She came with a great cry of excitement, and the wolves howled with her and were glad for her.
In a heavenly daze of ecstasy, Mara felt Hunt withdraw the candle and replace it with the warm, living flesh of his penis. It felt every bit as big, just as exciting. The flesh of her cunt still felt stretched and ready to burst.
And as she turned her head she saw the wolves still there in the gardens below, still looking up at her. The pack-leader was still fucking his mate, only now they seemed to be changing – at first subtly, then dramatically. They were assuming human form.
She came again and again: massive orgasms like surf crashing on a wild, deserted beach. And when she came to her senses and looked down into the gardens for a last time, she saw that the pack of wolves was still there, only now the beasts were surrounding two naked human figures: the figures of Mara Fleming and the Master.
And, as she suppressed a cry of terror, the Master raised his arm and beckoned to her, calling out to her in his quiet, but compelling voice:
‘Come to me. The time is now.’
She swooned and could not be roused, and Hunt wondered what could have had such a profound effect upon her. For all he saw was a deserted garden, and all he heard was the barking of a small stray dog, looking for its master to come and take it home.
The following night, after they got back from a restaurant, they enjoyed the most exhilarating, passionate sex they had ever had. It seemed to have a mystical quality to it, to be governed by some huge cosmic principle which took away their power of rational thought and replaced it with a new guiding light: the drive to fuck and be fucked.
At last, exhausted but happy, they fell into bed and Hunt dozed off to sleep immediately. But Mara tossed and turned for an hour before at last she knew she would not be able to sleep, and got up to do some work.
She went into her study and sat down at the desk, to re-read the letter she had received from the publishing company that same morning. It was an odd sort of letter, but then again it was an occult publishing house and the publisher was clearly some sort of adept in the magical arts. And there was no denying the fact that it had contained a nice fat cheque. She shrugged her shoulders and thanked her lucky stars.
At that moment, there was a dull thud behind her. She swung round in her chair and saw that a book had fallen from the shelves: odd, that, seeing as the books were always pushed well back on to the shelves. It was almost as if it had thrown itself off . . .
She picked it up and saw that it was a book about the wartime Special Operations Executive and the training of its agents. It had fallen open at a photograph of a place called Winterbourne Hall, depicting a group of uniformed and plain-clothes army officers standing in a smiling line outside a big, rambling old house set in attractive grounds. She gave it a cursory look, closed the book and put it back on the shelf.
At that moment, she felt a sudden dizziness overwhelm her. She staggered back and held on to the desk to steady herself. Blinking and shaking her head, she opened her eyes and saw the image of Winterbourne Hall before her once again. But this time the picture had changed: there were no smiling officers in front of the house. It seemed to have been renovated, and the gardens were different too – more overgrown – and the house seemed to be surrounded by dense woodland.
Suddenly she realised that she was becoming a part of the picture, walking into it. It was impossible, but she could feel the gravel path beneath her feet. She was walking up the steps to the front door, ringing the bell. And the door was opening, someone was beckoning her inside. She looked into his face and saw that it was the Master, and he was smiling at her and beginning to undress her. And she felt the fear overwhelmed by the wanting, the wetness in her cunt banishing all doubts. He was caressing her breasts now, and whispering soundless words of arousal in her ear, stroking her neck, her back, her buttocks; sliding a finger into her cunt and back and forth across her throbbing clitoris.
‘Come to me,’ hissed the voice. ‘You know you want to. You know you want my prick in your juicy cunt.’
‘Fuck me,’ Mara heard herself whimper, desperate for the feeling of hardness inside her belly.
‘Then come to me. Come to me now. Come to me . . .’
The vision faded, and Mara found herself back in her own study, surprised to discover that she was now naked and her cunt dripping with wetness.
The doubts were gone, she knew not why. All she knew was that a sudden certainty had overtaken her and she now knew what she must do, where she must go. The call echoed loud and clear within her;
‘Come to me now.’
She dressed quietly, swiftly, automatically; no longer in command of herself or her own thoughts. And she opened the front door, walked down the stairs and out into the dark night air, the only sign of her sudden flight the front door swinging on its hinges with an ominous creaking like the articulation of dead bones.
16: The Acolyte
Little eddies of dust swirled around Mara’s feet as she stood there in the middle of the deserted country lane in the gathering dusk. She felt something brush against her leg, and bent down to see that it was a newspaper, yellowed and torn. She picked it up, and saw with a start that the front page displayed a photograph of Winterbourne, much as it had looked in the book she had found at Hunt’s flat. She glanced at the masthead, and a brief frisson of unease rippled through her dazed mind.
It was a copy of the Daily Sketch, dated April 1945.
She let the paper fall and began to walk on up the dusty track, hardly feeling the cold even though she was wearing only a thin jacket over her dress. The burning sense of purpose within her drove her on, though she hardly knew where she was going, or why. Somehow she knew that she would recognise when she had arrived, and that the purpose of the Master’s call would become clear if only she obeyed. The fear was still in her heart, and the knowledge of the evil into which her powers were leading her: but all the will to resist had drained out of her, and a power beyond her own self led her onward.
Suddenly the road narrowed and came to an end at the gate to a farmer’s field. There was no signpost and no indication of which way she should go. But as she glanced round Mara caught sight of an overgrown track leading into the woods at right-angles to the road. This, she knew, was the way she must take.
She squeezed through the narrow gap, scratching herself badly on the brambles that grew in tangled profusion across the old track. They seemed alive, almost reluctant to let her go, wanting to touch and enjoy her body with their cruel fingers and keep her for themselves.
Pushing past, she found herself in a twilight gloom where the shafts of daylight penetrated only as intruders into a world where darkness was the natural medium. Although rain had not fallen for some time, the ground here remained slippery and there were patches of slimy black mud. Obviously this could not be the main way to the house she was seeking, for there were no footprints and it was clear that no-one had passed this way for a very long time. This must be some secret way, known only to a few. The way was so difficult that she even began to wonder if it was some sort of test.
Mara stumbled on in the half-light, feeling the prurient fingers of vegetation clutching at her, tearing her clothes, tangling her hair and trying to force their way into every fold of her fragile skin. In her trance-like state, Mara could do nothing to resist their rough embraces, and even began to become excited by the thorns raking across her flesh, the sharp branches tearing off her clothes and exposing her nakedness.
Gradually, as she pushed forward, her clothes were ripped in shreds from her body and her breasts and buttocks exposed. She stumbled and fell into a pool of mud; and when she managed to scramble to her feet and looked down at her mud-soaked hands and knees, she saw that the mud had formed curious patterns on her skin. Not amorphous patches of mud, but clearly defined characters, some of which she recognised as magical signs. Something very strange was happening to her.
She half-walked, half-crawled deeper and deeper into the
woods, until at last she came to a fast-flowing stream at the bottom of a deep gorge with a fallen log lying across it. She saw immediately that the only way to cross was to pull herself across on the log. So she lay face-down upon it and began to edge herself over, inch by inch, terrified that she would fall to her doom.
The rough bark skinned her hands and knees and rubbed harshly against her now-naked flesh. But this roughness served only to excite her, stimulating her nipples and sending waves of sudden warmth flooding through her clitoris.
At last, she hauled herself off the log at the other side of the gorge, panting with exhaustion and almost sobbing with sexual frustration. Where to now? It was growing dark, and she had the odd sensation of being observed by many pairs of eyes.
At that moment, a dark shape glided out of the trees and into her field of vision. In what remained of the daylight, Mara saw that it was a huge, yellow-eyed wolf: the same pack-leader she had seen from the balcony, baying to her, urging her on. She recalled the image of the wolf transformed into human form, but the fear was slow in coming. She looked deep into the yellow-gold eyes and knew there was only one course left open to her: she must trust the wolf to guide her onward or perish in these dark and hostile woods.
The wolf led her on through the trees. The way was easier now, with a guide, and the path began to widen again, becoming a beaten track. At last they came to the place where the path crossed the main route to the house, and Mara stepped, weary and naked, on to the gravel driveway which led up to the front door of Winterbourne Hall.
She had long since lost her shoes and the gravel cut into her feet with agonising sharpness. But she stumbled on, oblivious to the pain and the danger, trusting only in the wolf as it led her on in the gathering gloom, towards the massive shape of the Hall, silhouetted like some malevolent demon against the darkening sky.
And moments later she stood before the great door of the Hall, filthy, torn and naked, raising her hand to ring the bell. When she turned round to look, the wolf had vanished. In its place, on the stone step beside her, lay the silver ring and the crystal-bladed dagger.
The door swung open and a dark, smiling figure beckoned her in.
‘Welcome to Winterbourne, my dear girl. We’ve been expecting you.’
Mara was dazed and confused. She sensed that the aromatic ointment massaged into her flesh by Madame LeCoeur had been drugged, but knew instinctively that her confusion was more than the after-effect of an aphrodisiac massage. She felt as though a gateway had been forced open in her mind, letting in all manner of darkness and opening her up to be a channel for the will of far greater powers than those she herself possessed.
In her heart of hearts, she knew that the Master had brought her here because he had plans for her. And she knew that she should try to resist, but she could not.
She looked into the face of the man Delgado and understood that he, too, was being used by the Master for some evil purpose. But it was easy to read in his face that he was the willing tool of that evil, the eager servant of the Master’s dark desires. And, seeing the shadow of that evil, the fear began to flood back into her.
The Master sensed that victory was near now, very near. At last he had succeeded in luring the girl to Winterbourne. Her spirit was broken now, and she would not resist him. She would easily be forced to lend her psychic powers to the cause of his salvation.
And he had Delgado to be the agent of his dark thoughts, to carry out his wishes until the moment of glorious liberation. Yes, Delgado had proved to be an admirable tool of evil: though it was undoubtedly a pity that his twisted body made him such an unworthy physical host for the Master’s soul. For the perfect evil soul must be contained and nurtured within the perfect body. But, for these brief periods when he had the power to enter Delgado’s body, the vessel would serve well enough.
Soon, very soon now, his own body would be free to serve him once again, as it had done for so many millenia.
He drank in the sexual energies emanating from England’s finest whorehouse, and summoned all his powers to liberate his soul from its crystal prison for another brief spell. Tonight, through the agency of Delgado and the white witch, he would taste sweet flesh once again.
Mara had been bathed and perfumed, and robed in a long white shift with a silken cord at the waist. The crystal dagger hung from her waist in a pure white velvet scabbard and the ring sparkled on her finger. Strange how, when she had first discovered it, it had sat loosely on her slender finger; and yet now it fitted her perfectly – as though, like a living creature, it had adapted itself to its host.
Delgado was dressed in a similar robe, diaphanous as hers was; and Mara saw and was excited by the thick penis beneath, already hardening at the sight of Mara’s exquisite body. Mara swayed with the intoxication of the moment: the drugs had dispelled the fear, arousing her to the point where she would have begged any man, woman or beast to fuck her till she screamed for mercy. Her pupils were widely dilated, betraying the trance-like state into which she was gradually slipping.
‘Come,’ ordered Delgado. ‘It is time.’ And he took Mara by the hand and led her out of the robing-room into a long wood-panelled corridor, lined with candles and torches hung in brackets on the walls. Mara blinked as the sudden light stung her eyes, and momentarily pulled back. But he forced her on, dragging her down the corridor, and she obeyed with uncharacteristic docility, following him as a trusting animal follows the farmer to its slaughter.
The corridor turned to the left, and then led down a steep flight of dark stairs. At the bottom was a door, which Delgado unlocked, and they passed through. It swung shut behind them with a dull thud. Inside the room was in darkness, save for the lantern which Delgado carried with him, and Mara shivered slightly with the sudden damp chill of the air, blinking in the gloom.
Delgado crossed the room and deftly pressed one of the panels. It immediately slid open and a current of ice-cold air rushed out.
‘Inside,’ commanded Delgado, and pushed Mara roughly before him. Once inside, he lit several oil lamps and Mara was able to see what manner of dungeon he had brought her to.
It was a dingy room with a musty smell. There were no windows and the walls were dripping with damp. But it was the most perfect example of a magician’s workshop that Mara had ever seen. It was crammed with ancient leather-bound grimoires, fetishes, alchemical equipment, all manner of magical paraphernalia and vestments, jars containing magical ingredients . . . All lay in utter confusion: whoever the previous occupants had been, they had obviously left in some haste. The chamber had all the weird chaos of a magical jumble sale.
‘This is a strongly magical room,’ announced Delgado. ‘As you with your exceptional powers will be able to deduce, it is located over the intersection of many ley-lines and other fields of power. It is also the secret room which was used by Allied magicians during the Second World War.’
‘Why have you brought me to this place?’ whispered Mara, realising for the first time that Delgado was speaking in the velvet tones of the Master. ‘What is it that you want of me?’
‘There is an object in this room which is endowed with a special power,’ replied Delgado. ‘You are to locate it and bring it to me.’
‘But all the objects in this room are objects of power . . .’ She looked around her in bewilderment. ‘How . . .?’
‘If you are truly what I believe you to be, you will know it.’
Mara took a couple of steps forward into the room and closed her eyes to drink in the room’s atmosphere. Delgado was right. The room embodied great power: neither good nor evil, but capable of being used for either end to great effect. But the messages she was receiving from the objects in the room were confused: there were so many conflicting signals. None stood out above the rest.
‘What manner of object am I seeking? And to what purpose?’
She turned to Delgado for some signal, some word of reassurance or clue as to what she must do. But he was implacable:
‘Yo
u will know it.’
Mara laid her hands upon several of the objects: a mouldering medieval grimoire, packed with rituals and incantations of enormous strength; an African fetish doll; instruments of torture and pleasure; a heap of magical vestments, embroidered with signs of the zodiac and images of the old gods.
But nothing spoke clearly to her. Only the confused jumble of signals she would expect from such old and powerful magical objects. None seemed to embody the extra-special qualities she had been commanded to seek out.
And then she felt it. The sudden heat from the blade of the dagger, hanging in its white velvet scabbard with its point gently stroking her pubis as she walked. The heat seared through her and she cried out, seizing the dagger and pulling it swiftly from the scabbard. Cautiously, she touched the glittering crystal blade. Nothing. It was as cool as a crystal should be. And she understood that the sudden surge of heat must be a sign.
She must use the dagger to help her find what she was looking for.
Holding the dagger before her, clasped in both hands and with point facing away from her body, she began to walk round the room, using the dagger as a divining-rod, feeling the vibrations which entered it at its point and flowed through it into the silver hilt.
At last: a force so strong she almost dropped the dagger. It trembled and shook in her hands and forced its point downwards towards the top of a rickety old table. But what exactly was it pointing at? Where was the signal coming from? She could see nothing but a small square of black cloth, covering . . . what?
She removed the cloth and saw that, underneath, there was an unremarkable wooden box carved with what looked like Egyptian hieroglyphics. She knew immediately that what she was looking for would be found inside that box. It radiated power: power that made the crystal blade of the dagger tremble so violently that it fell from her hands and on to the table beside the box. She too was shaking; for, even in the heavy, trance-like stupor which oppressed her and deadened her will and her sensitivity, she could tell that the force which emanated from the box was evil, dark, uncompromising.
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