Magic Lantern

by Des Sheridan

  Desperate to escape from the nightmare unfolding about them, Robert encouraged Tara to walk on obliviously, as though nothing untoward was happening. A few yards further on a riverside path forked off to the right. Taking it, they were soon following the main canal path along the river. Looking back, Robert saw cars pulling up near the body and pedestrians with umbrellas forming a circle about it and the car. He and Tara just kept walking rapidly, speechless in disbelief at what had just happened. Every few steps Robert reassured Tara that they were a little bit safer although the look he saw on her face suggested that she doubted it. If that indeed was what she was thinking she was dead right. Truth was, they were on the run, and on foot. And soon they could expect their enemies, and probably the police, to be hot in pursuit after them. This was not good, and getting worse by the minute, he thought.

  Chapter 11

  Arz, France, 22 October 2014, 11:48

  They kept walking along the river bank, at a brisk pace but not so fast as to attract attention. A man, sitting on the bank with a fishing rod in his hands, paid them no attention. Two hundred yards on a woman with a push chair passed them heading for Arz. They exchanged cursory greetings with her but didn’t stop.

  For what seemed an eternity Robert was aware that the line of sight back to Arz was still open, but eventually the river swung to the left and, looking over his shoulder, he saw with relief that they had finally moved out of view of the castle. They picked up their stride, walking faster. After about twenty minutes the sound of an engine made them take cover in a swathe of coppiced willow that fringed the track. Peering through the long leafy stems they saw the boat pass. It was a small river cruiser with three gendarmes on it - two men and one woman. They waited until it disappeared from view before re-joining the path.

  Robert tried again to reach Nico but it was hopeless as there was no mobile signal. He mulled over their options. If they continued ahead presumably they would bump into the cops again. So they might be better off moving in-country away from the river. The downside was that they would be more noticeable walking on country roads on foot than on a recreational path. His musings were interrupted by Tara tugging his jacket.

  ‘Look, Robert, they are turning. They are coming back!’

  Sure enough the boat, which had stopped under a bridge in the distance, was heading back towards them. Again they hid until the craft passed them heading back towards Arz.

  Reassured, they resumed their journey. The bridge when they reached it was very pretty, festooned with baskets of flowering plants. And they saw why the boat had turned around: under the bridge was a lock. There wasn’t a soul about. Robert looked across the bridge. A path cut its way upslope on the other side but he decided against taking it. They were still too close to the town. Pressing on for another twenty minutes, they came to a second bridge that led to a small island in the channel. On it was a substantial stone-built farmhouse, overgrown and abandoned and surrounded by trees and an orchard.

  ‘Should we hide there?’ Tara asked.

  ‘We could do but it is a bit obvious a place to look. I really want us to get well beyond Arz. We need to break the link between us and the town. And if we could reach a village there might be a mobile signal. Best keep going for now.’

  So they did. They saw no one on the path and the early afternoon sun was unseasonably warm as they walked. It was a beautiful rural scene and the first interlude of peace and normality they had experienced for three days. Their clothes had dried out from the soaking in the downpour at Arz, which was a boon. Robert was relieved to see that Tara’s anxiety level had visibly dropped. After about another hour they came to a modern, raised pontoon bridge over the river which, by this point, was meandering and had lost its canalised feel. The bridge carried a small road, one lane wide, and Robert decided they should take it. It was the first proper thoroughfare they had seen for some time and he reasoned that it must lead to habitation. A dirt track led up from the path to the bridge and as they clambered up, Tara slipped on the mud which was wet from the morning showers. She slid downwards, almost knocking Robert off his feet, and landed awkwardly at the foot of the slope. Robert jumped back down beside her. She was winded, so he said ‘Don’t move, get your breath back first.’

  ‘Robert, my right ankle, I don’t like the feel of it. It bloody hurts – same place I hurt it in the boat.’

  He pulled off her shoe and tested her foot in several places. Each time she confirmed it felt all right.

  ‘OK, I don’t think anything is broken, but you may have sprained it. Let’s rest a while and give it a chance to recover.’

  It was only through pausing that Robert realised they were not alone. Across the river, where the path was fringed by a bank of trees, he caught sight of a faint figure moving amongst the dappled vegetation. Adrenalin shot through him, conditioning him for fight or flight. Then he relaxed. It was an old woman in simple farm working clothes, carrying a coil of chicken wire. Together with a teenage boy – her grandson, Robert guessed – she was trying to affix the chicken wire to a gap in the fencing. In the field below the slope a group of cows stood and watched them at their work. The woman couldn’t be a day under seventy, Robert thought, but here she was still working on the farm. He suspected that the duo must have observed them but they gave no indication, carrying on silently with their task.

  ‘Stay still,’ he whispered to Tara. ‘Just act normally.’

  After a while Tara said she was ready to try and stand and with his help she got onto her feet. She could walk, but with a pronounced limp.

  ‘Wait here, you need a stick,’ he said and disappeared upslope into the trees. A few minutes later he returned with a stout branch about four feet long, which he had stripped of its shoots. She found the crutch a help and somehow they managed to get up the bank, onto the bridge and across the river. It was slow going however as Tara limped along.

  Great, thought Robert, we really don’t need this. But the soldier in him knew better than to curse their luck. They had to play the cards they were dealt but he knew they were running out of options. The police would have their names by now, from the appointments diary at the Château, and would be looking for them. He wondered if the Secretary was alive or dead - the latter most likely.

  As they moved slowly along the road away from the river, they passed the spot where they had seen the old lady and the teenage boy working, but were too preoccupied with Tara’s bad ankle to pay the locals any attention. Had they looked down the steep bank they would have seen the old woman below, standing quite motionless. Her old eyes intently watched them through a gap in the bushes.

  Part II: The Medium

  Chapter 12

  Nantes, France, 22 October 2014

  Pascal was trying to relax in his suite at the Château de la Cornevière, but with mixed results. The exclusive country hotel was located not far from Nantes and he had arrived there directly after dispatching the Duc and seizing the Triskell piece. As his car pulled up the approach road, Pascal was surprised to see a prettified, domesticated version of the Château d’Arz, complete with striking, vertically-elongated, dormer windows. The coincidence struck him as ironic. Freya had discovered the hotel when looking for a base for a trip to Machecoul, in order to visit Gilles de Rais’ castle, and had recommended it to him. So when it came to choosing a suitable location near La Roche-aux-Fées, the Château fitted the bill perfectly. Thinking of Freya reminded him that he needed to finalise plans for Samhain. He had been too pre-occupied by recent developments to progress the plans in the detail that was needed. He would contact her tonight and ask her to join him at the hotel. She had promised to show him Machecoul, which was located south-west of Nantes. This would be her opportunity.

  Alone with his thoughts Pascal reviewed the events of recent days. With two of the four parts of the Triskell in his possession he knew the odds were tipping his way. The cost, however, had been high. Underneath his calm exterior, a cold anger seethed at the extreme measures he
had been obliged to take to achieve his aims. He had not expected his quarry at Mont Saint-Michel to have well-organised and well-equipped backup, and thanks to that fucking Englishman and the Irish bitch he had lost two excellent operatives. He had badly underestimated Grainger and it was not a mistake he planned to repeat.

  Today things had also started badly, shortly before they arrived at Arz, with the news on the radio that the authorities had already found the body of the Abbé. There was nothing to link Pascal to the event as yet, but if the police made the connection he knew – thanks to Jean’s repeated outbursts of anxiety - that forensics would do the rest. Pascal was conscious that recently he was exposing himself to a degree of risk that was too immediate even for his taste. Contrary to his reputation amongst his men, he normally took only well-calculated risks, when he was sure he could act from a position of strength and do so with impunity. But recently he had felt impelled to be more reckless.

  Fortunately the situation at Arz had improved as circumstances unfolded. The Duc had made the mistake of talking down to him. The Frenchman had angrily berated him and then tried to pick up the phone to call the police. Pascal had lunged forward and stopped him, fury erupting uncontrollably in his head. He sensed the arrival of the Other One at the same moment, feeling him press into his frame, not dominantly but actively present none the less. It seemed to Pascal that becoming angry was now a means of summoning the creature. He had bellowed at the Duc,

  ‘You piece of shit, do you think you can stop me? Erik – open that window!’

  Pascal knew his voice had swollen to a bellow and what effect that would have on his men. It was a signal in itself. Erik hastily pulled back the two tall windows and a breeze wafted into the room causing the heavy, swagged curtains to sway.

  ‘Take the Triskell, Jean! Now! And as for you, Monsieur le Duc, your ancestors were probably men like me or were killed by men like me.’

  Pascal had the unfortunate man by the scruff of his neck, holding him suspended at the end of one of his powerful arms. A surge of loathing towards the man consumed him.

  ‘Go fucking join them!’

  With that Pascal swung the aristocrat round, one of his hands clutching the man’s hair, the other the seat of his pants, and hurled him directly out of the window. A terrified scream filled the airspace for a second and then, like the man from whom it emitted, it was gone. Wheeling around, Pascal saw Jean was watching in horror, frozen to the spot. He would show his timid colleague how to be decisive, he thought, and, pulling a revolver and a silencer from his pocket, screwed them together. He shot the Secretary through the head from a distance of two feet. Pascal knew that a bullet in the head caused damage not simply by crushing its way through the skull but by generating centrifugal waves of destruction that radiated outward from the trajectory. The area of damage was vast compared to the size of the bullet. The man hadn’t a hope in hell of survival.

  The third man, the chauffeur they had forced to escort them into the premises, bolted for the door but Erik grabbed him round the neck and Pascal finished him off with another shot. Brain and blood spattered onto Erik’s jacket as the bullet exited. ‘Merdre,’ Erik cursed and grabbed an antimacassar from a nearby chair to wipe off the gore. Jean had hardly moved, transfixed by the orgy of bloodletting that had erupted.

  Eighteen minutes after entering the Chateau the trio walked out the way they had arrived, Pascal calmly leading the way. Erik followed closely and, a few yards behind, Jean clattered along awkwardly, carrying over one shoulder a large designer shopping bag, made from stiffened board. As they quit the grounds they saw a couple of staff leave the ticket office hurriedly and run down a lane to the left, where some commotion seemed to be unfolding. Pascal and company kept to the right for a few yards, before turning left to join the narrow one-way street through the town. Two hundred yards down the road they crossed to a small parking area where their Ford Discovery was parked near a pharmacy. Less than ten minutes after leaving the Library, Erik fired the engine and shot uphill and out of Arz.

  Pascal smiled at the memory of their effrontery. A while back Freya had told him that Gilles de Rais had attempted to marry into the Malmanche family but had been rebuffed. It was remarkable, Pascal thought, how events and places and people became juxtaposed over time, intersecting with one another as fate played its hand. The thought inspired him, reinforcing his sense of destiny.

  And yet he couldn’t shake off a nagging doubt that paced the backroom of his mind. His memory kept returning to what happened ten days ago in the Fitzalan Chapel on his visit to Arundel in pursuit of the English part of the Triskell. As he had fled the chapel with the Triskell piece under his arm, he had glanced momentarily at the large crucifix hanging on the wall. The tortured Christ, blood streaming his face down from the crown of thorns, had hung his head. Then for a second, the eyes had seemed to open – dark brown eyes, pools of unfathomable depth. They locked directly on Pascal who could not help but hold the gaze. To his consternation he saw that the eyes were filled not with anger – which he could have comprehended - but rather a look of pity so concerned, so intense, that it completely unmanned the Belgian. No fool, Pascal had not paused a second longer but continued his escape, telling himself it was a figment of his imagination, an illusion contrived by his overwrought mind. Even now reason told him it must have been such. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that something – some entity - had identified him that night and he couldn’t be sure he had shaken it off. What if the Christ Entity had real power and was just waiting to come again and confront him?

  Chapter 13

  Buedon, France, 22 October 2014

  Robert and Tara found sanctuary at the far end of a small hamlet which stretched out over half a mile and comprised about ten residences, variously on the roadside or set back from it. A few had their shutters closed - holiday homes most likely. There was no hotel or auberge and Tara was at a loss what to do next, as her ankle was becoming more painful. She couldn’t keep this up for long, she knew. Soon she would have to tell Robert. Then by chance, glancing into the parking area of the last house on the left at the end of the village, she noticed two things. Firstly, a UK licence plate on a Range Rover and then, tucked at an angle in the window by the door, a sign that read Camping – English spoken. It was like manna from heaven.

  ‘Look, there! Shall we go for it?’ asked Tara.

  He didn’t hesitate.

  ‘Too right we will, and don’t forget, as rehearsed, you are Julia and I am Tom. OK? Beyond that, stay as close to the truth as possible but keep off specifics. Be talkative but stick to generalities. Talk about home, TV, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Jesus, I didn’t know you had been in MI6 as well.’

  As Tara spoke she surveyed the place. The house was a converted longère, or longhouse, with living quarters adjacent to a barn. It was built of attractive honey-coloured stone and had dormer windows at first floor level.

  Robert whispered theatrically as he pushed the doorbell.

  ‘OK, I watch a lot of crap TV. I’ve seen all eight seasons of Dexter. I know about subterfuge, believe me.’

  The man who opened the door of the house was tall and slim, coming in at several inches clear of six feet, and he greeted them with a friendly smile. Tara guessed he must be in his early sixties and reckoned he had the demeanour of an ex-army man.

  ‘Bonjour,’ the man said simply.

  They introduced themselves as Julia and Tom. Robert relayed the story that they were on holiday with another couple and were taking daily turns to walk and drive. It was their turn to walk today but Julia had sprained her ankle and needed to rest. They were hoping there were tents for hire.

  ‘No problem at all. You have come to the right place. We have five fully kitted-out yurts. You’ll find them really comfortable. My name is Pip, by the way. But don’t stand there – come on in! First things first though.’ He looked at Tara with concern. ‘Better get the weight off that foot straight away.’


  As he ushered them in, Tara clocked the accent as from south-east England, probably near London at a guess. They were standing in a large stone-tiled kitchen that ran the width of the house, and through a door at the end she could see a back garden. But Pip steered them immediately to their right into a large sitting room with comfortable chairs.

  ‘Julia, sit there and I will pull over a stool’.

  Tara sat down gladly and Pip dragged a stool from a far corner of the room. Robert knelt down, untied the laces of her trainers and within a minute her injured foot was elevated, resting on a cushion on the stool.

  Pip disappeared and called out, ‘Janet, we have company.’

  A few minutes later a woman bustled in. She was of medium height with fairish hair, and carried a wicker basket over her arm. It was full of freshly-dug vegetables.

  ‘Oh hello! Look at me! I am a right state. Seem to spend all my time gardening these days. Don’t know why I bother. Gives me awful back-ache!’ The woman laughed infectiously. Her accent was northern, that much Tara could discern. ‘I am Janet, nice to meet you.’

  She held her hand out in turn to them and Tara repeated the introductions, as Janet lowered the basket to the floor, soil trickling from the vegetables onto the tiles.

  ‘Now then, Julia, what have you done to yourself? Pip, can you get a bowl of lukewarm water, a facecloth and a towel? Oh and upstairs in the bathroom cupboard. There should be some of that anti-inflammatory cream. You know, it’s called trans something or other. It’s really good for swellings. Oh my goodness, you have been in the wars. Let’s get you sorted. While we wait I’ll put the kettle on. Or would you prefer lemonade? I’ve some cracking homemade lemonade that I bought from the market at Arz. Tea? OK, coming up. Have you walked far like that? You were lucky to find us. Not that many Brits around here. Although we are all over Brittany!’