by S. T. Boston
Legs like jelly, lungs on fire and with her back both aching and running with perspiration and after what felt like an eternity, Ellie finally reached the top. What awaited her was a closed hatch. It was set no more than four feet above the top step, which was three or four times the size of the others, creating a landing type platform. Crouched awkwardly she slid Henry off her shoulder and sat him against the concave stone wall.
“A little help here, kiddo," she panted, allowing herself a moment's rest. She placed her hands on the underside of the wooden panel above, then with her leg holding her brother in place pressed an ear to it and listened. Nothing. Ellie both wanted to try it and didn't, for if the hatch was locked she'd be faced with the climb down, and she wasn't sure she could make it without falling, and if she fell then so would Henry and she'd be powerless to stop him tumbling all the way to the bottom, and such a fall would undoubtedly kill him. Knowing there was no other option than onward she summoned what strength she had and pushed.
She’d expected it to be locked, expected to be met with resistance, yet the hatch sprung open with ease, it flew back and crashed to the ground on the other side, showering her in dirt and dust, enough to suggest that it had been hidden from view in the room, or whatever it was above. Ellie coughed and spluttered, shook the dirt from her freshly washed hair and gingerly poked her head through, her right leg still holding her sleeping brother in place below.
The room was dark, it smelt of grass, of dirt and of oil and fertiliser, and although there was no light by which to see she knew it must be some kind of shed or barn. Her grandfather’s large double shed had smelt just like this, and it summoned within her childhood memories of being with him in the garden whilst her gran prepared a Sunday roast. She had no idea whose shed or barn this was, yet she knew that going on was more favourable than going back, and whilst she was moving, whilst she was free, she had a chance.
Ellie dropped back into the stairway and with renewed energy, she lifted Henry up under his shoulders and with her face grimaced in effort she managed to lift him through the hatch and climb out herself, before swinging it shut.
For long moments she just lay there on the ground in the darkness beside her brother, her chest heaving, her bare feet throbbing and her heart hammering like a drum in her chest. Sweat ran off her face, down her back and caked the silk fabric of her ceremonial robe to her tired body, losing precious liquid that she couldn’t spare. She reached out a hand, found Henry’s and clasped it tightly, just enjoying the contact for a second. Outside, lightning flashed, briefly igniting the barn through dust-covered windows. The brightness stung her eyes and as the following thunder split the silence, she sat bolt upright. I need to move, she thought to herself, but her limbs ached, and she didn’t need to be able to see her hand to know it shook as she held it before her. Just a little further, Ells. Just a little further. Lightning came again, this time she used it to get her bearings, the main doors to the barn were directly in front of her, the passage to them was clear, save for a large ride-on mower parked just off to the right. Driven now by the thought that she might get out of this, might be able to save her brother, and in doing so save herself she managed to stand and lift him once more over her shoulder. Ellie staggered forward in the darkness, with her right hand outstretched she found the mower, leaning on it for support as she passed it by. As she neared where she thought the door was more lightning flashed and in that split second of light, she thought she saw someone by the doors. She paused, waited for the attack, another flash came, she found the figure and almost laughed at herself. It was no more than a long wax jacket hung over a stack of old patio chairs. As thunder boomed overhead, shaking the barn's roof timbers her hands found the door handle, she turned it again expecting to be locked. It wasn't. It swung open on rusty hinges and Ellie felt the warm, muggy breeze of the outside world wash over her face.
Chapter 51
Still buzzing from the discovery of the hidden trap door, Mike reached the lobby. The air had cleared and no longer smelt of the discharged round that had mashed the side of his leg. Surveying the room, he breathed two sighs of relief. The first was at the sight of Jason's body still laid out at the base of the oak sideboard, a very small part of him had half expected this place to reanimate him, bring him back as some unkillable zombie hell-bent on retribution. Luckily it hadn't, and that kind of thing at least remained a thing of fiction and Hollywood movies. Secondly, was the Beretta Semi-automatic three-round shotgun and ammo bag. It was still on top of the sideboard by which Jason lay.
Mike found his Timberlands, they were still right by where June had treated the wound, the tan nubuck of the left was spotted in blood. He slipped them on, laced them tightly and then collected the gun up before checking the chamber was full, which it was but a lot had happened since he’d loaded the weapon and he wanted to be sure. Happy with the gun he shouldered the kit bag and turned to Tara.
“If this is where you tell me that I’m not going with you then forget about it,” she said sternly.
“I’d tell you if I thought it would do any good,” Mike replied. He leant forward and kissed her on the forehead, it was smeared with dust and dirt from breaking the floor in the utility cupboard. “June, I’m hoping you have more sense, you don’t need to be here.”
"That's very presumptuous, Mike. This is my area of expertise and I think you might find that when the time comes you will need me more than you know."
“Okay,” Mike said with frustration and knowing there was no point in fighting it. “We only have one gun, and we can be thankful to Jason for that. If you both insist on coming, then grab what you can as a weapon and stay behind me.”
Back in the kitchen, Tara searched the draws and found another carving knife, similar to the one which Mike had used to jimmy the hatch door with. She tried to pass a slightly smaller blade to June, but she refused. “I have no need for one of those, my dear,” she said.
“If you’re coming down there you go armed,” Mike reinforced.
“I have all I need right here,” she came back confidently. From below her black, short sleeve top, she produced a large pewter pendant. In the centre was what looked like a three-bladed propeller and at its centre a six-pointed star. In the three sections separated by the propeller-like symbol were ancient hieroglyphs, more decorated the pendant's outer rim. She reached back under the shirt and produced on a second necklace; a small bottle of liquid held in a jewel-encrusted bottle. "When the time comes this will prove far more useful than your shotgun,” she said with certainty.
“Is that holy water?” Mike asked.
June regarded him seriously and said, “This is not a Christian ritual, Mike. What we are fighting here is older than the Devil, older than any religion. The pendant contains an ancient spell for the banishing of evil spirits, the symbol denotes the spell. The bottle contains a potion for the casting out and banishing of witches and demons.”
“Eye of newt, tongue of frog,” he smiled.
"Blessed water, ragged robin, dragon root, St John’s wort, mustard seed, mandrake root, and henbane, if you must know."
Tara lifted the bottle from where it hung on June’s neck and looked at the content with interest, “Does it work?” she asked.
“Supposedly if it touches the skin or clothing of a true witch who practices in the dark arts she will burn and be vanquished,” June replied. “Cast a protection spell with it upon a person and the witch will not be able to glamour or harm them. As for if it works, I don’t know. I have never faced evil such as this.”
“I’ve seen enough to test my beliefs over the last few days so I’m not mocking anything," Mike said flatly. "Do you know how to cast such a spell?"
“Happens I do,” June smiled. “But I thought you’d think it all nonsense.”
“I was just attacked by a sixty-eight-year-old woman who looked forty then turned into a teenager who's been missing for the last forty-eight years. If you're telling me that might work, then I'm on board.
We can use all the help we can get."
June nodded, then without speaking she unclipped the bottle from the neck cord and wetted her finger with it. She stepped forward and on Mike’s forehead he felt her draw the same propeller-like symbol onto his skin, as she drew she murmured under her breath, “Nos defendat, ut intra in tenebras, et non faciem mortem, defendat. Immundorum ut eicerent eos igni tueatur.”
“What does it mean?” Mike asked, astounded at the natural beauty and silkiness of the Latin as it rolled off her tongue.
June smiled and placed her hand on his arm, “It’s one of my own spells,” she said. “It basically casts protection over those going up against evil. It just sounds better in Latin.” She winked playfully and turned to Tara who stepped forward, then repeated the process before carrying it out on herself.
Tara looked at her questioningly and said, “When we saw you in Boscastle you said that you weren’t a witch?”
“We don’t exactly advertise ourselves,” June replied. “Especially not to strangers. Much like the poor Jewish people, history has not been kind to us. And be under no illusion I have no powers compared to what we might come up against tonight, below this place.” She turned her attention to the open hatch and added, “Who wants to go first?”
The stairs down were steep, the stone of each step worn from years of use, and Mike found it hard going on his leg which continued to beat a steady rhythm of pain. By the time they reached the bottom his brow was wet with perspiration, perspiration born from both pain and heat. Down below the building and in the earth, it was cooler still, and he leaned against the side of the passageway, resting the stock of the gun on his foot whilst enjoying the feel of the chill on his brow.
“It’s like a mine shaft,” Tara commented reaching the bottom, and she was right. It stretched off to the right as far as he could see, the same to the left and a cool breeze trickled its way through the air. Oil lamps lined the wall on both sides, their flames all dancing to a different tune.
“It must run under the entire village,” June said in amazement. “It appears The Old Chapel is not the only thing to have both an above and below, Trellen itself symbolises it.”
“All this time they were looking for those kids and they were right under their feet,” Mike noted shaking his head. “Let’s find them and get out of here.” The first door he came across was just to the right of the stairs, it was large, made of oak and similar to the front door of The old Chapel. It had an old heavy looking slide bolt which was in place, he slid it back and pushed the door open, his gun at the ready.
“Dear God,” Tara said as she followed him in, “this must be where - ”
"Here is your Chapel, Mr. Cross," June said cutting her off and not bothering to correct herself to his first name this time. The room was easily the size of the entire building over which it sat. The upper tier on which they now stood ran around the perimeter, then a circular amphitheatre dropped down a good ten to fifteen feet in rings of pews giving the room the appearance of a circle within a rectangle. At the centre of the room were two stone altars, one clean and one soaked in dry blood, much of that blood looked fresher and had no doubt been spilt in the last day. Mike wondered with fear and disgust if it was Scotty’s. The thought that he might have met his end here at the hands of those monsters enraged him and he felt his grip tighten on the stock of the sawn off. The walls around the ceremony room were lined in rich tapestry art, each depicting a different symbol, the likes of which he’d never seen. In between each piece of evil art that had to be a good fifteen feet tall, hung larger oil lamps. They were all lit and cast a deep orange light across the room and darkled the beamed ceiling to shadow.
“Do these mean anything to you?” he asked June.
“They symbolise the darkness and sacrifice," she said, her eyes scanning one to the next. "Some I have never seen before." She clutched her hands to her head and for a moment Mike thought she might pass out. "So many," she said in dismay. "So many have suffered here, I can hear their cries, feel their pain." June’s eyes brimmed with tears. “He keeps them here,” she said. “Those poor babies, they are so afraid of him, they cry when he is close, they scream and his spirit drinks it in, it makes him strong.” She moved her hands from her head and her right clutched at the amulet and bottle of potion. “Finding the Harrison kids is not enough, Mike. We need to put an end to this place.”
Mike nodded, he knew what she said was true. There was no way they could just leave this place, for if they did then it would only be a matter of time before more innocents were taken. “If you want,” he said to her placing a hand on her arm, “I will take you back up.”
“No,” June said, shrugging him off with defiance. “You’ll do no such thing. We see this thing through together.”
“This doesn’t feel right,” Tara said uneasily looking around with wide eyes. “Where is everyone?”
“They are close by,” June said. “I can feel their energy, their darkness. I believe that this ritual is not just about the sacrifice. I get the feeling there is another part to it in play, but soon enough it will find its way to this room where it will culminate in the sacrifice of that poor girl, and the becoming of her brother.”
Mike ducked out into the passage, checked left and right but saw no one. “There are more doors down there,” he said pointing left. “We search them all, those kids have got to be down here somewhere.” Gun pointing out in front of him he led the way, his finger on the trigger and almost hoping he’d be given the chance to pull it.
The first door he came across was partly open. It was smaller than the one to the ceremony room, more of a traditional size, yet arched at the top. He kicked it open with his good leg, the door swung wide and bounced back on its hinge as he went in, the sawn-off barrel leading the way.
The room stank and the smell hit his throat almost triggering his gag reflex. Littered about the floor were crumpled drinks bottles and empty packs of pre-made Tesco sandwiches. The far corner of the small room was the source of the smell, it had been used as a toilet, but not even a hole had been dug and faeces lay scattered about on wet soil that he knew had been made that way by piss, like some human-sized cat litter tray. He held his breath and edged into the room, then started to breathe shallowly, letting his sense of smell adjust to the place just as he used to when he’d been a cop and attended the scene of a body that had lain undiscovered for a week or more. June and Tara followed behind, hands over their mouths and noses, trying to filter out the stench. Mike spotted a grubby red T-shirt abandoned on the floor at the head of a small, dirty mattress that made up the only piece of furniture.
“She was wearing a red Ramones top when she went missing, am I right?” he asked, turning to Tara and holding it up.
“That’s hers,” Tara said.
Mike crouched down beside the mattress on the floor, he ran a hand over it, the centre was still depressed from where a body had lain upon it and the faintest hint of body heat was still on the fabric. “She was here, not long ago, either,” he said in frustration.
“Mike,” Tara said urgently from the door. “Mike, I think someone is coming.” She moved June back out of the door, Mike crossed the room in a few strides and took up the other side of the jamb.
“She was going to take care of them,” Mike heard a voice say. It was a ways off and came to them in an echo that bounced its way down the passage.
“We should have taken and killed them all last night when we had the chance,” another male voice replied. They were closer now, and he could hear their feet on the tightly packed dirt of the passage floor.
“Too risky,” the original voice said, and now Mike recognised it as that of Seth Horner’s. “Lucinda was confident that she could glamour Cross into doing the rest of the job for us.”
Mike knew they were talking about what had happened in the bedroom, how she’d been in his head and how he’d been so close to letting her all the way in, and the thought of what she might have had him do if he’
d let that happen, made him shudder. He glanced around the jamb, the three figures were dressed in identical black ceremonial robes, male versions of the one that Lucinda had worn. Each one had a white mask, held in the hand and not worn. One of the three was indeed Seth Horner, the other two Mike had never seen. One was shorter, fatter with a round redden face, like that of a boiled sweet, and a piggy nose. He was maybe fifty, fifty-five years old, his greying hair had thinned to bald on top. The other was younger, tall with dark hair and handsome features, no older than thirty, and Mike wondered if this guy was a hopeful, a prospect for the future, hoping to cut the mustard and make it to be the husband of some future incarnation of one of the witches here.
Mike readied the gun, he knew what he had to do, it differed from what he wanted to do, and that was to pop out into the passageway and unload all three rounds into them one at a time. Sadly, no matter how much he wanted to, it was not an option. The report from each shot fired would be deafening down here and would bounce off the walls of the passage and travel for God knows how far, thus alerting god knows who. At the moment the element of surprise was on their side and he meant to ride it as long as he could.
Both June and Tara looked at him expectantly, Tara with the knife clenched firmly in the right hand, the orange of her nail varnish chipped and cracked from where she'd helped him clear the broken tiles from the floor. He raised a finger to his lips as one of the males said, “She likely got carried away with them, whatever is happening up there best be good, we will miss the start at this rate. Mind you, if she’s not finished with them and that blonde bitch is still alive, I wouldn’t mind having some fun with her, she’s so hot she is practically on fire!”
Mike took his eyes from the opening and looked at Tara, her face was creased in disgust at his statement and he hoped that she’d be able to keep a lid on her temper long enough for this to play out as he needed it to. She sensed him looking and as he caught her eyes he shook his head and mouthed a silent, “NO!”