The Demon Club

by Scott Mariani

  ‘My source tells me that you have something I’d also be very keen on seeing. If it’s true, then it would be a remarkable discovery. To my certain knowledge nobody has ever captured actual video footage of one of their ceremonies before.’

  Ben could hear the growing excitement in the man’s voice. He replied, ‘I’m happy to trade what my associate and I have for what you’re able to tell us about these people. We also have in our possession an encrypted copy of a book manuscript that you might be able to help us access.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary,’ Eritas said. ‘I know what book manuscript you’re talking about, and I already have it.’ Confirming what Ben had suspected, that Georgie Seaward had covertly sent it to him before her husband and Laverack had erased it from their files. ‘You’re welcome to view it. Makes for interesting reading.’

  ‘Where can we meet?’ Ben asked. ‘Are you in London?’

  ‘I wouldn’t go near the place,’ Eritas replied. ‘And I don’t like to travel. I don’t normally receive visitors here on the island either, but in your case I’m willing to make a notable exception.’

  ‘What island are we talking about?’ Please don’t let it be bloody Fiji or somewhere, Ben thought.

  ‘The Isle of Man.’

  Ben did a quick calculation. Situated more than three hundred miles away, in the middle of the Irish Sea between the north of England and the east coast of Ulster, it was a choice of a sluggish eight-hour drive or a speedy one-hour flight to get there. He said, ‘Long way from London.’

  ‘That’s how it has to be,’ Eritas replied. ‘I think you’ll find the trip worthwhile.’

  ‘We’re on our way.’

  Chapter 42

  Ben and Wolf took the speedy option. They booked two online tickets to the Isle of Man using their false names, and hacked across the city to Heathrow to check in by five p.m. for an early evening flight. They left the Alpina in the long-stay car park, bringing with them only Ben’s bag with Abbott’s laptop inside and Wolf’s holdall containing his money, which he didn’t trust to leaving in the car. It wasn’t the only thing he was sceptical about.

  ‘I don’t much like leaving our kit behind like this,’ he complained, referring to the weaponry that would have to remain hidden in the vehicle.

  ‘My gut tells me we won’t need it, anyhow,’ Ben said. ‘Not yet.’

  Wolf gave a sour chuckle. ‘Lot of dead men have said the same thing.’

  Before checking in, Wolf lightened his load by stashing the holdall in left baggage storage. Ben used his waiting time at Heathrow to check out any information he could find online about Vincent Eritas, or “Veritas” as he was cryptically called on his YouTube channel and blog.

  There were no pictures to be seen of the man himself. His videos were slickly produced and the blog written with passion and eloquence, all centred on a strongly religious theme. Veritas was a relentless crusader for God, fighting against the forces of darkness and moral depravity that threatened the world. His videos received millions of views, and judging by the comments they were mostly from die-hard Christians in Europe and America.

  ‘I’d like to see those bastards’ faces if they saw my video of them plastered up on fucking YouTube,’ Wolf said.

  ‘I think snuff movies might contravene their terms of service,’ Ben replied. When he’d finished hunting for information on the mysterious ‘Veritas’ he found a text message from Jeff telling him that they were nearly back at his friend’s farm in Wrexham and everything had been set up to deliver Grace straight to the safety of Kaprisky’s fortress. Ben decided to give her some time to settle into her new surroundings before he tried calling her.

  Their plane was a purple twin-prop Flybe Bombardier. Ben hadn’t been in the air since the day he’d been approached by Saunders, and as they buzzed up into the air over London he reflected on how many things had happened in such a short space of time. The tables were beginning to turn on the enemy now. He wondered if they had any idea of what was coming to them. One thing he knew for sure – they’d be forming plans of their own, even at this moment as Ben and Wolf winged their way northwards to meet with their mysterious new contact.

  It was a foggy crossing over the Irish Sea. As they neared their destination the mist parted and the Isle of Man’s rocky cliffs and hazy mountains came into view. It reminded Ben of his former home in Galway.

  ‘The guy’s obviously some kind of nutjob recluse,’ commented Wolf, the man who had wanted to disappear into the remotest reaches of Spain.

  After exactly one hour and fifteen minutes in the air, the Bombardier touched down at Ronaldsway Airport. Vincent Eritas had told them to call when they reached the island. Ben and Wolf made their way outside into the fresh evening breeze and waited. It wasn’t long before a dark blue Mazda saloon appeared and pulled up beside them. The lone driver, a skinny bald guy in his late fifties with sharp features and pointy ears, stepped out to meet them. ‘You Hope and Wolf?’

  Ben said, ‘Vincent Eritas?’ He hadn’t quite known what to expect, but somehow this man wasn’t it.

  ‘Dude looks like Nosferatu,’ Wolf muttered under his breath.

  The bald guy shook his head. ‘I’m to take you to him.’ He motioned them into the back of the car, and they took off.

  The airport was situated at the southern end of the island. The bald guy ignored his passengers and didn’t speak a word as he hustled due north along twisty rural roads, through scenery that to Ben’s eye looked exactly like Ireland, with patchwork fields and occasional isolated villages and farms with rickety fences and whitewashed stone outbuildings, the mist-shrouded mountains always in the background.

  It was a long, narrow island. The Mazda remained on its steady northward bearing for thirty-five minutes and reached a place called The Cronk, then made a series of turns onto increasingly narrow and bending lanes until they were deep in the middle of empty, remote countryside. The tiny road trickled towards a heathery hillside that loomed up ahead. It was after 8.40 p.m. and the evening was growing dark. In the fading light Ben could see the weathered ruins of an ancient stone church nestled close to the foot of the hill, just a few walls and the crumbling tower of its steeple still standing. The bald guy headed straight for the ruins, bumped over the long grass for thirty yards and coasted to a halt nearby. He left the engine running and turned in his seat. ‘We’re there.’

  ‘I thought we were being taken to see Vincent Eritas,’ Ben said.

  The bald guy replied, ‘This is where he lives.’

  Ben and Wolf got out. The bald guy put the car in gear and drove away, leaving them standing there alone by the ruins. There wasn’t another living soul in sight. Nothing moved except for the ripple of the wind through the heather and the tall grass.

  Wolf pulled a face and said, ‘He lives here? Seriously? Either I was right and this guy’s a total nutjob, or else we’ve been good and proper fucking stitched up.’

  Ben was about to reply when his phone went. It was the same number that had called them earlier in London.

  ‘Welcome to my humble abode,’ said the voice of Vincent Eritas. ‘So glad you could make it.’

  ‘This has got to be a joke, yes?’

  ‘Not in the least. May I please direct you to the green door on the far side of the church steeple?’

  Ben got the strangest feeling that he was being watched. He looked around him but saw nothing. He led a perplexed-looking Wolf through the long grass towards the ruined steeple. They walked around its corner, and sure enough, there inset into the craggy stonework of the old tower was a smooth, modern metal security door. It was painted dull olive green to better blend into its surroundings, and looked a little like the entrance to a military bunker. There was no window, no external handle or lock. Ben tapped it with a knuckle. Thick, heavy-gauge steel, bulletproof; probably bombproof too.

  Wolf said, ‘This is getting screwier by the second.’

  Ben couldn’t disagree with him. But neither of them could h
ave imagined what they were about to find behind the green door.

  From somewhere inside came the faint click of an electronic lock mechanism. The door opened a crack.

  Ben and Wolf exchanged puzzled glances. Wolf said, ‘After you.’

  Ben pushed the heavy door open wider and stepped through.

  Chapter 43

  There was nobody behind the door, and nothing except a downward-sloping stairway shaft with a long flight of concrete steps leading steeply underground. The walls were smooth and white, and the stairway was lit by small LED lights embedded in the ceiling. The space-age effect was a striking and surreal contrast to the crumbling ruins above ground.

  At the bottom of the steps the shaft curved away to the right, inviting them to follow. Ben tentatively led the way down, Wolf following. Behind them the steel door glided shut and locked with a click. There was no handle on the inside, either. Like the door of a cell. No going back now, even if Ben and Wolf had wanted to.

  Ben reached the foot of the steps and estimated that they were about ten metres underground. He peered around the bend and saw that the shaft continued sloping gently deeper, leading to a second steel door that barred the way. Unable to shake off that strange feeling of being watched, he looked around him. The smooth white ceiling was maybe seven feet high, and just below it were parallel rows of steel mesh grids that he at first assumed were just ventilator shafts, until he spotted the eye of a camera glinting from behind one of them.

  The second steel door unlocked and glided open as they approached. On the other side of it was a square white chamber that made Ben think of an airlock in a biochemical lab. The whoosh of air conditioning caressed his skin. More cameras watched them from above. Panels were set into the walls on each side and a third door stood shut in front of them. Before the exit was a steel archway that Ben guessed was a higher-tech version of the metal detectors used in airports. As Wolf stepped into the chamber, the second door started closing behind them. It was a claustrophobic feeling, like being trapped in a stalled lift.

  Ben almost had to pinch himself to be convinced he was seeing this for real. Whatever the hell this facility was, it must have cost millions to create. He’d been in secret military installations that were less sophisticated. And he was getting the feeling that there was a lot more to come.

  Wolf was having the same thoughts. ‘This place is unbelievable,’ he muttered.

  ‘I’m glad you like it,’ said the voice of Vincent Eritas, coming deep and resonant from a speaker behind one of the wall grilles. Ben imagined their mysterious host sitting in some hidden control room, watching them on a monitor as he talked into his mic.

  Eritas went on, ‘Now, gentlemen, before we proceed any further I’m afraid I must ask you to submit to a couple of basic security measures. Please remove your jackets, shoes, belts and watches, turn out your pockets for anything metallic, as well as your mobile phones, and place your items in the boxes provided.’ As he spoke, a wall panel opened to reveal a compartment with a shelf on which rested two plastic crates.

  Ben and Wolf had no choice but to go along with his wishes. Ben reluctantly placed his steel Omega diver’s watch, his burner phone and his green bag containing Abbott’s laptop into a crate. He unlaced his boots and unbuckled his belt and put those in, too. It was like being admitted to a maximum-security prison.

  The wall panel closed. Eritas said, ‘Thank you. Your items will of course be returned to you before you leave. Now if you would please step through the metal detector, one at a time?’

  Ben said, ‘You don’t have to worry about us being armed. We’ve just stepped off a commercial aircraft. In any case, we’ve come to trade information, nothing more.’

  ‘Indulge me, please,’ said the voice from the speaker. ‘I hope you understand that I’m compelled to be extra careful, for my own protection.’

  ‘Does he think we were going to strangle him with our effing shoelaces?’ Wolf grumbled.

  ‘I’m sure a fellow of your skills could probably snap my neck with your little finger,’ Eritas said. ‘I’m a man of thoughts and intellect, not of action. Now, please, the metal detector.’

  Ben went first. The detector remained silent. When Wolf passed under the archway, a high-pitched alarm sounded. Wolf patted himself down for the camera to show he wasn’t armed, and pointed to his mouth. ‘It’s my teeth.’

  ‘Then I must ask you to remove those also,’ Eritas said. ‘It’s the only way I can be sure that you’re not carrying a gun or a knife.’

  Wolf didn’t like it, but he removed the gold and titanium denture, wrapped it in a handkerchief and tossed it to Ben on the other side of the arch. Then he stepped through, and this time he didn’t trigger the alarm. Ben handed him the denture and Wolf unwrapped it and reinserted it into his mouth. ‘Satisfied now?’

  As if in reply, the third door suddenly unlocked itself and glided open. ‘I’d say that’s a yes,’ Wolf said.

  Shoeless, they stepped out of the chamber and now found themselves in a wider, longer passage whose walls were burnished steel. They might have been entering the International Space Station. At the end of the passage was yet another doorway, which opened as they walked towards it.

  And standing in the doorway was Vincent Eritas himself.

  That their host was an enormously wealthy man was already obvious to his visitors. Eritas was also inordinately fat, so hugely obese in all directions that he virtually filled the doorway. The belt that could stretch around his middle would have been long enough to tie up the US Naval fleet, and no pair of trousers on earth could be made with a waistline super-sized enough to contain his bulk. Instead he wore a flowery, colourful kind of kaftan that ballooned out over his bulging stomach like a maternity dress and hung almost to the floor. His hair was long and straggly, and his beard could have belonged to a castaway on a desert island. Behind the beard he was smiling. But in one chubby hand he held a very large stainless-steel Magnum revolver.

  ‘Mr Hope, Mr Wolf, it’s a pleasure to meet you both. Please, come on in.’

  Ben pointed at the gun. ‘Another security measure?’

  Eritas shrugged. ‘Regrettably, yes. The mere fact that you’re not armed doesn’t necessarily guarantee my safety. The gun is loaded, and while I assure you that I have no intention of using it unless provoked I’m afraid that, if I do feel threatened at any time, I’m going to have to shoot you.’

  Chapter 44

  ‘Then we’ll have to make sure we don’t make you feel that way,’ Ben said.

  Eritas shifted his monumental mass back from the doorway to let them through. Ben and Wolf now found themselves entering a vast living area dominated by tall windows that overlooked a dusky valley and the rocky coastline. The stars were beginning to come out, twinkling over the darkening ocean.

  Ben realised that Eritas’ incredible home was constructed right through the base of the hill and must be buried almost entirely underground. Like the rest of the place, the decor in the living area was sparse and minimalistic. A flat-screen TV as big as a Delacroix painting hung above a modernistic fireplace. The only other wall adornment was a six-foot chrome-plated crucifix. A big man needed a big cross. The furniture was contemporary avant-garde, like something Andy Warhol might have designed. Eritas invited them to sit on a matching pair of armchairs that were far too narrow for his bulk. Maybe they were for guests only, Ben thought, or maybe the man had just outgrown them.

  ‘Would you care for a drink? I only have beer. Never touch spirits.’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘You won’t mind if I do.’ Eritas waddled over to a chiller cabinet, pulled out a dimpled pub glass and a bottle of ale, popped the cap and poured himself a foamy pint. Ben wondered how many of those a guy would need to guzzle down in a day to get that fat. Eritas heaved his monster body over to a double-wide sofa nearby and threw himself down into it. The Magnum revolver rested in his lap, ready for use in case Ben and Wolf suddenly decided to attack him. He swallowed a gulp
of beer and smacked his lips.

  ‘Quite a place you have here,’ Ben said.

  ‘I have to say that I wasn’t initially too sure about inviting strangers into my home. But my big sis liked you, and she prides herself on being a fine judge of character.’

  ‘Your sister?’ Ben had to look hard to see the family resemblance, but it was there. He guessed that Georgie Seaward must be about ten years older than her brother.

  Eritas nodded. ‘As you’ve probably gathered, she emailed me Anthony Abbott’s book manuscript the moment she read it. It quite blew her away, needless to say, though nothing can shock me any more. Unfortunately, she’s married to an ass who would have happily buried his head in the sand and the book with it, if she hadn’t acted quickly.’

  ‘And then we turned up,’ Ben said.

  ‘Which allowed my quick-witted sister to seize the opportunity of speaking to you. Otherwise, with Abbott conveniently bumped off, the whole thing could easily have died with him.’ Eritas took another slug of beer and wiped his mouth with the baggy sleeve of his kaftan. ‘This could be the start of a beautiful friendship, gentlemen. For far too long, the scourge that is the Pandemonium Club has been allowed to continue its legacy of evil and murder. I’ve spent years gathering information on them. The moment might finally have come to bring them down.’

  With surprising agility, their host twisted himself around on the sofa, reached behind it and dragged out the crate into which Ben and Wolf had put their phones and Abbott’s laptop. ‘Time to take a peek at what you’ve brought me. Which phone has the alleged video evidence on it?’

  ‘Mine’s the silver one,’ Wolf said. ‘And it’s not alleged. It’s the real thing.’

  ‘Then I presume you must be Mr Wolf, who captured the footage?’

  ‘You know who we are,’ Ben said. ‘But we still don’t know a lot about you.’

  Eritas made a gesture of acknowledgement. ‘My apologies if I let my enthusiasm run away with me. I suppose I do owe you some background information about myself. My real name is Jasper Shelton.’