by Sepulchre
This time the roar was not thunder.
It jolted Halloran into awareness. A confusion of senses muddling his brain, a bedlam of emotions causing him to cry out. Now the worst of his pain was from his hip where the bullet that had passed through the Arab had scraped his own flesh. Blood there was soaking his torn jacket. And the soreness around his throat was a relief rather than a discomfort, for it was, like the throbbing pain in his side, an indication of true reality.
Halloran opened his eyes and looked up. The monsters had fled. The shadows were but shadows.
Kline was lying on the floor and there was no movement from him.
Halloran pushed himself to his feet and stood for a while, his body bent forward, hands resting against his legs, waiting far his strength to return. He searched for Cora.
He found her crouched over the dead gunman, her robe in tatters around her waist, marks and bloodstains on her pale skin. In her shaking hand was the revolver, smoke still curling from its barrel. She was staring at Kline, eyes wide, her expression lifeless.
,Cora . . .' Halloran said as he staggered towards her. He knelt on one knee and took the gun from her, laying it to one side. 'I think you used his last bullet,' he told her as he gently pulled the remnants of her robe around her shoulders. She turned her face to him and apprehension filtered through the numbness.
She murmured something he didn't quite catch, but it dud not matter. He raised her to him and held her close, kissing her matted hair, his arms tight around her.
'It's done, Cora,' he assured her quietly. 'Finished. I'll get you away from this place, as far away as possible.' She sank into him and the wetness from her eyes dampened his collar. He ran a hand beneath her hair and his fingers caressed the back of her neck.
He felt her stiffen.
He heard the slithering.
Halloran turned.
Felix Kline was sliding on his belly through puddles on the floor, leaving a trail of decayed skin and blood in his wake, the raw flesh of his skinless face and hands puckered and cracked, a glistening redness oozing from lesions. Facial muscles were clearly defined in grouped ridges, and tendons stood proud on his hands, with veins stretched as bluish rivulets. His breathing came as a strained animal-like coughing as he pushed himself towards the blackened lump which rested in filthy water at the centre of the room.
He was almost there, one hand extended, quivering as it reached for the relic that once was a heart within a body, his breath becoming harsher, a drool of spittle sinking to the floor from his gaping mouth.
Three feet away from the pool in which the ancient heart lay.
Push.
Two feet away. A piteous moaning from him as his painwracked body scraped against the flagstones.
Tears as the suffering became too much to bear.
Push.
Through the wetness.
Halloran rose, softly taking away Cora's hand from his arm as she tried to cling to him.
Push.
Not far now.
Desperation gleamed in Kline's dark eyes.
A few more inches.
Push.
Nearly there.
His fingers stretched, sifting through the dirty water, almost touching the withered husk.
A shadow over him.
A lifted foot.
Kline sobbed as Halloran crushed the heart into the stone floor.
51 END OF THE STORM
Mather peered out into the courtyard.
Thank God the storm's easing, he thought. Lightning flashes were mere reflections, with thunder following long moments after as distant rumblings. The rain had lost its force, had become a pattering. He could just make out what must have been an impressive fountain in an age gone by, its structure now misshapen, worn by time. It glistened from the rain, but had no vitality of its own.
He was naturally concerned over the dead man lying behind him in the corridor. Mather realised that the man he had just killed was Janusz Palusinski, one of Kline's own bodyguards. The Planner had met Palusinski earlier that day, but the mad-eyed creature who had rushed at him in the corridor bore scant resemblance to that person: without his distinctive wireframed spectacles and because of his drenched condition and the sheer lunacy of his expression, the Pole was another character entirely.
Why the devil had the man tried to attack him? He surely must have known who the Planner was.
Unless, of course, the reason was that Palusinski was in league with the intruders, yet another traitor within the Magma organisation. There had certainly been no doubt about his murderous intent- Mather was too experienced in the ways of combat not to have recognised it. Well, the matter would be cleared up soon enough.
There was activity across the courtyard. An open door then°, vague light glowing from it. Shadows, figures. Someone -was coming through the doorway.
Mather's grip tightened on the sword-stick. He ducked back inside when he heard footsteps behind him.
One of his operatives was hurrying along the corridor. The Planner raised a finger to his lips and the operative slowed his pace, approaching quietly. He examined the bald-headed man whose chest was weeping blood.
Mather returned his attention to the two people who had stepped out into the courtyard, one of them apparently supporting the other.
'Wait there,' he instructed the operative when he recognised the couple as they made their way through the drizzle. Mather limped out to meet them, movement awkward without his cane; he quietly called Liam's name.
'Oh good Lord,' he said when he realised the state they were in.
Halloran expressed no surprise at finding Mather at Neath. In the light from the courtyard window, his face betrayed no emotion at all.
'Get her away from here,' Halloran said curtly, pressing Cora into the Planner's arms.
'What's happened, Liam?' Mather demanded to know. 'I've just been forced to kill one of Kline's bodyguards, the Polish fellow.' There was the slightest hint of a smile in Halloran's eyes. 'Trust me like you've never trusted me before,' was all he said. 'It's over now, but I want you to take Cora out of the house. Wait for me by the main gates.'
'Liam, that's -'
'Please do it.' Mather paused. 'And you?'
'There's something I have to take care of.' With that, he turned away from Mather and the girl to walk back through the soft rain to the doorway from where he and Cora had emerged.
52 THE BATTLE OVER
Halloran closed the double-doors of Neatly then strode along the gloomed porchway out into the cleansed night air. The clouds had broken up, the moon dominated. Dampness still lingered, but there was no violence left in this night. Across the lawn he could see the lake, a low-lying mist hovering over its calm surface.
He climbed wearily into the Mercedes, switching on engine and beams. He looked back at Neath once more, studying it for several moments before swinging the car around and heading up the road into the trees.
As he drove, he wondered about Felix Kline and his terrible and unique powers. He wondered about the story the psychic had told him, of the Sumerians, of Bel-Marduk, their devil-God, the Antichrist who had preceded the Christ. He wondered about the truth of it. And Halloran wondered about himself.
He thought that perhaps he understood.
They waited for him by the big iron gates, the four operatives puzzled and somewhat agitated by the abrupt ceasing of action, while Charles Mather stood with the girl, who wore one of the operatives'
jackets draped over her shoulders. Although barefooted and cold, Cora had refused to wait inside one of the cars; her eyes never left the drive leading to the house. She hadn't spoken a word since Mather had brought her away from Neatly despite his questions. Had Liam instructed her to remain silent? Mather wondered.
Cora caught her breath and Mather, too, saw the approaching lights, the car emerging from the tunnel of trees in the distance so that moonlight struck its silver bodywork. It came towards them at a leisurely pace, an indication that the danger real
ly was past.
They watched as the Mercedes drew near, its headlights brightening the road.
But it stopped. By the lodge-house.
They saw Halloran lean out of the car window and drop something onto the ground in front of the two strange-looking guard dogs that had been prowling around their dead companions as though disorientated.
One of the animals warily came forward and began to devour whatever it was that Halloran had offered.
He watched the jackal chew on the crushed, blackened meat and waited there until the ancient heart had been swallowed completely.
Only then did Halloran start up the car again and drive onwards to the gates themselves.
He climbed out of the Mercedes and Cora took one hesitant step towards him. He raised his arms and she came all the way. Halloran pulled her tight against him.
Mather was bemused. Such a demonstrable show of emotion from his operative was unusual to say the least.
'Liam . . .' he began.
Halloran nodded at him. 'I know,' he said. The Planner wanted answers, and what could he tell him?
Halloran's tone was flat when he spoke. 'His bodyguards had turned against him. Monk, Palusinski, the two Jordanians—he'd treated them too badly. He's quite insane, you know. They finally had enough of him. None of it's clear, but I think they worked out a deal with the Provisional IRA to kidnap him. I guess they didn't want to live out their lives in servitude, and the proceeds from the ransom—or maybe just a Judas fee from the kidnappers would have ensured that they no longer had to. And they got away with it.
All except Palusinski and those two outsiders I saw you'd put down. You can alert the police, get them over here, have them watch air- and seaports.'
'Wait a minute. The IRA . . . ?'
'They were responsible for Dieter Stuhr's death. I suppose the idea was to make sure no one suspected it was an inside job, that information on the Shield cover was tortured out of our own man. Incidentally, Kline's gate-keeper was attacked by those animals back there. What's left of him is inside that lodge-house.' There was disbelief in Mather's eves, but Halloran steadily returned his gaze.
'They took Kline,' Halloran continued evenly. 'But he was badly injured. I think he'll die from his wounds.'
'We'll see if we get a ransom demand. We'll insist on having evidence that he's still alive.'
'Somehow I don't believe that'll happen.'
'Shall I get on to the police now, sir?' one of the other men asked briskly.
'Uh, yes,' replied Mather. 'Yes, I think that would be appropriate, don't you, Liam? God knows how they'll take all this shooting, but we've been in similar predicaments before. Such a dreadful thing that all our efforts failed.' Not once had he taken his eyes off Halloran.
'Let's sit in the car until the police arrive, shall we?' Mather suggested. 'Miss Redmile is shivering. And then you can tell me more, Liam. Yes, you can explain a lot more to me.' There was something chilling in Halloran's smile. He looked back at the brooding lodge-house. Then along the road that disappeared into the darkness of the smothering woods, winding its way to the house itself. To Neath.
'I'm not sure you'll understand,' Halloran said finally.
He took Cora's arm and helped her into the car.
Serpent Lights all around. Soft-hued glows.
Shadows, pretty, never still, constantly weaving their secrets.
Ah, the bliss of lying here. A fitting place, this altar. Peaceful. And no pain. Not yet.
Is this how it was for you, O Lord? Did your priests minister drugs to suppress the hurting? Or was your cask, your vessel, dead before it was entombed, your spirit trapped within to wait out the years, the centuries? Your heart had not died, I know that.
So tired, so exhausted. Sleep will be welcome. Yes, yes, even eternal sleep.
It's cold in this chamber beneath the earth. And damp. Yet why can't I shiver? Why can't I move?
Oh yes. I know why.
So finally he believed. Halloran finally accepted the truth of it all. A triumph in some ways, wouldn't you say?
But why didn't I understand that he was the one conditioned to ruin me? Why, with all my perceptive powers, didn't I realise it was Halloran who was the threat? Is that the one weakness that comes with the gift of seeing, O Lord? The vulnerable point, the blindness to one's own destiny, the unforeseeableness of one's own fate? Is that your answer to me? Quite a joke really, don't think I don't appreciate it.
Even funnier if it was something more than that. It couldn't be, could it Lord, that he came at my own invitation? Surely not. That would be nonsense, too perverse for words. Yet we enjoy perversity, don't we? Well, don't we? Constant evil can be wearing, don't you agree? But I tried, I did my best for you.
The decades were so long though, Bel-Marduk. Surely you, above all, can appreciate that? But that doesn't mean I'd close my mind to my own impending demise, does it?
Does it?
DOES IT?
No, I was happy with the task you set me. Evil for evil's sake. Harm for the sake of doing harm.
Corruption for you! Entirely for YOU!
It doesn't hurt yet. What Halloran has done to me doesn't hurt. Not yet. And it shows he believes, he believes in you! I wonder if the drugs were his idea of mercy, maybe to demonstrate he isn't as wicked as me. He seemed to understand, though, when I told him there are no absolutes, that no one—not even I—could be totally evil. Nor totally good. Yes, that appeared to make sense to him. Perhaps that was why he softened my pain with drugs, perhaps he'd already realised that.
(And was that imperfection in me my failing, O Lord? Did I fail because I was not perfectly evil? But I tried, oh I tried.) It had to be someone like him, didn't it? The other Lord, your eternal enemy, had to send someone like Halloran. Someone who could be cruel, someone who would carry it through. And someone who might seek a kind of redemption—shit, how I detest that word!
And I was the one who told him how. Should I be laughing, Bel-Marduk? Are you disappointed in me, will l be punished when I finally succumb? Or will we laugh together throughout eternity?
Ah! A twinge of pain at last! Sweet though, very sweet. I wonder which will kill me first? The loss of blood or the agony when the drugs wear off?
At least I'm not lonely here. I have my servants around me, just as you had yours in the secret sepulchre, their lives willingly given up to be with you always. But my servants were not so willing. No, they gave themselves up grudgingly. Still, their reluctant spirits are with me now. Listen how they whine.
Will I have to wait as long as you, Dark Lord, before my body is discovered? This, my own sepulchre, is well hidden, as was yours, and I don't have the strength to call others to it. In fact, I have no strength, no power, at all. I'm sure Halloran sealed the entrance well, and no one would hear me even if I could scream.
Aaaah! Hurting!
And it's darker now. Are the candles burning low? Will I be left on this altar in total darkness; unable to see, unable to move . . .
Spare me this pain, please Lord. Take me before the opiums weaken. Forgive me for failing you.
If I turn my head I can see the knife he used on me. Its blade is rich with my own blood. Isn't it funny, Lord? If I could reach it, I could use it against myself, I could hurry along my death. But see there, one of my severed arms lying in a puddle next to it? The other is probably close by. And my legs. Where are they, I wonder? It's not important.
Can there be another time for me, O Lord?
No. Of course not.
What good is my limbless form to you, with my spirit forever entombed inside, my body now my soul's own sepulchre. Say you'll forgive me!
Darker now. Becoming very dim. I can still see the eyes though, those huge unblinking eyes watching from the shadows. They'll watch over me forever, won't they?
Even when the darkness is complete, they'll still be there.
Watching . . .
Herbert