by Jack Gerson
Whether he believed that the spirit of his dead wife was actually beside him, or whether her memory in his mind was giving him strength, Crane would later admit to himself he did not know. But her presence was there in his mind; in his soul if he could believe in the existence of a soul. More than that she was inside him, yet around him, her presence surrounding him. And from her presence he was drawing on all his strength; more than strength; all the latent abilities within him, everything that his mind contained from the time as a small boy he had watched the crack lengthening across the ceiling.
His mind opened out to its own depth.
The pressure went from his spine. The throbbing in his head lessened as he willed it to lessen.
Again he was aware of the great dark plain. This time, however, he could see more clearly. The horizon was false, there was no horizon but a stretching of the plain to infinity. And somewhere, a great distance away, there was no longer darkness but a bright light, a light whose brilliance he could not look at, a light that destroyed darkness. And there was no fear in the direction of the light.
The shapes on the plain came into definition, sides, facets, angles reflecting the light. And even those shapes changed and altered, throwing the light towards him.
The darker shadow that had embraced him was still there. But it was moving away from him; moving erratically, not in a straight line but back and.forth and sideways. There was too a high sound, so high that he could barely hear it. He knew the sound would get higher until it went into a pitch that could not be picked up by the human ear. It was a keening, lamenting, ugly scream and it came from the blackness of the shadow, the depth of the elemental.
Again he was in the cellar standing upright staring at Drexel. Drexel was in the centre of the pentagram, a wild, frightened look on his face. And a great gale was blowing through the cellar, howling around Crane, battering at the figure of Drexel within the pentagram.
Crane was aware of the gale but he could not feel it. He was in the still dead centre of the cyclone, the eye of the needle.
Drexel was shouting against the gale. 'No, you can't touch me. I'm protected by the great pentagram of Solomon!'
Crane heard a voice answer Drexel and realised it was his own but he could not at first understand what he was saying or why.
'Elohim, Eloi Helion, Helios, Jodhevah, Shaddai... I open the seals of the great dreadful book and evil falls from heaven like summer lightning...' The words came from his subconscious, from an ancient past that lived only in the form of genetic memory.
'No! No, I am protected...' Drexel shouted, the fear in his voice concealed.
'You called forth something, Drexel. It must take something back with it...' Again words from the past but uttered with the certainty of an older wisdom.
The cellar shook, the stones on the walls churning against each other. Dust fell from the ceiling and from the cavities between the stones. Underfoot the flagstones heaved and cracked. Crane could see Drexel cowering within the pentagram ; at the same time he could see the bank of apparatus 'where the girl, Morag, had been. The girl had disappeared and the apparatus was sparking, the cathode ray tube shattered, the metallic sides of the instrument containers cracking. And Crane could see too, Anne at the top of the stairs, holding on to the wooden balustrade, her eyes wild with amazement, her hair streaming in the wind.
Then the crack in the flagstones suddenly became greater, and with a loud rasping sound the stones split and a fissure developed running from Crane's feet towards the pentagram, breaking it apart and sending Drexel reeling from within, staggering at first, then groping in the dust towards a wall at the back of the cellar.
Crane knew at once there was a door there, another entrance; another exit from the cellar. He took a step forward, moving to intercept Drexel.
'No, Tom, leave him!' It was Anne calling from the landing. At the same time there was another voice, almost an echo of Anne's. He recognised the other voice. It was Julia, crying out from a great distance.
Crane turned and moved up the stairs towards Anne. The roaring of the wind still filled the cellar, and the noise of the creaking and cracking of the stone and timber.
At the top of the stairs he put his arm around Anne and glanced down into the cellar. He could see nothing but dust and smoke and the sparks from the electronic apparatus. He took Anne up to the house above.
The hall was in a shambles. It was as if the house had been hit by an earthquake. The furniture was overturned, the framed cartoons on the wall smashed, some hanging at crooked angles, some lying on the floor, the frames in pieces. Glass from the windows powdered the carpet and cracks had appeared on the walls and across the ceiling.
Then, as they walked out of the door of the house, the sunlight hit them and there was no sound but a distant birdcall and the flutter of leaves as a mild breeze disturbed the trees at each side of the driveway.
They were walking back to the village, two dishevelled figures, when they heard the car behind them. As it drew nearer Crane pulled Anne to the side of the road.
The car was moving fast but not so fast that Crane could not see the driver.
'Drexel!' he said as the car seemed to turn towards them. He could hear Anne's sharp intake of breath as she saw the car bearing down on them and she, too, recognised the driver.
Then quite suddenly there was something, a figure between them and the car. It was the figure of a young girl standing motionless staring at the approaching vehicle. And Crane remembered the dark road outside Edinburgh, the figure on the road of the girl, Morag.
And then Crane could see Drexel's face clearly as he wrenched the steering wheel to one side, as Crane knew he would do, and the car veered off the road, plunged down an incline and smashed into a tree.
As Crane knew it would do!
This time, the speed at impact was much greater than on the night he had crashed outside Edinburgh. The bonnet of Drexel's car was smashed inwards and some spark from the metal ignited the petrol and the car blew up with a roar; a ball of flame embraced it entirely. -
Anne turned away and stared at the road.
'The girl? There was a girl..?'
If there had been a girl, there was no longer a girl. The road was empty. Morag had gone.
There was no point in going to what remained of the car. Flames still licked around the blackened framework.
Crane put his arm around Anne and turned towards the village. She looked up at him and his arm felt easy and natural around her.
'It's over,' he said and she nodded.
But as they walked towards the village within him a thought stirred. Was it over? Or was it just beginning?
Epilogue
Crane went back to Edinburgh with Anne. But before he went back he saw Scott-Erskine alone in the London Office.
'We do not believe that any organisation called Omega exists,' Scott-Erskine pronounced the words like a verdict. 'Nor do we believe any of our people are involved in such an organisation.'
Crane attempted to protest.
'There's no evidence of any such organisation,' Scott-Erskine insisted. Then his voice became kinder. 'Go back to Edinburgh and work with Anne Reynolds and Martin-dale. You have great abilities, greater than you know or understand. Use them with us.'
'But Drexel was tapping the computer!' Crane insisted. 'Who was he working for if not..?'
'Himself!' the older man insisted. 'No secret organisation. Simply himself.'
Crane knew he was wrong. And he knew he would have to prove Scott-Erskine was wrong. He would go back to Edinburgh and he would work to do just that. Because now he knew he had the ability, the confidence to do so. The uncertain Tom Crane was gone, had disappeared in one terrifying second in the cellar of Anscott Lodge.
As he went to the door of the office Scott-Erskine stopped him.
'One thing more, Crane.' Scott-Erskine was looking away as he spoke, his eyes staring out of the window at some distant point on the London skyline.
'On
e thing,' he repeated. 'That burnt out car outside the village of Anscott... the forensic people examined it very thoroughly. There was nobody in that car. No trace of human remains were found in the wreckage!'