Twenty-­one

The windshield wipers swept hissing zig-­zag swathes of rain from Philip’s vision as the car sped down the highway en route to Newcastle. Behind them lay a deserted holiday cottage which had been booked for two solid weeks of seclusion. The scenes of horror in three of the cottage’s rooms would remain undiscovered for the duration of their holiday period. And by the time they were discovered – it wouldn’t matter. Because by that time, the Arrival would have been completed. And nothing mattered after that.

The Tasting had been good and they knew that it had pleased their Master. His anger had been placated after the little girl had prevented the Tasting of Three. But now, One Who had Thrice Denied had sensed their presence and had laid plans to move against them. The Master had told them this during their commune and they had sensed by His terrifying anger that He had been unsuccessful in taking the Two again. But none of this really mattered. They knew what was planned against them. And the Catalysts knew what they had to do. Three faces bearing three spectral smiles nodded in unison.

And the car sped on towards Newcastle.

Father Daniels’ hand was trembling as he replaced the telephone receiver. He rose creakily from the telephone seat in the hallway and moved into the vicarage’s lounge. His wife was at a bridge party with friends that evening and was not due back for a couple of hours. He was glad that she was not there to see him now. It had been two days since the incident at the church and he knew Sheila had sensed that something was very wrong. His story that vandals had wrecked the church vestry had sounded pathetically weak. She had tried to get him to explain, but he had brushed aside her enquiries with an uncharacteristic brusqueness which had betrayed his inner turmoil.

His hands were still trembling as he opened the drinks cabinet and unstoppered a crystal decanter. It was only sherry for visitors; that was all they ever kept in the house. But for the first time, Father Daniels wished that they had something stronger as he poured out a drink, liquid splashing over the rim of the glass and onto the silver tray. He had seen. Oh, God in heaven, he had seen . . .

The Bishop had given approval for the exorcism after two days of deliberation. He had spoken to all three of them, and Father Daniels had hoped beyond hope that he would decide against it. It was too insane to contemplate. Even if he agreed to a secret exorcism, then surely there were priests better qualified than himself to carry out such things. Surely the Bishop could not take the view that, because he had experienced this thing himself, then he should be the one to see it through? But the decision had been made. And he had to obey.

Father Daniels was a man with a social conscience who prided himself on his modern outlook. He recognised the real evils in the world: murder, famine, hatred and greed. By comparison, the evil which he encountered in his own quiet parish was slight indeed. The sins he absolved in confession were usually deeds or thoughts which, whilst requiring God’s forgiveness, were perhaps not major matters in the overall pattern of life; arising more often than not from social pressures such as unemployment, divorce or . . . many others.

As a child, the belief in a mediaeval, mythical Hell had been imposed upon him in all its terror. The demonic, hideous terrors depicted in Gustave Doré’s paintings were to him a real depiction of what awaited the unrepentant sinner. The depiction of the Devil as a horned, leering monstrosity with forked tail and pitchfork had struck fear and horror into his soul and had been the subject of many a childhood nightmare. One such painting had disturbed him particularly and, even now, when as an adult and a priest he had resolved such childhood terrors by an understanding of the symbolism which Hell clearly represented, the face in the painting would suddenly surface during his sleeping hours. Real evil was perpetrated by man upon man. No one believed in the reality of a Hell any more. It was symbolic.

Father Daniels gulped another mouthful of sherry at the memory of what he had seen standing in the doorway of the vestry. He sat down heavily, reaching for the decanter again, realising that the entire foundation of his priesthood had been upturned. The glass stopper rattled to the floor from his nerveless fingers.

The one, great, unreasoning fear of his life had been realised. The child had known more than the man.

There was a Hell.

Faced with a real Evil for the first time in his life, Father Daniels felt fear as he had never known it before. How could he possibly vanquish what he had seen? He drank again.

‘Why you, Mark? Can’t you see that you’ve suffered enough? We all have. What possible good will it do if you go with them?’

‘I’ve got to go. I’m the only one who knows what it really is; how it thinks. They need me.’

‘We need you.’

‘Joanne, if it isn’t stopped, God knows what will happen to us – or what will happen to every living creature on this planet. Don’t you understand? Once it’s free, really free of the lines, there’ll be no way in the world that anything will stop it. It could mean . . . the end of everything. You felt it yourself – you could see what it’s capable of. I’m the only one who knows Azimuth.’

‘But it knows you too, Mark. It tried to stop you. And if it’s getting stronger all the time as you say, then what’s going to happen next time?’

‘It’s a risk we have to take. The only alternative I have is to stay here and wait for the world to end.’

‘Why you, Mark? Why you?’

‘I don’t know, Jo. I really don’t know. But I have to go.’

‘If you go, I know that you’ll never . . .’

‘Of course I’ll come back. But if I don’t go with them, they’ll be walking into its . . . its lair . . . completely blind.’

‘Chadderton knows all about it!’

‘Yes, he knows. But he can’t sense what its motives are. I can.’

‘What shall we do if we lose you?’

‘You’re not going to lose me. If anyone’s able to cope with Azimuth, I am. It’s taken part of our lives, Jo. And I’m probably the only person in the world capable of dealing with it. Apart from Father Daniels . . . and I’m sure that even he doesn’t realise yet what he’s up against. Azimuth can’t control me any more. It’s had its chance and failed.’

‘For God’s sake, be careful.’

‘For your sake, I will.’

‘Come back to us, Mark. I lost you once before and I couldn’t stand it. Don’t be lost again.’

‘I love you, Joanne.’