Or will she betray us?
The bitch is glaring at her, silently demanding a response, when Eve jumps up and rushes towards the television set, railing at it, shaking her fists and screaming.
It’s all she needs - Amanda scoots out of the door without replying. Good. She has the message I gave her for Becky. I did it. She’s got it and she knows to keep it from the other one.
But now the doctor is coming into the room for Eve.
“What’s she doing on the floor?”
“I think her therapist upset her. Honestly, she’s totally unmanageable and we’re very short staffed.”
“Okay, I’ll give her an IV sedative. Then we’ll have her in Isolation, I think.”
“No, she’ll be fine in her room,” says the demon. “As long as she’s sedated I can look after her.”
***
Chapter Twenty-Five
October
Toby sat on the edge of his bed in a state of shock.
Suspended from duty following an allegation of rape, he had also been removed from the Tanners Dell case, with no further access to the report he’d been finalising for the trial. In answer to his concerns, the official response was the team had all they needed from alternative sources, the work he’d done so far being sufficient; although he would still be called in as a witness for the crown prosecution. That was it.
On top of that, every attempt to contact both Sid Hall and Callum had been ignored; their respective mobiles either switched off or going straight to voicemail. He’d stopped ringing days ago. No doubt they believed Amy? Or they’d had orders not to interfere. Either way it made no difference now.
He closed his eyes, bowing his head. So what the hell happened next? Maybe this is how criminals felt? Once they’d broken into a house that first time, snatched a purse or even pulled a knife? Once they’d done it and stepped over that invisible line, they joined ranks with a different set of people holding a different set of rules. Life was never going to be the same again for sure.
Downstairs, his mother was clattering dishes in preparation for the evening meal. Even she was terse with him, a hint of suspicion in the brittle atmosphere while she busied herself more than usual. Surely she of all people couldn’t believe he was capable of rape? His spirits plummeted.
She’d done a good job on him, had Amy: a tearful, fragile looking thing covered in bruises and nasty scratches, armed with a video showing an indisputably, brutal sexual assault. He couldn’t have done that. It could not have been him… and yet his face was there for all to see, and it sure as hell looked like he did.
He put his head in his hands. Well, he was finished then, wasn’t he? Totally fucked. There was no coming back from this one. Like, who in hell’s name was ever going to believe the good doctor and his daughter wanted him removed from the Tanners Dell case in order to protect their satanic coven? That they wanted to bind him in and shut him up? He almost laughed. Certainly not that fat, fucking judge who’d conducted his initiation at the black mass three weeks ago, raising his fist into the air to hail Satan. The bastard presided over the family courts, deciding who children should live with, how other people should behave and who should have what.
The other problem was that the whole thing sounds so outlandish no one believed it actually happened: these are human beings and humans don’t do this kind of thing! And not only are they human, but professional, intelligent, well-bred humans responsible for the welfare and smooth running of a civilised society we take for granted. To ask anyone to start unpicking that, to tug loose the foundation stones of their core existence, was nowhere near as easy as convicting a young police officer of rape, especially when the prosecuting lawyer has a solid base of evidence before him.
Yeah, they’d sewn him up just as tightly as if they’d cut out his tongue. Like poor Alice.
He lay back on his single bed in the room he’d grown up in, watching the rain set in. The leaves were falling steadily now, fluttering from barren branches silhouetted against a battleship sky. It would be winter soon, and somehow that seemed fitting. The colder and bleaker out there the better. He put his arms behind his head and closed his eyes. At least he’d been allowed home: one small consolation hard won by his defence lawyer, and thanks largely to his clean character references and impeccable history in the police service.
Men didn’t cry, eh? A single tear dripped down his cheek and he smeared it away, then another, forced to give up as more and more brimmed over until he was wracked with sobs. Even if he got through the trial and came out the other side, he would still never recover from his so-called initiation. Nor could he tell anyone. Not a single soul. Ever. That’s what they did, how they tied you in for life. And probably even beyond.
It replayed in his mind on a miserable carousel and probably always would. Every time he relaxed, dropped off to sleep or simply closed his eyes it would be there - waiting; only ever on pause, never on stop.
Dusk snuffed out the afternoon mizzle and the bedroom darkened. Flitting in and out of sleep, the horror movie of his downfall resumed, as it would a thousand times more…over and over and over…As always, the second he slipped into the replaying of it, he tried to wake up - whimpering, pleading with himself not to see it all again…
But once more it is black dark on the edge of those moors, treetops spinning in a silvery kaleidoscope, the intoxicating smell of incense and bonfire… Suddenly pain shoots up his neck…Someone has his head wrenched back; rough hands hauling him to his feet, dragging him along by the armpits towards a stage. Huge flames leap skywards either side of a podium set with an altar; a wooden cross towering at the back.
It is a nightmare. He will wake up. Wake up…wake up…
Pain again – shooting across the side of his head as it impacts with hard earth, thrown to the floor in front of the altar like a carcass of meat. Someone grabs his hair, jerking back his neck. His eyes are taped wide open. Just so, he assumes, there’d be no chance of him missing a darned thing.
No, no…not again, not again…no…
A monotonous humming is ris
ing in strength and volume, boring into his brain, drowning out thought. Fighting to keep his mind both sane and alert, he inwardly cites the words of a song he knows word for word – one his dad used to play when he was a kid, ‘Baby we were born to run…’ The boy inside sings it repeatedly, determined to stay conscious. It is a nightmare now and he must wake up…must wake up…must wake up…
The searing pain of a needle punctures a blood vessel in his arm, jerking him violently awake. Has he lost time? Helpless, he watches a cannula being inserted into the vein, followed by the contents of a large syringe injected into his system. The blood vessel aches, screaming as if it will burst as the drug now shooting into his circulation burns its way to the heart. The pain is too unbearable to take and someone, presumably himself, is crying out for God.
The world turns black.
Once more he comes-to, his head throbbing, the bones of his skull banging in sickly waves; taped-open eyes smarting and streaming. Flames are leaping into a smoky sky and macabre creatures with the heads of animals dance frenetically on stage, grunting and cavorting in crab-like movements, heads swivelling to unnatural angles on the stems. A tribal witchdoctor’s face suddenly looms into his, its body scuttling sideways again, fast as a spider.
There are stars up there somewhere. Gradually, his eyes adjust to the stinging smoke and he forces himself to admit that yes, this really is happening. And no one is coming to save him, either. This is it.
Oh dear God in heaven, please just let me die…don’t make me watch what’s happening here… I know what these people do. Please…
The atmosphere is now crackling with anticipation; the chanting a clear demand, like a pop concert where the rockstar’s name is shouted to get them on stage….yes, they were calling someone, repeatedly reciting a name: Baphomet… Baphomet…Baphomet… in a fever of excitement, stamping feet, making hissing noises.
Then abruptly the dance stops. The creatures vanish and a deathly hush falls on the crowd. There isn’t a breath on the air; just the faint lapping of water and a silky rustle in the trees.
Magda: A Darkly Disturbing Occult Horror Trilogy - Book 3 Page 17
