The Devil in Green

by Mark Chadbourn

  ‘It was always my belief that we are custodians of our own path to God. Now, in my new role, I see how naive I was. Some of us need help along the way. Some of us need guidance. We are all children in the eyes of God. And in that spirit, I feel it is my duty to put temptation out of harm’s way. From this day, alcohol is forbidden, as are all narcotics, natural and man- made. They corrupt the senses and lead even the most devout into the arms of Satan.’

  Stefan checked some notes on the lectern before him.

  So many rules he has to write them down. Mallory thought.

  ‘Fornication will not be countenanced,’ he continued. ‘But the wrath of all good, honest men within these walls will be reserved for those who commit sodomy.’ Mallory cast a furtive glance at Daniels; he kept his face blank. ‘For them, there will be no respite.’

  He left a long silence before continuing. ‘The temporary closure of the library will now be permanent. Only authorised books will be available, and then only to authorised tutors. I’m sure you will be happy to be relieved of this burden, whereby impure thoughts and ideas are allowed to sully your minds, often before you realise what is happening. I have investigated the contents of the library in depth, and I was horrified to discover many Satanic texts amongst the books. These are not only dangerous to the minds of novices, but are also doorways that allow Evil into the very heart of our community. Therefore, they will be taken out to the main gate and burned at the earliest opportunity, to act as a message to the Dark Forces gathered beyond our walls. We are pure; our light shall not be dimmed.’

  The list continued: music, apart from plainsong and devotional hymns, was banned, as were all forms of technology because they ‘promoted a mindset in opposition to God’. Mallory couldn’t tell if the majority of the congregation agreed with Stefan or was angered; all response was muted. But he sensed they had been so worn down by recent events that they couldn’t be bothered to feel strongly one way or the other. It was too much detail, minor compared with the struggle of staying alive. Best to let someone else take those kinds of decisions so they could concentrate on the day-to-day hardships.

  Stefan finished his long speech with a warning. ‘To ensure that these new guidelines are treated with the correct respect, any transgressions will be met with the most serious punishment. I feel that is only right. The system of punishment will, of course, be transparent and will be overseen, once again, by the Inquisition of Heretical Depravity. Through discipline we will grow closer to God. That is the way it has always been, though we forgot it for a while, and that is the way it shall be from now on.’

  Mallory wanted to laugh out loud, but as he looked around for others who had got the joke, he saw only deathly seriousness. And in some, worryingly, he saw faint smiles of appreciation.

  There was one hopeful moment. Just as he left, Mallory looked back to see Julian, James and some of the others gathering at the rear of the nave. Their mood was easy to divine. They were as appalled by Stefan’s repressive dictum as he himself was, and they weren’t about to let it stand.

  Miller caught up with him as he made his way back to the dormitory, head bowed against the wind that brought increasing flurries of snow. It was already starting to settle on the grass and cobbled path, adding a ghostly counterpoint to the brooding darkness of the cathedral buildings.

  ‘What did you make of that?’ Miller asked breathlessly.

  ‘What did I make of it? I think he missed a trick by not having a torchlight rally and a marching knight honour guard.’

  Miller looked at him askance, then, as usual, gave up trying to comprehend his friend. ‘He seems to have a strong idea of how to move us forwards.’

  ‘When you say us, Miller, I have this worrying feeling that you mean me as well.’

  ‘What is it with you, Mallory?’ Miller said, with annoyance. ‘Why do you have to act as if you’re not with us?’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Then why are you here? What’s your motivation?’ He sounded at the end of his tether; events must have been getting him down more than Mallory had guessed.

  ‘The only thing that’s driving me now is to get out of this place and put as many miles between it and me as possible.’

  ‘That’s all you care about?’

  ‘Yep. Self-preservation. Don’t knock it - it’s been driving evolution since … well, since for ever.’

  Miller shook his head in disbelief. ‘Nobody can stand alone, Mallory. You need us.’

  ‘And then you woke up.’

  Daniels came running up, skidding on the snow-slick cobbles. He had a hunted expression.

  ‘You OK?’ Mallory asked.

  ‘Looks as though I’ve turned celibate.’

  ‘Could be worse,’ Mallory said. ‘He could have made you shag Hipgrave.’

  Daniels forced a smile, but it barely hid the anxiety eating away at him. ‘Where do we go from here?’ he said, shaking his head.

  Mallory was woken roughly from a deep sleep. He’d resisted the promptings of the others to go to the lauds of the dead, despite Stefan’s warnings about what would befall those who missed their daily quota of prayer; he had felt more tired than he had done in weeks. He’d been having a very lucid dream about Sophie who appeared extremely upset about something, although he couldn’t quite remember what it was. All he could recall were her tears and her distressed voice repeating, ‘You just don’t know what you’ve done!’

  For the first few seconds, Mallory was disoriented, but then he gradually realised Miller was next to him in a state of near panic. ‘What’s up?’ he mumbled.

  ‘Come on! You’re needed!’ Miller’s face looked white in the gloom. ‘He’s dead!’

  Mallory dragged on his clothes and boots in a daze while Miller jumped from foot to foot near the door. Eventually, he pulled himself together enough to ask what was wrong. Miller was rushing ahead of him so quickly that they were outside before he got an answer.

  ‘Julian’s dead,’ Miller said tearfully. ‘Murdered … just like Cornelius.’

  The announcement came as a real shock to Mallory. Cornelius had always been a distant figure to him, but Julian was someone he could almost understand. ‘When?’

  ‘Just after the night office. They found him in the Trinity Chapel. Lord … there was blood everywhere.’

  Miller wouldn’t, or couldn’t, tell him any more. They sprinted into the cathedral to find Daniels and Gardener standing at the entrance to the chapel. Just inside, Mallory could see Stefan and Blaine in deep conversation with Hipgrave. He began to speak, but Daniels waved him silent. The mood was grave.

  Mallory waited silently with the others, casting glances into the chapel. He couldn’t see the body from his vantage point, but there were blood splatters across the floor and up the walls. Eventually, Stefan led the others out. He immediately fixed his attention on Mallory.

  ‘You weren’t at the lauds of the dead,’ he said.

  ‘He was sick,’ Miller interjected. ‘He needed to rest.’

  Stefan accepted this without comment. ‘No time must be lost,’ he said, turning to Blaine. ‘This cancer must not be allowed to spread.’

  He stalked away, head bowed, hands behind his back, a picture of grief; on the surface, Mallory thought. It was a coincidence too far for Julian to be murdered just as he was clearly preparing to offer some form of opposition to Stefan and the changes he was planning. Perhaps even Cornelius’s murder wasn’t as they had been led to believe.

  Blaine broke off a whispered conversation with Hipgrave and departed hastily. Hipgrave came over, his eyes gleaming in the candlelight. ‘We’re going after the bastard who did this,’ he said, with the eagerness of a young boy. ‘There’s a trail of blood leading into the new buildings. We’re the only ones who can do this. I convinced Blaine to give us the chance.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Mallory said sarcastically. ‘It could be a trap, you know. A trail of blood … doesn’t sound very realistic.’ He recalled die manner in which they had b
een led across Salisbury Plain to Bratton Camp by the illusory cleric.

  ‘Do we have to go at night?’ Miller said weakly. ‘Into that place?’

  Hipgrave was too excited to hear any dissent. He spun on his heels and marched towards the cloisters, one hand already on his sword, the other holding a lamp he had brought with him.

  ‘It’s a trap,’ Mallory said resignedly.

  ‘Then it looks as if we’re off to die.’ Gardener marched off behind the captain.

  The blood was already turning dark as they followed the unmistakable signs down into the tunnels beneath the new buildings. The atmosphere was even more oppressive than on Mallory’s previous incursions; it felt as though people were walking just a few paces behind them, fading into the gloom whenever they turned to look. Sometimes noises would come and go, footsteps tracking them or voices entreating them to deviate from their route, or so it seemed, but the distorting echoes continually took the truth away from them. They kept close together, Hipgrave at the front, Mallory watching their backs, all aware the threat was growing.

  The splashes of blood showed up clearly on the worn stone flags in the lamplight. Hipgrave knelt down to examine them at regular intervals. ‘This is going to lead us right to him,’ he remarked. ‘Good as if he’d fastened a rope to himself.’

  ‘What do you think we’ll find when we catch up with him?’ Miller’s voice was small and frightened.

  ‘You saw the state of the bodies,’ Gardener said gruffly.

  ‘The more important question,’ Mallory said, ‘is why did he kill Julian? Cornelius, OK - he was the figurehead. Whatever his motivation, you could make a good case for Cornelius being a target. But Julian - he wasn’t a power any more.’

  ‘Just random,’ Daniels said. ‘They were both in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

  ‘Too much of a coincidence,’ Mallory replied. ‘Two of the Church’s leading figures killed by chance? I don’t believe it.’

  ‘You can’t expect to understand the Devil’s thinking,’ Hipgrave’s voice floated back.

  They came to a branch in the tunnel. Two flights of steps wound down in different directions. Hipgrave hovered uneasily, moving from one entrance to the other. ‘I can’t see any blood here,’ he said eventually. ‘We should split up into two groups.’

  Mallory pushed his way forwards. ‘No, that’s what it wants.’

  ‘ “It?”’ Hipgrave repeated, puzzled.

  Mallory shifted uneasily. ‘The building. Or whatever’s behind it.’

  Daniels reached out uneasily to touch the stone walls. ‘You’ve lost it, Mallory,’ he said, but he sounded very unsure.

  ‘You’re saying something’s organising the layout of the place?’ Gardener said.

  ‘I don’t know what I’m saying.’ He tried to find the right words. The darkness down the stairs appeared to be sucking at them, as if it was alive. ‘I’ve seen some strange things … What something looks like might not be what it is.’

  Gardener was intrigued. ‘So what you’re saying is, this bloody big heap of stone might not be a building at all. That’s just the way we see it—’

  ‘That’s the only way we can see it,’ Mallory said. ‘Our brains aren’t developed enough to see its true form, so they just do the best they can.’

  ‘So it could be alive,’ Gardener continued.

  ‘It could be alive. It could be anything. I think down here we shouldn’t jump to conclusions just because our eyes and ears are telling us that’s the way something appears.’

  ‘You see,’ Daniels said, ‘when they did that campaign, Just Say No to drugs, they should have wheeled you out instead. Problem solved.’

  ‘This isn’t getting us anywhere,’ Hipgrave snapped. ‘Which way do we go? Right or left?’

  A cold blast of wind soared up from the depths, carrying with it what sounded like the growl of a wild animal.

  ‘What was that?’ Miller said tremulously.

  Nobody answered. After a while, Gardener said, ‘We take the right- hand path.’

  ‘It’s as good as any, I suppose,’ Mallory said.

  Hipgrave’s earlier confidence had faded with his inability to choose the correct path. His eyes continually darted around and he had taken to rubbing his palms together anxiously. The others turned to Mallory.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said.

  The right-hand stairway spiralled downwards steeply. They had to go slowly, for Hipgrave’s lamp kept disappearing around a turn, plunging the rest of them into darkness. Water dripped incessantly from the stone above them, and the air was dank and cold.

  When they reached the bottom, Mallory drew his sword. The others followed suit as they moved along a short passage to a doorway. Beyond it, the room glowed white in the lamplight.

  ‘What’s that?’ Miller’s voice was filled with dread.

  Gardener peered past him. ‘Old bones.’

  It was the ossuary. Mallory felt they would have ended up there whichever path they had taken. Hipgrave hovered on the threshold, seemingly afraid of entering.

  ‘There used to be a graveyard around the cathedral,’ Gardener said. ‘They flattened it when they landscaped the grounds.’

  ‘I don’t want to go in there,’ Miller said.

  ‘Well, you can always go back. On your own.’ Mallory pushed past Hipgrave and entered. As the lamp rocked it sent shadows of skulls and protruding bones dancing across the walls.

  The remains were heaped against opposite walls, leaving a path between them. Hipgrave had grown sullen-faced and quiet, so Mallory took the lamp from him and led the way. A clatter came from the rear: Gardener had kicked away a thigh bone. ‘I keep bloody catching myself on them,’ he said.

  Mallory progressed slowly; occasionally an icy breeze would bring grunts or moans from the tunnel ahead. Off to his right, he glimpsed something glittering green amongst the bones before losing sight of it again. Behind him, Gardener cursed; another clatter.

  ‘Go slow,’ Daniels cautioned unnecessarily.

  The lamp swung; the green glittered again. ‘What is that?’ Mallory said.

  ‘What?’ Miller said anxiously. ‘What? I can’t see anything!’

  ‘Calm down,’ Daniels snapped; nerves were fraying.

  Gardener had dropped back further, swearing profusely under his breath. The green was so incongruous amid the yellowing bones that Mallory was intrigued. He drew to a halt and began to search amongst the pile to see what it was.

  ‘Don’t waste time with that,’ Daniels said.

  Hipgrave had started to make a strange noise in his throat that sounded like the mewling of a kitten. ‘For God’s sake shut him up,’ Mallory whispered with irritation.

  The green light glowed again as the illumination from the lamp struck it. Mallory leaned forwards over the bones to get a better look, careful not to touch the precarious pile for fear of bringing it crashing down.

  A pair of green eyes stared back.

  Recoiling in shock, Mallory brought his sword up sharply, but the bones were already erupting in front of him as the concealed figure thrust its way out. He smelled loam, saw the black of a clerical outfit and then the grasping hands clawing towards his face blocked most of his vision. The lamp went flying, crashing on to its side, still alight.

  Across the piles on both sides, more figures emerged, grotesque spectres throwing larger shadows that swooped and struck like crows. Bones showered all around. Mallory recognised the ghostly things they had glimpsed in the wine cellar, now given unpleasant substance.

  Gardener’s muttered curses turned to an exclamation of horror as bony fingers grasped his ankles tightly. Some of the other bones - the ones that still had some skeletal shape - were moving with a life of their own. They dragged themselves out on splintered metatarsals, sending shanks and ribs cascading, jaws sagging, skulls lolling.

  Mallory tried to throw the thing off him, but its strength far exceeded its frame as it tried to force stinking rough-paper fingers into his m
outh. Somewhere Miller was squealing like a baby. Sparks showered through the dark as Gardener’s sword crashed against the flagstones in an attempt to chop up the bony limbs gripping his feet. Whether by luck or skill, only Hipgrave had escaped. Lithely, he vaulted one of the attacking figures, then dropped low and scurried out of the far door. As he passed, Mallory glimpsed a face transformed by the flickering light into something almost bestial, eyes glinting with a primal determination.

  Only Mallory’s sword had any effect on the revenants. They shied from the blade’s sapphire glow until they could find another path of attack, but they didn’t relent. Mallory was forced to move back and forth, defending both himself and Daniels. Beyond, Miller was already down with three of the things forcing their fingers into his mouth; it looked as if they were trying to tear off his jaw. Rigid with fear, his eyes were wide and tear-streaked.

  Mallory attempted to get to him, but before he could make contact with any of the attackers something crashed into his waist, knocking him to the ground. The breath was smashed from his lungs, purple flashes bursting behind his eyes as the weight of one or more of the things crushed him down.

  When his vision cleared, Miller’s mouth was ripped open as wide as it would go; Mallory heard the cracking of his jaw. A cowled, skull-like head hung barely an inch from Miller’s lips as if it were ready to kiss him. And then it did press forwards, not kissing, but forcing itself into his mouth.