It was almost midnight when the door opened. Nightingale and Wainwright hadn’t been given any food or water and they were both dog-tired. Tyrone was holding his shotgun and Dudák was standing behind him. They were both wearing hooded black robes with thick black cords tied around the waist.
‘It’s time,’ said Tyrone. Nightingale was going to make a crack about stating the bleeding obvious but he knew that any attempt at humour would be futile so he just glared at Tyrone and stood up.
Tyrone noticed the bits of chewed duct tape on the floor and he nodded. ‘Well aren’t you the clever ones?’ he said. ‘It doesn’t matter, the chapel is sound-proofed.’
Tyrone stepped to the side and motioned with his shotgun. Nightingale and Wainwright walked out and headed into the chapel.
‘Sit,’ said Tyrone, pointing at the front row of red leather-upholstered pews.
As they moved to the row, they saw Naomi asleep on the floor.
Wainwright gasped her name and took a step towards her, but Tyrone prodded him in the back with the shotgun. ‘I said sit. So sit!’
Wainwright did as he was told. ‘You don’t have to do this, Tyrone,’ he said.
‘You don’t know what I have to do or don’t have to do,’ snarled Tyrone.
‘Whatever you hope to achieve by doing this, I can do it for you without you having to kill my niece.’
Tyrone shook his head. ‘She has to die. That’s the deal.’
‘What deal?’ asked Wainwright. ‘What have you done?’
‘Nothing you haven’t done,’ sneered Tyrone. ‘I’m just following your path.’
‘You should have come to me. I would have helped you.’
Tyrone shook his head. ‘I was your servant, nothing more. A hired hand. You kept the real power to yourself.’ He grinned triumphantly. ‘And look where all your scheming has got you.’ He handed the shotgun to Dudák. ‘If either of them moves, shoot them.’
As Dudák kept the gun trained on the two men, Tyrone went about his preparations. He placed a small dark wood altar in front of the table at the top end, directly in front of the statue of the Goat of Mendes. He covered it with a blood-red cloth, which had designs embroidered on it in gold, which Nightingale could not make out clearly from where he sat, but he guessed they might represent the sigil of whichever demon Tyrone was in thrall to. He placed a golden inverted crucifix on top of the cloth, and four black candles in black wood holders, one at each corner.
‘Tyrone, please,’ said Wainwright. ‘Don’t do this.’
Tyrone turned and grinned savagely. ‘Your niece is a blood sacrifice to my master, in exchange for the power I’ve been promised. She’ll offer herself up to him freely, that’s the whole point. Dudák will feed on the death energy, and my master will take her soul as a willing sacrifice. It’s a win-win. Except for your niece, of course.’
‘Why my niece? Was that your idea? Why would you do this to me after everything I’ve done for you?’
‘You’ve done nothing for me, Wainwright. You used me. Now it’s payback time.’
‘Is that why you’re using Naomi?’ asked Nightingale. ‘You wanted to hurt Joshua?’
‘I was told that she has to be the final sacrifice,’ said Tyrone.
‘By who?’ asked Nightingale.
‘By whom,’ corrected Dudák.
‘Bloody hell, once a teacher always a teacher, even when you’re possessed by a demon from Hell,’ said Nightingale. He turned to look at Tyrone. ‘Who told you to sacrifice Joshua’s niece?’
‘I was told, that’s all that matters.’ He turned back to the altar and poured some herbs from a crystal bottle into a golden bowl, which he then placed in front of the crucifix.
‘What were you promised, Tyrone?’ asked Nightingale. As he spoke he was working on the duct tape that bound his wrists, but he was making little impression on his bonds.
Tyrone stopped what he was doing and turned to face Nightingale. ‘Once this final sacrifice is made, my pact is fulfilled and I’m going to attain the rank of an Ipsissimus of the left-hand path, that’s more power than anyone ever dreamed of. Then I’m going to take your life from you, and Dudák is going to use your body for a new shell, while your soul wanders homeless.’
‘And what about me?’ asked Wainwright.
Tyrone shrugged. ‘You’re to be allowed to live.’
‘Why?’ asked Nightingale.
Wainwright turned to glare at him. ‘Why? What is wrong with you?’
‘I’m trying to find out what’s going on, Joshua. Because it makes no sense to let you live, not after this.’
‘He is to suffer, for the rest of his life,’ said Tyrone. ‘He will live knowing what happened to his sister and his niece and that he was the cause of their suffering and death.’
‘So it wasn’t your idea? You were told what to do as part of your deal?’
‘Enough with your questions,’ said Tyrone, turning away. ‘I have work to do.’ He placed a foot-long, golden knife with an intricately carved handle in front of the bowl of herbs.
‘You’re being used, Tyrone, can’t you see that?’ said Nightingale.
Tyrone kept his back turned and sprinkled a red liquid from a vial onto the herbs.
‘Whoever you did your deal with isn’t interested in you. This is all about getting back at Joshua. He stopped Abaddon from bringing Bimoleth back to the world and her power and her coven were destroyed. Then Wainwright had me stop Lucifuge Rofocale and his demons in New York. So it’s one of those two pulling your strings, I’m sure. And Abaddon isn’t in a position to do anything to grant you Satanic powers. That leaves Lucifuge Rofocale. You can’t trust him, Tyrone, Lucifuge Rofocale is a devious bastard.’
Tyrone turned around. ‘I have a deal, a deal that cannot be broken.’
‘You can trust him about as far as you can throw him,’ said Nightingale. ‘Actually, that’s not a good analogy, him being a dwarf and all.’
‘We don’t call little people dwarves,’ said Dudák. ‘It’s offensive.’
‘I’m starting to realise why I hated school so much,’ said Nightingale. ‘Your body has been taken over by a demon and all you can do is correct my grammar and slam me for not being politically correct.’
Dudák snarled and pointed the shotgun at Nightingale’s face.
‘Very smart,’ said Nightingale. ‘Blowing the head off the body you’re planning to move into. Can’t you keep your minion in line, Tyrone?’
‘I’m not his minion,’ said Dudák.
‘Yes, you are,’ said Nightingale. ‘You both are. You’re being used. You’re pawns in some game that you don’t even understand.’
‘Ignore him,’ said Tyrone. ‘He thinks that by talking he can change the outcome.’
‘That’s what people do, Tyrone,’ said Nightingale. ‘They talk. They communicate. They negotiate.’
‘I’m getting tired of the speeches, Nightingale. You’ll never understand. This isn’t about good or evil, it’s about power, about bending the world to my will. Anyways, I guess you’re not going to shut up, are you? I need to concentrate now, so looks like we’re going to have to gag you again after all.’
He walked over to Nightingale carrying a roll of duct tape, and re-applied the gag.
‘There now, you hush up and enjoy the show. My master particularly wanted you to have a ringside seat. He knows all about how you hate to see pretty little girls suffer. He doesn’t like you very much at all. But then I’m sure you know that.’
Tyrone took a long black taper from a box on the table and lit it with a wooden match. He lit each candle in turn, then set light to the herbs in the golden bowl. Grey smoke rose up towards the ceiling. He nodded at Dudák.
‘Time for you to wake the child, Dudák, and send her to her sacrifice. Time for you to feed.’
The pretty young blonde woman that held the millennia-old demon inside her body nodded and handed the shotgun to Tyrone.
She walked over to the child, bent down and picked her up as if she had no weight at all.
Nightingale strained at the duct-tape over his mouth, trying to force out some words to beg them to stop. Dudák never even glanced at him, just bent down and whispered in the child’s ear. ‘Naomi. It is time to wake now. You must give yourself as a willing sacrifice to your master. Wake now. Wake now.’
The child’s eyelids flickered and opened. Dudák put the girl down and helped her to stand. Naomi stared at the altar, seemingly oblivious to Nightingale and her uncle sitting in the pews.
Dudák took the girl’s hand and they walked together to the altar. They stood there, hand in hand, a blank gaze on Naomi’s face, a serene smile across the woman’s lips. She spoke to the child again.
‘Are you ready, Naomi? Will you sacrifice yourself willingly?’
‘Of course, Miss Goldman,’ said the child, in a flat entranced tone.
Tyrone used his left hand to pick up a handful of herbs and threw them into the golden bowl. The flame flared up strongly, and a plume of purple smoke rose to the chapel’s vaulted ceiling.
Tyrone kept the shotgun aimed at Nightingale and Wainwright as he spoke to Naomi, no emotion showing on his face. ‘Do you give this sacrifice willingly?’ he said.
The child looked blankly past him. ‘I do,’ she said.
‘Then give it.’
He picked up the knife with his left hand and gave it to her.
‘No!’ shouted Wainwright. ‘Please, no!’
Nightingale was frantic with his vain effort to break the tape that was binding his wrists, veins standing out on his reddened face, his eyes protruding, sweat pouring down his forehead.
Naomi held the knife in her right hand, the blade pointing towards her throat.
‘Take me,’ grunted Nightingale against the duct tape gag, ‘Take my soul. Take me instead.’
‘Nooooo!’ wailed Wainwright, as Naomi pushed the blade into her throat and up into her skull.
And then it was over.