There were years of work in the cave, years of mockery and sustained evil intent. This was a different sort of evil than the one I had spent my professional career fighting. This was evil fighting back, evil for the sake of it. In some respects it was also evil triumphant, at home, celebrated. I hated the place. It reminded me of the book Juliet had left for me to read, The Devil and All His Works by Dennis Wheatley. This was the same dark imagery that had filled that dreadful book.
They were ahead of us but we could hear them again. The tunnel led us on just fifty metres into a smaller cave that had been used as a changing room. There were piles of clothing everywhere.
Derek Smith was waiting for me. He was obviously going the other way until he found me.
“There's a body further on, a middle aged man, been dead for some time at a guess. Leon says to hurry we are getting close, but he's guessing.”
We hurried on and found them all in another small broadening of the tunnel. It wasn't a cave as such just a widening of the way. In front of them a grilled gate had been locked. It was a sturdy piece of metal work and it wasn't going to be easy to open. Behind it on the floor the body of a partly clothed man lay, they were right he had been dead before tonight.
Leon and David Cooper were trying to lift the gate off the hinges that affixed it to the wall. Jerking it physically up and down and trying to force it off the fittings. Derek joined them and the extra muscle power did the trick. It fell forward and jammed in the tunnel behind it. Leon didn't wait for it to be removed; he ducked under it and took to his heels with Derek and David in hot pursuit. Ann Taylor gave chase behind them.
Juliet and I were half way along the tunnel when all the lights went off. Cursing I put my torch back on and ran forwards hearing shouts ahead. They were gathered in yet another cave but this one was very different.
Our torches were illuminating a cave to rival the very best of Kents Cavern’s wonders. The stalactites and stalagmites were reflecting the light of their torches from every direction they were shone in. The ceiling was a hundred and more feet over head and the cave was several hundred yards in depth. Finding the exit from it was going to take time and we didn't have much time left. My watch said it was eleven o-clock.
We joined the search moving around the periphery and peering into the many forms of the stalactites and stalagmites. In some places the calcite had formed sheets on the inclines of the cave floor. I realised that this was an ancient place; it takes a long time for structures like this to form, millions of years.
Leon found what we were seeking and went dashing off before I could place the direction of his shout. Luckily Derek was there and waited for us. Ann and David had gone after Leon as usual.
The tunnel we had entered sloped steeply upwards and led us to a place where the calcite had been chipped away with a stone chisel to form steps. They went up and disappeared into another tunnel but climbing them was precarious, they were running with the water that dripped constantly from the roof overhead. Just ten metres further and another opening, not a cave but a place widened with tools to allow two statues to be erected in it. They were both Monks carrying fivefold Crosses and holding out one extended arm with the hand raised, palm outward. It was a clear message. STOP.
Leon hadn't stopped and nor had Ann or David, they were nowhere to be seen. We hurried after them.
We found them in another broader section stood shoulder to shoulder looking up at a cave entrance ten feet above the ground. Whoever had gone before us must have had a ladder to climb up and drawn it up behind them.
David and Derek soon boosted Leon up, standing on their shoulders he was quickly on to the ledge and then his feet. He looked down at me and I waved him on. We didn't need his help but Cherie Leclerc did!
David, Derek and I helped the ladies up and then it was my turn. As soon as I got up I looked for the ladder but there was nothing there, they had carried it away with them to make sure.
A whole gaggle of uniformed men arrived led by Graeme Dee, he and Derek and then David were soon pelting after me as I ran along the tunnel. I wondered how far we had come; I'd lost my bearings, despite the effort I'd made to keep them. I still thought we were west of the Railway Station but how far was Impossible to judge now.
We were still climbing but it was getting colder and colder. I didn't understand that but I kept on. Then the mist started, it was light at first but it soon thickened; unnatural underground. What could possibly be causing it?
The torches were soon fighting to penetrate it and we had to slow down until we were walking quite slowly. The frustration was immense. Then I realised it wasn't just mist, it stank!
“Oh my God!” It was Juliet right by my side. I stopped and Derek and David caught us up. “It's him! Hainsley-Sihl, he is making this stuff. I can smell it.”
“Then he can't be very far away.” I said and we went forward trying to ignore the stink. It was cloying, unpleasant and getting stronger.
The fog was thickening quickly and the torches seemed useless against it as though it was fighting the light itself. The walls guided us forward and we made slow but steady progress until the nature of it changed. Derek started to cough and splutter and soon we were all gasping for air. It was making me light-headed and disoriented. The awful smell of maggots magnified a hundred times.
I heard David Cooper start to vomit and knew he wouldn't be alone for long, my stomach was heaving. I had to help Ann Taylor as she bent and retched.
There was something in this that made you want to run away from it and something instinctively told me it was Hainsley-Sihl himself, his evil will trying to impose itself upon my own. I reacted angrily and forced myself to keep moving. Juliet was clutching at my sleeve but she came on too. She was praying, the twenty third psalm.
I took her hand and we both prayed together as we went forwards.
From somewhere behind I could hear Graeme Dee shouting, telling everyone to get down because the poisonous fog was less on the floor.
The mist was gone in just a few paces as though confronting that will head on with our prayers had banished the power it had tried to exert over us.
We moved on and within a minute or two we were standing at the entrance of a large Chapel. The air in it was clear. Along the sides the familiar alcoves contained knights to our right and monks to our left. They had been desecrated, broken Five Fold Crosses were hung with inverted crucifixes and a black candle stood at the feet of each of them.
Between them two banks of wooden benches formed the congregation and centrally an aisle ran all the way to Hainsley-Sihl.
He stood behind an Altar in front of which a line of stone Crusader knights knelt, their hands upon the hilts of their swords. In front of them again another statue rested. A monk upon both knees head bowed.
Hainsley-Sihl was lit by black Altar candles. He was dressed in a robe that looked like it was made of heavy brocaded materiel. He was quite a sight!
I had never seen a more misshapen human form. Juliet had described him for us in detail but the reality was still shocking. He was taller than David so six feet four plus and heavy set about his shoulders, a physically powerful man. His head was so odd that I wondered how he had survived birth. He was some sort of genetic mistake. His snow white hair reflecting the candles gave him a strange otherworldly presence. Nothing about him was right.
Behind him a tapestry glowed in the candle light. Ill Diavolo snarling at the world from the walls of a Chapel. Another abomination.
Leon lay on the Altar unmoving. It was impossible to tell if he was dead or alive. How they had managed that I couldn't begin to think.
There were about twenty of them in the room, gathered in the front rows of the bench seating. They were all wearing costumes and masks and turned to look in our direction; a collective stare of malevolence.
I turned and looked for Graeme, David and Derek. They weren't there. Ann lay on the floor at the end of the tunnel, she was unconscious. Only Juliet and I had made it thr
ough the poisonous fog.
Cherie Leclerc was upside down. Tied by her wrists and ankles and a thick sash around her waist she hung suspended from an inverted Crucifix that stood to one side of the Altar. On the other side I saw what I knew was the Ark of the Covenant.
To see it should have been a revelation or a shock or something profound but it wasn't. It held my gaze alright but not in the way I would have expected. It felt alive, like looking at a person rather than an object. The light reflecting from it had power though; it was unlike any light I'd ever seen. Palpable, an energy source. Almost the way I imagined looking into a nuclear furnace would be like. I had the distinct feeling that looking into it was not a good idea.
Behind it the blonde woman in some sort of see through costume decorated with Tarot figures, stood looking at us.
Hainsley-Sihl beckoned us along the aisle. I would have resisted but I felt commanded. As soon as I realised I was not moving of my own volition I did resist. I tried to draw back and could not. Then I tried to stop and could not. Some strength other than my own was making me move. It was a decidedly unpleasant experience.
Beside me Juliet was keeping step. Like two robots, we made our way down the aisle, totally under his domination. I could feel him all over my skin, cold and powerful. It is hard to explain how that feels. The evil in the man was alive and present. Here in this place he had absolute control.
We were forced to our knees and only then did he move towards us. He stood above Juliet and looked down at her. “By returning to trouble me again you have forfeited your soul. He that comes forth now will cast you into the darkness forever. You are damned.”
He came and stood over me and placed his hand upon the top of my head. For a moment I felt the power in him directly. Cold as the stone knights in their alcoves. “You are welcome here, Chief Inspector, upholder of all the laws that now pass from the world. Your presence will be particularly welcome to Him. No doubt he will find some special end to you.”
He turned and went back behind the Altar and began to chant in Latin. It went on for some time before it was taken up by the Satanists behind me and they are all chanted together. It was a particularly unpleasant cadence that grated on me horribly.
I looked across at the face of Cherie Leclerc for the first time. She was a very pretty girl and her fear ripped at my heart and made me struggle to get to my feet. Our eyes met and I tried to communicate my helplessness to her. It was hopeless; the psychic chains that bound me were beyond my mental strength to break.
Beside me I heard Juliet praying. “Jacob!” I said to her. “Find Jacob!”
She turned her head to me and I saw the message strike home. She bent her head and still praying I could see her trying to recall the vision the monks had sent her in the tomb: The sculpture that Peter the Hermit had chosen to use as his message to Juliet.
Hainsley-Sihl took up a large curved dagger from the Altar and I realised I was looking at the murder weapon that I had been seeking since Boxing Day. He carried it across to the Blonde woman and gave it to her. She moved from the Ark to the Altar and raised it above Leon's prostate form.
Hainsley-Sihl turned and spoke to the tapestry arms raised above his head. He intoned some awful prayer to it and smoke began to appear from the mouths of Lucifer and Pan. The heavy fumes drifted down the tapestry and that same awful smell of maggots filled the place at once, thick, cloying, potent in a way I’d never previously experienced. The first instant of contact with the senses totally overpowering.
A shape began to form and I understood that I was about to be confronted by the evil thing that had invaded Juliet's home. It formed from the cloven hooves up, the falling fume drawn to it as though it were a magnet. The creature’s clawed hands were frightening in themselves, long tapering fingers that ended in sharpened talons, the same talons that had almost torn Harold's scalp from his head.
Even as I stared I realised that something else was forming on the front of the Altar. A small weak outline of that lopsided face at Buckfast Abbey, it strengthened rapidly, a light in the darkness.
My heart leapt as I realised that Father Jacob had somehow come amongst us. Juliet had opened the psychic door that enabled him to penetrate Hainsley-Sihl's defences.
I was conscious that he had not come alone. In some strange vision I could see that the pentacle in Buckfast Abbey in which he knelt had many monks in it and they were all bent in prayer. Jacob got to his feet and he was holding a Five Folded Cross. He held it out in front of himself and began to call out a name.
“Isabella I call to you across time”
“ISABELLA DE MONTFERRAT YOU ARE SUMMONED!”
Hainsley-Sihl turned even as the Imp finished forming and his baleful red eyes blazed forth to fill me with a new fear. Some new power had entered into him.
“You who have long served Lucifer, are gathered to witness his release from the underworld. Your promised rewards will soon be yours and you will go from this ceremony back to your given places there to see that his dominion of the physical world is complete. The ruination of all that the Powers of Light have created is to be your life's work from this night forward. Only when Darkness rules them all will your task be complete.”
He walked across and stood before the Ark of the Covenant and stretched out his arms until his hands were above it. The strange light that emanated from it rose up and flowed around his sleeves and hands.
He began to chant and the Imp walked across and stood behind the Ark. It parodied Hainsley-Sihl's posture, raising the claws until they too were bathed in the light of Ark. The light coiled around the claws and spread up the reticulated arms and across its scaled body. It began to dance some awful macabre dance on the spot that was obscene to the eyes.
My own eyes caught movement in front of me, the stone monk which knelt before the Altar was moving. It leaned forwards and the hands removed a small stone from the floor. They lifted a silver box from the cavity and opened it and I saw a small silver cross.
The monk’s stone hands removed it and held it.
Every eye in the room was on Hainsley-Sihl as he turned and placed one hand on each side of the lid of the ark and raised his body and took a seat upon it.
His arms were outstretched again and he began to chant. The Satanists in the congregation began to chant with him.
Behind the Altar the blonde woman raised the curved dagger above Leon Henry's heart.
The monk raised the small silver cross. It was upside down. Slowly he raised it above his head and turned it the right way up. He spoke some words in Latin, as he did so, clear and firm and at once the light from the Ark flared. Hainsley-Sihl was thrown from the Ark to the floor with his robe on fire.
The cross to which Cherie Leclerc was tied began to rise above the floor. It too flared as light gleamed from it to join the light from the Ark and as it turned slowly upright the light took shape around the body of the Imp. The Imp screamed in terrible agony. It jumped back away from the power of the Ark and ran in front of the blonde woman who was stood still petrified and sprang upon Cherie's body with a blood curdling shriek that made my senses spin.
From the sculptured face upon the Altar forms were emerging: Monks in white robes, resplendent in the light that seemed to flow from them. They quickly became life sized, the first stood before the statue of the kneeling monk and the others before the statues of the knights. I watched them as they merged.
The creature upon Cherie Leclerc's body recoiled and screamed again as it sprang away. White flames were flaring all around its body and it writhed in agony. It sprang again screaming in anger but this time it sprang at the blonde woman. Long deadly claws sliced deep into her flesh and its teeth found her jugular as she fell backwards. It shook her like a rag doll screaming that terrible shriek and then lifted her and ran off through a tunnel I had not noticed in the back corner of the Chapel whilst she screamed in fear and pain.
Leon had awoken and he climbed swiftly from the Altar. He bent and lifted Hainsle
y-Sihl from the floor and threw him over the Altar to land in front of Cherie.
The young woman upon the crucifix shone like the Sun and Hainsley-Sihl climbed to his feet and shrank back towards the tapestry in fear. His hands went up to protect his eyes from the light which seemed to force him physically backwards.
From behind him Lucifer reached out from the tapestry and encircled him. Pan reached out too grasping his legs just below the knee. His body was engulfed in flames as they drew him into the tapestry, a screaming soul in the extremes of agony.
The stone knights got to their feet and the monk that was knelt before them stood too.
He walked across and stood before the blazing cross on which Cherie Leclerc was hung. It lowered to the floor and he gestured. Her bonds fell away. Cherie stepped forward and he took her hands, one in each of his own and clasped them around the small silver cross.
Lucifer's Abbey Page 32