The book on the varieties of runic scripts used in Witchcraft would have brought an excellent price. He was sorry that it had gone, but its destruction had served a greater purpose.
The man whose name had been given as Dr Peter Charles congratulated himself on the outcome. The old library had been destroyed and with it the Witch’s Book of Shadows. Anything the Witch had written about the group of men she’d serviced was gone.
He was aware of the confession and the subsequent suicide of the suspect, Mark Howitt. Had they known that night that the man Leila would take home was the son of a judge who had connections to the Witch, the plan would have been changed. However, the connection had proved to be beneficial in the long run.
Had the brother not interfered, it would have gone no further than the first Witch. On his head lay the blame for the subsequent deaths. Still, sufficient forensic evidence had been planted on the other two to give credence to Mark Howitt’s confession.
True, one Witch remained alive, although her connection had been more with the Book of Shadows and, according to the report he’d received, she hadn’t shown it to the police before it had been destroyed.
She might recall their meeting, of course, but he had departed the country by the time of the fire and there was little chance of tracing him. There was one other loose end, his contact in the Ferguson collection, who had since been apprehended with regard to the fire, but he was confident that nothing the man might say could lead directly to him.
The group were now dispersed and would no longer be in contact with one another, at least for a while. Should they wish to reconvene, another European city would be chosen. Lucerne would be his choice.
The Ferguson collection had drawn them to Glasgow and he’d succeeded in making some of the rarer items available to the members of the group. Some of them were copies, but still valuable in the worldwide trade of precious and significant writings on the occult.
The man fingered his ring, as he was wont to do when thinking. His instinct told him that all would be well, and he trusted his instinct. His flight would be boarding soon, but there was still time for another drink. He waved the waiter over and ordered a double gin and tonic.
Ten minutes later he noted from the departure board that it was time to make his way to the gate, and decided to visit the Gents first. Toilets on aircraft were narrow and cramped, and the first-class lounge offered a better alternative.
The lounge had been quiet, the toilet was empty.
He chose a cubicle and entered, securing the door behind him.
As he unzipped his fly a strange thing happened. He heard what sounded like a cat hissing and was immediately reminded of the Witch’s cat. The night he’d visited her in the altar room, it had been sitting there, its green eyes focused on them as she had brought him to climax. She had pushed him backwards at that point to lie on the sofa, her knees gripping his waist. Then to his surprise she’d shouted an order and the cat had sprung up to settle on his face, its claws kneading his shoulder, the suffocating feel of it on his face heightening the intensity of his pleasure.
As he allowed the memory to wash over him, his prick hardened, preventing him from urinating.
He gripped himself, encouraging the memory now, playing it live here in the cubicle. He felt the cat on his face, his open mouth full of its fur. He heard the loud purring, the chants of the spell she’d chosen. He experienced the tightening of the cingulum, the desperate need for air, all driving him towards ecstasy.
Then suddenly the imagined grip of the cingulum became like a metal band constricting and compressing his chest. He let go of his penis as the pain grew in intensity, spreading over his shoulder to descend his left arm like a red-hot poker.
I need to breathe.
He tried madly to push the imagined cat from his face, knowing all the time he wasn’t choking on its fur, but having a heart attack.
As he dropped into unconsciousness, he was back in the Witch’s temple, the suffocating body of the cat on his face, its claws tearing at his shoulder. As he felt the Witch move against him, there was no mounting ecstasy, only pain, each of her thrusts, he knew, propelling his heart swiftly towards its final beat.