‘Hell, you really are something else,’ he said, patting down the front of his fine woollen jacket.
As she got to her feet, Janet began to feel a little giddy. Almost immediately, she felt the reassuring hand of her gentleman friend at her elbow.
Chapter 34
A thick trail of acrid smoke cut across the outline of the full moon hanging heavy in the London sky. As Milton turned the patrol car into Three Colt Street, his mouth dropped at the scene. It could have come straight from Dante’s Inferno.
To the side of the church gardens stood a raging bonfire, and thousands of sparks were drawn upwards from its apex into a vortex of billowing smoke. The brooding edifice of St Anne's Church was alive with the reflected light from the fire. Stretched out shadows reared up at all angles from the recently arrived firefighters who were now circling the pyre. Only when Blake and Milton had shouldered their way through the crowd of onlookers did they see its true form, a perfect dark pyramid standing at the centre of the flames.
Within seconds, Milton was being debriefed by an armed officer who had a Heckler & Koch 9mm carbine slung across his shoulder.
‘What the hell is that?’ shouted Milton, shielding his eyes from the heat.
‘According to a local, the pyramid has stood in the church grounds for as long as they could remember. It was meant to top the church when it was originally built, but was never used. It’s been here ever since.’
‘It was meant to have been part of the church?’
‘Apparently so,’ said the officer, trying to force conviction into his voice.
Milton turned his back to the fire. ‘What about a body?’
‘Nothing yet. All patrols are searching the site with a fine-tooth comb.’
‘Stay alert, Hart could well be very close by. I want a full sweep of the area. Call in extra units if you have to. I want this bastard off the streets now.’ Milton started to cough in the smoke-choked air. He ushered the policeman away from the flames and cleared his throat.
‘Didn’t anybody see who started this?’
‘We didn’t, but a passer-by did. He’s over there.’ The officer motioned to a worried looking man standing next to one of the five patrol cars parked haphazardly outside the church.
Whilst Milton and the officer interviewed the man, Blake watched the firemen extinguish the flames with gallons of white foam sprayed in a wide arc from a fire engine hose. As the firemen worked, Blake studied the outline of the church. During his research, he had discovered that Hawksmoor had often employed architectural optical illusions to make his churches seem much bigger and heavier than their actual dimensions. Optical illusion or not, St Anne’s, like the other churches designed by Wren’s troubled apprentice, was no ordinary building. Its mere presence dominated the senses and created an unsettling aura. Blake could feel it rooted in his gut.
Subconsciously, he took several steps further away from the church and then noticed Milton striding back towards him, his face filled with concern.
‘There’s something not right about this,’ he said loudly as soon as was in earshot.
‘Less than half an hour ago, that guy,’ Milton nodded over in the direction of a man giving a witness statement, ‘was walking down Commercial Road and saw a man pull up outside the church on a red off-road motorbike.’
‘And?’ asked Blake.
‘Strapped to the back of the bike were two canisters.’
‘Petrol?’
‘I guess so. The rider parked the bike just inside the church entrance and disappeared into the grounds with the canisters. Less than a minute later, he was back on his bike and gunning it back towards the city, with a fire raging behind him.’
Both men looked over to the fifteen-foot pyramid smouldering in the light of the blood moon. A fireman was now hosing it down with cold water.
‘Let’s take a closer look,’ said Blake.
After checking the surface temperature of each of its four sides with an electronic thermometer, the fireman gave Blake and Milton the all-clear to approach the pyramid. The fire-fighter handed the DCI a torch.
Blake walked a circumference of the large curious object before cautiously touching the surface with his fingertips.
‘Like a gravestone.’ he said. ‘The cold water has drawn all the heat out.’
‘I thought it was made of metal?’ said Milton.
‘No, I think it’s Portland stone, the same material as St Paul’s Cathedral. There are letters engraved into it,’ said Blake, squinting under the powerful torchlight.
One of the pyramid’s faces was divided into five carved panels. The top panel bore an inscription. Blake’s index finger traced a path underneath the letters chiselled into the stone.
‘The Wisdom of Solomon,’ Blake said slowly. ‘It says, “The Wisdom of Solomon”,’ he repeated, this time more assuredly. ‘Move the light down a bit.’
Milton did as instructed, and the light beam tracked downwards to the lower panels.
‘There are some words, written in Hebrew I think, but they are very faint. Damn it, they’re too faint to read.’
Just then Milton’s phone rang loudly in his pocket as the headlights of one of the parked patrol cars flashed its headlights in their direction.
Milton handed Blake the torch and retrieved the mobile from his pocket. ‘Milton,’ he grumbled sourly down the phone. The control room sergeant was talking frantically on the other end of the line.
Blake watched the pressure build in Milton’s face as the DCI received the information.
‘Shit!’ Milton hung up the phone and pretended to hurl the device into the undergrowth in frustration. Finally, Milton locked eyes with Blake. ‘All this has been a diversion. He’s led us to the wrong bloody church. They’ve just found a body.’
‘Where?’ said Blake.
‘Christchurch, Spitalfields.’
Part III
Mark 13:24
At that time, after the anguish of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will give no light.
Chapter 35
Diary Entry of Nicholas Hawksmoor
14th May 1681
I received a message from Professor Wren to meet him at William Cooper’s bookshop near Smithfield Market at the hour of three in the afternoon. Cooper was a man of dubious references and by reputation a dealer in illegal and highly sought-after astronomical, alchemical and esoteric manuscripts; all obtained through an underground network of merchants, occultists and experimenters throughout England and beyond. He had sent a message to Professor Wren that a fine copy of De architectura by Marcus Vitruvius Pollio had come into his possession and that he was hoping to settle upon a mutually agreeable price. As is my station as the gentleman’s mule, I would undoubtedly be required to carry any purchases back to the Professor’s address, saving his arms and legs from any fatigue.
I left my lodgings at Middle Temple under some trepidation. Two nights previous had seen rioting in the East End of London. Crowds of zealous weavers from Spitalfields had marched by torchlight protesting against new taxes, intolerably imposed by the City elders. The army had been called to quell the disturbance and in the ensuing agitation, two of the protesters had been shot dead upon the spot and another dragged from the crowd and drowned in a watering trough. The weavers, greatly angered, had vowed revenge. And according to the gossip of the alleys, the mob was melting pewter dishes into bullets.
As I walked with rapid step through London’s stony lanes and passages, heavy clouds darkened the landscape. Soon big drops of rain came slanting in upon my face. London was lost in a great swirling fog. Sometimes I stumbled, not seeing a step before me for the thick, opaline mist.
Finally I reached Smithfield and found Cooper’s bookshop. I was shown in by a well-shaped, comely woman and was met by the Professor shaking off the rain in the porch.
The bookshop was a wondrous thing to behold. Its grandeur not comprising of one thing but the unique assemblage of all things; not just books and manusc
ripts but knick-knacks and curios of all types. The main room was very large and furnished throughout, with shelves chock-full of old books and almanacs, ancient registers and parchment sheets.
The Professor was in full discourse with Mr Cooper the bookseller. They were flanked by the comely woman, carrying a tray of cups and a steaming pot of the Turkish drink called coffee. According to Cooper’s narrative on the subject, the drink is made from a berry of the same name and is as black as soot. The berry is beaten into a strongly scented powder and is taken, in water, as hot as you can drink it. I myself, was not offered a drop to taste, but I have been told that it is a drink that comforteth the brain and the heart, and also helpeth digestion.
Cooper’s discourse with the Professor was gross and full of palpable flattery, telling my master that his reading and travels had made him a great scholar of antiquity. Indeed, only a gentleman of his particular learning would be able to appreciate the fineness of the copy of De architectura he now had in his possession. He went on saluting the Professor in a very lowly and submissive manner. Then with a playful air he added perhaps only he, Professor Wren, could be trusted with those great secrets contained within.
As he talked on, I noticed a large wooden chest standing in the corner, the metal loop of its heavy padlock hanging open from its catch. Curious, I found myself edging towards it, desiring to look inside. When I placed my hand upon the mechanism, Cooper barked at me, like a demon, forbidding me to touch the chest. The outburst was as short as it was fierce, but, I will never forget the look with which it was said. Like I was striking matches over a powder keg. Taking a long draft of his coffee, he returned to blabbing a pretty contrivance with the Professor, but always with some eye over me, in case I was up to some mischief doing.
After several minutes of mutual converse, we were all alarmed by some violent rapping at the door; it was an acquaintance of Cooper who explained that a great mob of weavers had assembled and were marching northwards from the river. He had seen it with his own eyes, a large crowd shouting, jostling, cursing, in the midst of the rain. In such a prodigious confusion, he feared that there would be robbing and all sorts of villainies practiced. He implored Cooper to quickly shutter up his windows. Without another breath, the Professor hurried to his feet and offered his services. He instructed me to take station by the door in order to look out for the mob, whilst the other men and Cooper’s woman took haste outside to fix the shutters.
I was completely alone in the shop, all apart from my growing curiosity as to the contents of the chest. Why so a tempestuous reaction from the bookseller? What did it contain? A legion of thoughts ensnared my mind. Soon, I could stand it no more. With briskness of foot and one eye fixed upon the door, I dropped the lock to the floor and opened the lead-lined chest. It gave out a creak so loud, it almost made me jump out of my britches. The chest was a large piece, three paces deep, very broad and filled with all manner of novelties. I spied charms and amulets crafted out of bone and wood, a hunting-whip with a talisman in the handle of it, books and manuscripts wrapped in sindons of linen and, even more curious, a tray of crystal vials filled with a dark red liquor.
In one corner, lying on an embroidered cloth, was a rather odd looking volume. I plucked it out and examined it in my hands. The cover was finely crafted in leather and expertly bound. I perceived it as a book of great antiquity, something that had most likely slept for an age in some great library or other. Impressed into the leather cover was a heathen design that set my hands trembling. It was the geometrical figure of a pyramid and in its centre was crafted an inverted cross, a motif I knew to be linked with occult practices.
For several breaths, I dared not open it. Professor Wren had warned me that some knowledge should only be approached with great caution; after all, hadn’t the original temptation of man been the product of Adam’s overreaching of sacred knowledge?
But isn’t a man nothing but what he knoweth? I thought. Is the eye ever satisfied with seeing, or the ear with hearing? After an inward assent, I reconciled to turn the cover. What I saw written therein took the breath from my lungs, such were the revelations contained on the pages.
All of a sudden, the light from the window became occluded, sending the room into darkness. From beyond the door, I heard Cooper’s voice instructing his lady to hold the shutter firm so he could securely lash it in place.
Without thought and being a man of an unbounded and impetuous spirit, I lost no time in securing the book upon my person. The small volume fitted in my coat pocket, like a hand to a glove. I took haste in closing the chest and returning the lock to its clasp just in time for the return of the Professor, who was mightily agitated. He informed me that the mob would be on us within the hour and that we should urgently depart. We bid our solemn regards to Cooper and the woman, who in return wished us safe passage back to our lodgings. With that, the Professor and I parted ways.
I ran all the way, skirting past the marching mob and arriving at the door of my lodgings in Middle Temple, breathless and eager to examine the pagan book hidden in the folds of my topcoat.
I entered the parlour of my lodgings without ceremony and found my landlady sitting before the fire with an empty gin bottle resting on her lap. Creeping past the snoring hag, I took leave to my room and locked the door. With much trembling, I reached into my pocket and tugged out the book. I sat on the edge of my bed and stared sternly down at the pyramid and inverted cross stamped into the soft leather and a devilish excitement took hold of my person; fear and expectation in equal measure.
Girding myself, I lifted the cover of the book and began to read. The volume was divided into two treatises. The first talked of a circle of standing stones that once stood between London’s three ancient hills. I recalled hearing of such a legend as a boy, but nothing of their history had survived upon record; as to whether it was a trophy, or a monument of burial, or an altar for worship, or what else. Some thought the large stone displayed in the side of St Swithin's church near Ludgate Hill, also known as the ‘London Stone’ had been part of such a circle.
The book contained an extraordinary hand-drawn plan, showing where the mighty stone circle of monoliths once stood. The great ring of stones was drawn against the familiar backdrop of Roman London. The walls of the Roman city were clear to see and the Druidic circle was set someway east of Aldgate, outside the fortification. In the very centre of the circle was drawn a pyramid, the same design that had furnished the cover of the book.
The second treatise to the book was filled with occult incantations that promised great powers to the practitioner. Power that came from the inner and furthest recesses of nature. The power to satisfy vast desires. The text described in great detail a magical ritual that if carried out correctly and in exactly the right location could release a tidal wave of elemental power. The location, the book described, was at the very centre of the circle of standing stones. My spirit was completely unhinged by the unveiling of such knowledge. By and by, the evening turned to night and though exceedingly pleased with my discovery, my energies began to dissipate and I fell into a deep sleep.
I dreamed a very remarkable dream, certainly a prophecy cast from the spirit world. It started on a wide and desolate moor crowned with the blackest clouds I had ever seen. Suddenly, a terrifying bolt of lightning was discharged from the base of the clouds, like a fork of splintered gold against the inky blackness. Around the place where the lightning hammered into the ground, a circle of pagan stones grew quickly out of the soil, like a ring of oak trees. Both the lightning and the stones were in some strange way in opposition to each other, as if caught in magnetic repulsion. My mind was pulled this way and that.
Out of the sky a mighty eagle spiralled downwards. It landed on the ruins of an old Roman Temple where the lightning had cracked open the land. Its powerful wings blocked out the sun and in its beak writhed a ferocious serpent. Then like some infinite potter’s furnace, my vision was filled with a sea of smoke and sparks, with steeples, domes,
gilt crosses, and houses of all types swimming through it. When the smoke parted, the gleaming City of London appeared to me.
With no respite an earthquake shook the ground and a great rift opened up in it. The ring of stones and the Roman Temple along with the eagle were thrown into the gaping pit. Out of fiery mist four great steeples grew, like black towers of Babel, and on their stones I could discern my name written in fire, ‘Hawksmoor’. Whilst I was pondering on the sight, I looked down at my hand and in it, I saw a sacrificial dagger dripping in blood.
I awoke greatly disturbed, and with the strong notion that I was at the centre of some extraordinary event that will in due course shake the very pillars of the world.
Chapter 36
Blake fidgeted in the passenger seat as the patrol car hurtled at full throttle down Commercial Street. Pulling himself forwards with the door handle, he craned his head at the striking profile of Hawksmoor’s Christchurch. The vision that filled the windscreen sent a wave of anxiety through his body. Against the pregnant disc of the moon, the church’s bone-white steeple reared up on the skyline like a sharp canine tooth. Blake’s thoughts were consumed with what they would find there. His mind raced forward. He willed it to stop, but it just kept rushing ahead, questions tumbling one after another.
Milton hit the brakes and the car careered to a stop, leaving two black tracks stretching out behind it. Reaching over to a button on the dashboard, he silenced the car’s sirens and answered the police radio. The words came fast down the handset. Milton barked back several orders, hung up and then launched the radio onto the backseat.
‘That’s the last thing I need right now.’ His hands returned to the steering wheel, his face and grip tightening in unison.
The Devil’s Architect: Book Two of the Dark Horizon Trilogy Page 13