The Soul Collector

by Paul Johnston

  We reached the tree line. Now the mass of the old stronghold was visible, its vertical walls blocking out the stars and satellites that stood low in the northern sky. We squatted down behind a tree and looked at the photos that Safet Shkrelli’s investigator had obtained. They gave us an idea of the tower’s size, but didn’t tell us anything about the interior structure. On the other hand, the meetings of the notorious Sternwood Hell-fire Club had taken place in a subterranean cavern. I reckoned that the present earl kept his secrets down there and that Sara wouldn’t have been able to resist stashing Andy there.

  “The door’s at the back,” Pete said.

  “Right,” I said. “I’ll go first. If a motion-sensor turns on lights, I’ll see if I can spot it. We’ll need to shoot it out.” I racked the slide on my Glock, then nodded at the others.

  “Three, two, one, go,” I said under my breath, running across the gravel as fast as I could. I made it to the castle wall without anything happening—at least, anything obvious. I had no idea how good the earl’s security system was. I might already have been spotted.

  “One at a time,” I said via my cheek-mike.

  Pete came first, then Rog. I led them around the side of the tower, pointing to the two cars that were drawn up to the rear. It didn’t look like many people were around, though there was plenty of parking space on the far side of the house.

  We reached the door. It was a great wooden thing with metal studs all over it, but it didn’t look old. The locks were also modern and solid. I wouldn’t have fancied trying to pick them. Pete moved past me, heading for a square ventilation panel. It was about a meter above ground level, with each side measuring about three-quarters of a meter. It would be a tight fit, but I reckoned we could make it—if we managed to separate the louvered panel from its metal frame. Boney set about it with a chisel, cursing under his breath. After five minutes, he had to admit defeat. I had a go, but the join was tighter than a banker’s lips.

  “Only one way to go now,” Rog said.

  “Don’t tell me,” Pete whispered. “The plastic.”

  I nodded. “Who wants to lay it?”

  Rog was already rummaging in Boney’s pack.

  “Not too much,” I said. “Maybe the explosion will be muffled by the stone walls. In any case, we’ll have to get inside very quickly after it blows.”

  Pete and I watched as Rog rolled out four strips of the explosive, and then molded them around the frame till they joined up. He pushed a detonator in and set the radio-controlled fuse. He ran back and we retreated behind the cars, an old Land Rover and a Citröen minivan. That made me wonder how many were in the opposition team.

  “Ready?” Rog asked.

  Boney and I nodded, then put our fingers in our ears. Rog pressed the button on the control unit. There was an explosion that wasn’t as loud as I’d expected—the walls must have absorbed a lot of the noise. When I looked up, I saw the remains of the panel hanging down.

  “Nice one, Dodger,” I said, getting up and running toward the hole. Dust and smoke were still rising when I reached it. I pulled myself over the rough edge and dropped into the tower. It was dark as the devil’s armpit, but I couldn’t hear any of the sounds people usually make after explosions, such as loud screaming or shouted orders. I moved aside as the others came through.

  “What now?” Pete asked. He shone his torch around the square area. There was no furniture or anything else in it, just bare stone walls and a few arrow slits. Stone projections showed where the castle’s upper floors would have once been. The only direction to go was down.

  “There,” Pete said, pointing to a large flagstone that had initially looked the same as the others. There was a small indentation on the right side, and in it had been fixed a well-disguised steel ring.

  I went over and got two fingers under the ring. Then I looked at the others. “Ready?”

  “Let’s roll,” Pete said, brandishing his pistol.

  Rog shook his head in disbelief. “Just do it, Matt.”

  I nodded. “Lights out.”

  We switched the torches off. In the darkness, I braced my back and heaved.

  The stone panel came up with surprising ease.

  Now came the difficult part.

  Andy had been using the vibration of the van, which was being driven at high speed again, to help him edge his fingers around the small knife. Finally he managed to grip it and slide it out of his pocket. Now he had to be seriously careful—if he dropped it, he’d lost the game. After a struggle with his damaged nails, at last he succeeded in levering the blade out. He stopped to rest his quivering fingers, then started to saw through the ropes that had been looped tight around his wrists. He felt the point jab into his skin several times and blood began to run, but he was glad he always kept the knife sharp—that meant he got his hands free quickly. He removed the gag and breathed deeply through his mouth. Then he cut through the bonds on his ankles and then stretched his legs without standing up—he wasn’t sure if his shape might be visible in the rearview mirror. Besides, his only chance was to play possum until Sara or the old woman got close. He flexed his fingers and toes, feeling the pain of his blood circulation returning to normal. It was a good pain.

  He was about to lean over the motorbike and see who was wrapped in the blankets when the van decelerated and took a left turn. Only a few seconds later, it pulled into the side and the engine was killed. Andy heard the driver’s door open, followed soon after by the rear doors. The interior lights came on in the cargo space. He was leaning forward, feigning unconsciousness and waiting until his captor came close. When he heard movement on the other side of the bike, he opened one eye slightly and saw the back of a figure wearing black leathers. He took a deep breath and decided to go for it, in case the person he assumed was Sara was about to harm the other captive.

  Andy launched himself over the motorbike, one arm whipping around the biker’s neck. It was then that he realized he might have screwed up. Sara was still wearing her helmet. She was also in good shape, pushing back hard and almost loosening his grip. But he wasn’t standing for that. With his free hand, he raised the knife and jammed it into her upper arm. That brought a yell of pain, then an elbow in his chest. He concentrated on moving the knife as much as the leather would allow and forgot about the helmet for a few moments, during which his captor crashed it into his face. He felt his nose shatter, not for the first time in his life. That made him change tactics. He let go of the neck and dragged the woman over the bike. Then he picked her up by scruff and groin, and rammed her head repeatedly against the side of the van. When he judged her brain would be suitably scrambled, he dropped her, moved around the motorbike and picked up the shrouded figure.

  As Andy leapt from the van, he was aware of another person standing nearby. He couldn’t understand why Doris Carlton-Jones was dressed so weirdly, but he wasn’t sticking around to ask as she was holding a silenced pistol. He shoved her backward with his spare hand and took the low hedge in a running jump. He heard the cough of the pistol a couple of times, but didn’t feel any hits. Then he was sprinting downhill, heading for a substantial wood beyond the field that was visible in the moonlight. His knees were creaking, but they didn’t give out.

  When Andy got to the tree line, he burrowed into a heap of leaves, blowing like a walrus. There was no way Sara or her mother would find him now. Sure enough, the van started up and moved off a few minutes later. Then it struck him. He’d seen Doris Carlton-Jones’s face, but he hadn’t seen Sara’s. Maybe it hadn’t been her in the helmet after all.

  There was a faint groan from the cocooned figure he had laid on the leaves. Andy tugged the blankets away and sat back in amazement as the silvery light fell on a dirty, tear-stained face; one that he knew very well, indeed.

  I shone my torch down the dark stairway. It turned back on itself after ten steps. I stopped at the corner, one arm raised to restrain the others.

  Rog sniffed. “What’s that smell?”

&nbs
p; The air was filled with the unmistakable odor of burning flesh. I immediately thought of Andy. What were the lunatics doing to him?

  I moved my head around the stone wall. The next flight of steps, about twenty, was clear. Light showed at the bottom. I beckoned the others forward and we went down as quietly as our boots allowed. An ornate doorway had been cut into the stone. It was covered in strange symbols.

  When we reached the bottom, I became aware of a monotonous chanting. It sounded like there were dozens of people in the cavern ahead. I struggled to understand what was being said and then I realized it was in Latin. The only word I could make out was “diabolus.”

  “Oh, great,” Pete whispered. “How many of them?”

  I looked cautiously around the doorpost. I could hardly believe my eyes. The place was as ornate as the most baroque Catholic church, the walls covered in frescoes and light coming from gold chandeliers. Then I saw what the paintings depicted—demons tormenting the damned, monstrous beasts as foul as those spawned by the imagination of Hieronymus Bosch, and, in the center, a huge, black, bat-winged Lucifer rising out of the earth.

  Then I heard a terrible scream. Over to the right stood two people in what looked like monks’ robes, the cowls raised. They had their backs to us and were watching the smoke billow from a raised altar. I tried to locate the people who were singing. There was no sign of anybody else and I realized that the chant was coming from speakers set in the rock walls. It was a recording, unless there was some choir loft nearby.

  I pulled my head back. “Action, guys. Looks like they’re in the middle of a sacrifice.”

  “Andy?” Pete asked, his eyes wide.

  “I can’t see, but we have to go in now. There only seem to be two of them. My guess is that one is Sara.

  “We’ll start with a couple of smoke grenades to mix things up,” I said. “Then, Rog, you go right, you left, Pete. I’ll head straight toward the bastards. Only fire if you’re sure you’re in danger. Okay, let’s do it.”

  We clasped hands, then Rog took the grenades from Pete’s pack.

  “One left, one right, Dodger. Try to leave some visibility for me in the middle.”

  “Check.” Rog pulled the pins and released the catches. Then he tossed the grenades where I wanted. They went off with more of a thump than a bang.

  I sprinted forward, Glock in my right hand. I’d removed the silencer as I wanted to scare the shit out of the targets. As the smoke began to billow up, the pair in robes turned toward me. My stomach somersaulted when I saw their faces. Both were white—one with a sick smile and a devil’s goatee and the other misshapen and pustular. Then I heard a crazed shrieking and some kind of ape came scurrying toward me, its red eyes crazed and its bared fangs yellow. I pointed the Glock at the roof and fired. The sound of the shot boomed around the cavern and the creature turned tail. I heard someone yelling the name Beelzebub.

  I kept running, but the two figures had separated and disappeared into the smoke. Maybe the grenades hadn’t been such a good idea.

  Then I heard shots and yelling from the left. Pete was in action. I made it to the altar and peered at the motionless object that was burning on a heap of wood. It was a sheep. So where was Andy?

  High-pitched screams to my right distracted me. Moving closer, I saw the ape on top of one of the masked people, its colored rump wriggling as it tried to bite. Then there was a spitting sound and the creature crashed down on its victim, its back feet quivering briefly before it expired. I ran close and held the muzzle of my Glock to the side of the robed figure’s head.

  “Let go of the gun and pull your hands out,” I said. “Slowly!”

  Rog appeared and dragged the animal off the man. I grabbed the pistol that was on the pseudo-monk’s abdomen.

  “Mission accomplished, Matt.” I looked over my shoulder and saw Pete arriving with company. He’d looped the other monk’s belt around his neck and was covering him with his Glock.

  I pulled the person on the floor up. The pair of them stood with their heads hanging, like two masked kids on Halloween who’d been overzealous with the tricks. Except these two were killers, and one of them was Sara Robbins. Before I could confirm that, Pete’s prisoner started shrieking and trying to pull away.

  “You killed Beelzebub!” came a high-pitched voice. “You killed my mandrill, my familiar…”

  “Not us,” Rog said, pointing at the other prisoner. “This asshole did.”

  Pete’s prisoner tried to leap forward, hands clawing the air. Boney elbowed the figure with the devil mask in the ribs. That stopped the movement, but the abuse and threats to the other mask-wearer continued.

  I nodded to Pete and he pulled off the mask.

  “Earl Sternwood,” I said, taking in the face disfigured by a prominent harelip.

  I turned to the other prisoner and moved closer, my heart pounding and a worm of doubt wriggling hard. “Is it you, Sara? Did you really give up so easily?”

  Manic laughter came from behind the disfigured mask. I wrenched it off and saw…someone who definitely wasn’t my ex-lover, no matter how much plastic surgery she might have undergone. I knew who it was, though.

  “Alistair Bing!” I said, failing to conceal my surprise.

  The laughter continued. Tears were wetting the cheeks of the diminutive man.

  “Aka crime writer Adrian Brooks,” I said to Rog and Pete.

  “Obviously you expected to see your former beloved,” Bing said. His Yorkshire accent was strong. “It never occurred to you that someone else could be behind the murders.”

  I stared at him. “You killed the crime writers? You sent me those puzzles?”

  He nodded beatifically, like the Pope acknowledging his worshippers—the Pope of Hell.

  “But why?”

  He laughed. “Always the rationalist, Matt. Didn’t your experience of the White Devil teach you anything? Some people exist in a dimension incomprehensible to common humanity.”

  “That’ll be right,” I said, not stinting on the irony. “Don’t tell me. You needed the experience of killing to become a true crime writer.”

  Alistair Bing looked like I’d slapped him in the face. “You’re oh-so-clever now, aren’t you, Matt? It’s a pity you couldn’t save Sandra Devonish. Or Josh Hinkley.”

  “You broke your word with Josh, you piece of shit.”

  He gave me an icy stare. “You have no idea who you’ve been up against. I am Doctor Faustus, I’ve made a deal with the devil and—”

  “Yeah, yeah, spare me the bullshit. Just tell me why you slaughtered defenseless novelists.”

  “The great Matt Wells, global bestseller and crime columnist, clueless. How the mighty are fallen.”

  The way he said the word “bestseller” gave me an insight into his sad mind.

  “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?” I said. “You were jealous of us, weren’t you?”

  His eyes narrowed. “The books at the top of the bestseller lists were no better than my early books.”

  “Oh, yes they bloody were,” I said. “Besides, you’re a bestseller yourself now. What was the point of killing Mary, Sandra and Josh?”

  He looked at me with arctic eyes. “I made my Faustian pact and killed three crime writers who sold better than I did in the past. You were to be next. The Death List knocked me off the top of the bestseller list in seven countries.”

  “But first you decided to make a fool of me with your smart-ass clues.”

  Alistair Bing nodded. “And I succeeded.”

  “Just like in an Agatha Christie novel, eh?” I said. “Haven’t you noticed that real life is more like heavy-duty noir than Golden Age wordplay?” I turned to Earl Sternwood. “What was your role in all this?”

  The earl was still staring at the dead mandrill. “Mine?” he said weakly. “Alistair had the benefit of my teachings. I led him to understand that only by experiencing killing would he become a successful writer.”

  “And he believed that?” I said
, glancing at the sniggering Yorkshireman.

  “He did. The fact is, he did become a bestselling author after his first murders.”

  “His first murders?” I repeated. “Who were the victims?”

  “Oh, just scum,” the earl said carelessly. “Prostitutes, their customers, drunks—the detritus of humanity that disfigures London.” He seemed unaware of the irony in his words.

  “It was your idea to write ‘The Devil did it’ in Latin, was it?”

  The earl nodded. “Latin was, of course, the main language of the Christian Church, and of its opponents.”

  I looked at Bing again. “Why the music playing at each murder scene?”

  “To add to the feeling of devilry,” he said, giving me a thin-lipped smile.

  It was my turn to laugh. “What? Cliff Richard?”

  “My mother loves Cliff,” he replied, looking affronted.

  I went up to him. “You sick fuck. You couldn’t just kill them, could you? You had to get up close, and throttle them, cut them, stab them. And then cut their nails and hair.” I remembered what he’d done to poor Mary Malone. “You abused a dead woman.”

  He shrugged. “Killing that way is like sex. In fact it’s better than sex. There’s no need for consent.”

  I turned away, shaking my head. “You must have fitted in well here,” I said, glancing at the horrific artwork.

  Bing sniggered and it was all I could do to stop myself flooring him.

  “What about the gangland murders in East London?” I said to Sternwood. “We know that Lauren Cuthbertson was responsible for them. She was part of your pathetic cult, wasn’t she?”

  “How do you know that?” he demanded, confirming my suspicions.

  “It was her face,” I said. “You couldn’t resist corrupting a disfigured person.”