CHAPTER 13

Jerry forced his cold body deeper into the shadowy recess. There were small pools of icy water, but he scarcely noticed them; behind the small screen of stalactites and stalagmites he was hidden from sight. If he kept still, the fearful girls might not see him!

For a few seconds, whilst the girls assembled in the great cavern, Jerry tried to tell himself that this could not be happening to him.

The stink of the melted oil, the fumes from the herbs, the vibration of the air as the girls chanted in those low, harsh voices, and the low whining from the basket which Julie was placing by the ancient canopy that lay behind the dehydrated corpse of Lord Titus Brindley, all combined to destroy the comfort of those few seconds. This was no charade.

It vas real, evilly real, brutally evil! There was a strength of purpose about the lorry-girl and her willing acolytes that spoke of a great and malevolent design. Jerry could see the resolve in the girl’s eyes.

The chanting stopped.

The wild, ancient words were only echoes now, drifting upwards to lose themselves in the brilliant clusters of spear-like stalactites in the roof of the great cavern.

How in God’s name did they know they know the procedures of the Grand Sabbat? Jerry struggled with disbelief.

Then the fascination of the scene gripped him: he was a witness of the most fearful of all ceremonies, the deliberate and solemn undertaking to raise the Power of Evil in the person of Satan Himself! Everything was being done in its due order. It was all as Davenant had discovered!

What next?

Davenant had spoken of a trance-like state induced by the Aconitum and Belladonna. Well, that was most effectively under way. These young girls were automatons, no longer in control of their senses, no longer free agents; they had writhed and chanted, just as Brenda had taught them the night before, it had been a rehearsal, he could see that now. But for what?

Jerry could feel the journal in his anorak pocket. He couldn’t recall the next stage of the ceremony as the Rector had portrayed it. But there was something about a hand. A bright hand? A light hand? Whose hand? Brenda’s?

He sensed the thrill of urgency in the eerie scene; Brenda stood before the stone slab in silence. She indicated the disintegrating heap of wet, rotted wood and detritus that had been the Brindleys’ altar to Satan. Amanda and two of the others swiftly scooped the pile of debris away. Jerry gulped as Julie moved forward to place the basket near the new altar. Whatever was in the basket was silent by this time. Brenda supervised the establishment of the rough and ready shrine. She motioned to Amanda to fix the cross to a socket in the stone base of the former altar; then she made sure that the evil goat’s head faced the silent dead company.

Another girl came forward, eager and stone-eyed, with two of Mrs. Raybould’s emergency supply of candles; the white wax had been blackened. Amanda took them. Carefully but quickly she placed them in position on either side of the grinning head. More candles were brought as the ancient green candlesticks were cleaned out, and soon there were two dozen or more of the soot-grimed candles in position. There was such efficiency in the girls’ actions that they looked like some band of robotic servitors; lax-limbed, but supremely confident, the schoolgirls might have been doing these tasks for years. It had taken only a few minutes for the entire scene to be transformed.

Brenda motioned to another girl who came forward with her duffel bag. Brenda reached out and produced a thin candle, more a taper, long and rough-shaped.

Julie came forward to light it with the oil-lamp. It threw off a dense, sulphurous smoke. With this crude taper the lorry-girl moved sinuously about the altar. First she lit the candles on either side of the devil-mask that had once been Julie’s teddy bear; the candles flickered twice and then burned brightly, illuminating the terrible symbol of evil with a yellow-white radiance. Then Brenda moved on to light the other candles, until they all flared upwards, flames shivering occasionally as a chance motion of air disturbed them. But there were more rough, homemade tapers, Jerry saw.

Brenda smiled at one of the hypnotised servitors, and the girl smiled back. She turned from the fearful altar and ran past the long table, with its verdigris-encrusted drinking cups, its bowls of long-rotted food, and its silent double row of green long-dead. The girl brushed past an ancient sleeve, and Jerry distinctly saw a patch of material fall away to disclose an emaciated shoulder. He felt sick. Again he had the sensation that this was something he was dreaming. Then a small cracking sound from the tunnel behind him helped him recover his wits. He turned slightly and jogged his ankle against a sharp stalagmite.

He might have cried out then had not the grinning girl scampered past him, blank-eyed; it was what she carried that made him choke. He knew what the next stage in the ceremony was. Alfred Douglas had mentioned it.

“…the Misguided Wretches who desecrate Christian burial grounds in order to Possess themselves of one of the Foul appurtenances of their feasts…”

Jerry saw Brenda’s congratulatory grin as the girl presented her prize. It was a withered human hand. Jerry knew now what the sharp cracking noise in the tunnel had been: knew too that this most awful symbol of the Old Religion would be fashioned by the clever educated hands of the schoolgirls.

Brenda signed to two of her acolytes, and they moved forward at her command. They took the rough tapers from her and wired them to the hand, which Jerry had last seen attached to the corpse of the unfortunate Signals lieutenant.

The Hand of Glory took shape. Now each of the large bony fingers were lengthened by the dull-brown tapers, and the wrist embedded in a socket before the altar.

Brenda herself lit the tapers.

Thick, stinking fumes came from the awful Hand.

The fumes were affecting the girls now; a thick yellow-red cloud drifted in the slight eddies of wind that had been set up by the rapid movement of oiled bodies; and the schoolgirls, already dazed and entranced by Brenda’s herbs, were swaying as the sulphur further stupefied them and released their inhibitions.

And still the terrible Hand of Glory burnt vividly before the altar. What next?

A sign from Brenda brought the entranced pupils of Langdene Academy to a halt. All was in place. The altar had been re-erected. The Hand of Glory flared satisfactorily.

Brenda held both hands high before the terrible devil-mask, and the girls stood straight and tall with a statue’s stillness and silence.

A deep and authoritative voice rang out from the lorry-girl’s corded throat:

“The waiting is over” The Hour of release is upon us!”

A long sigh from the girls’ throats answered her.

“Magister!”

“He comes!” the harsh, masculine voice reassured them. There was a terrible promise in Brenda’s call. “He comes at the Hour!”

Midnight! Jerry knew the moment had come. The Devil’s Hour!

How soon midnight had come! Midnight on Walpurgisnacht was when all the terrible astral forces of the Universe could lock on to the psychic imbalance set up in the Coven! All the drugs, all the oils and flickering lights, all the horrid symbols of devil-mask and burning Hand were used for this one reason: to create the frenzied conditions for the legions of the damned to walk abroad! The Black Angel could appear when the souls of the witches were in a proper alignment between ecstasy and evil! But what else had to be done before the ceremony was complete?

What else?

He was distracted from his thoughts by a sudden flurry of movement from the altar. He must have missed a signal, for the girls were moving once again with their familiar robot-like economy of effort.

So far, they had not deigned to look at the long-dead assemblage that had sat at the massive table for over two hundred years.

But the soot-streaked, entranced girls were facing the long table now. Brenda motioned once again, and two of them advanced towards the long-chinned corpse of Lord Titus Brindley.

What did they want with it?

The four girls had hold of the heavy chair in which Lord Titus had rested for several lifetimes. They moved it with easy strength, one at each comer. And turned it to face the flaring Hand!

Then more girls came as Brenda beckoned, and Jerry watched in disbelief as they moved the corpse of the long-dead Satanist from the chair.

Jerry knew a vicarious thrill of horror. How could these delicate schoolgirls bring themselves to handle that withered corpse! How was it that the rough drugs Brenda had given them could hold them in this state of possession? These carefully-nurtured English roses were now gently stripping the clothes from the gaunt body of Lord Titus Brindley. Why didn’t the glowing green corpse affright them?

And why did Julie have to help in laying the almost fluorescent body on to the stone altar slab where the frightful Hand shot yellow and red flame and smoke to the roof of the cavern! Surely, the stench of the long-dead corpse would make her reel with loathing?

And in God’s Name what were they doing with the withered corpse!

Amanda was bringing the coalscuttle. Through the swirling clouds of smoke, Jerry could see her plainly; she was smiling.

The black miasmic cloud that hung just over the canopy was waiting with a terrible patience!

“No!” The word forced itself from Jerry’s white lips. “Not that!”

The withered, gaunt corpse of Lord Titus Brindley lay on the altar—one foot grotesquely deformed—and around the withered body clustered the eager young girls; and they were allowing their delicate, middle-class hands to trail over the frightful green cadaver in the caressing action he associated with Brenda’s subtle touch on the brass coalscuttle!

Amanda offered the smoking brass cauldron. They squealed with delight and dipped their hands in it.

“Jesus!” groaned Jerry, unable to go to their aid, unwilling to risk a closer acquaintance with the cadaver they were anointing with the mixture of herbs and Vaseline.

“Soon, Magister!” Brenda’s unnatural voice rang out. “The Hour is Now!”

And the girls worked on, industriously oiling the dried and withered corpse!

But why them? Jerry felt fear, and wonder. What had Alfred Douglas said about the use of young girls? Yes! He had it now!

“…and the good Rector of Hagthorpe was convinced that the most Efficacious Kind of spell or Conjuration could be Manufactured only when a Girl of Tender Years was Introduced into the Coven…” Sober and lucid, Davenant had been too much of a Gentleman to introduce the term virgin into his journal.

The girls were almost in a frenzy by this time. Brenda stood, tall and ecstatic, facing the corpse. Above the canopy, dim shadows formed momentarily.

“Soon!” warned Brenda.

The girls’ efforts redoubled. Amanda joined in the basting of Lord Brindley. Julie slapped the withered skin, forcing the magical preparation through to the flesh below.

Above the canopy, Jerry saw, there was a shape. Vast and black-edged, the form of something recognisable began to emerge.

Brenda called for attention:

“The Lord comes!”

“Yes?”

The girls were incredulous. Their efforts had been rewarded. Jerry heard them chattering congratulations to one another.

Didn’t they know what they had brought down on themselves?

“Grey Mentor of the Soul!” called Brenda, and her voice was not a South Yorkshire lorry-girl’s, but a deep and resonant voice of command. “Lord of Darkness, come to me!”

Above the canopy, there was an eddy of smoke. Jerry saw a great pair of eyes flash in the grey emptiness of the cavern, glaring red eyes that hung like brilliant lamps in the darkness of a bestial face.

“Satanus, come to your servant!” grated Brenda’s awful voice. “I bring a sacrifice!”

Without looking at the dozen naked girls at her feet she made a slight movement of one tattooed hand. Julie got to her feet in one swift shining movement, her eyes wet with tears of happiness.

She stepped to the table, with its rotted feast and rows of green cadavers. She lifted the basket and stepped lightly to the altar.

Something yipped in protest.

The vast face above the canopy became more distinct. Brenda, eyes on it, was exultant:

“Lord of the Night! Prince of Darkness! Come!”

“Come!” whispered the middle-class witches. “Oh, come!”

Jerry felt a roaring in the ears. He knew that he should stay in command of his senses—that he should be ready to act, to do something to help the poor possessed girls. But what?

Yip-yip-yip-yip!

He was about to faint when he heard the noise of the white poodle bitch. It was aware that it was surrounded by enemies! Jerry looked hard through the smoke and saw Julie trying to drag the desolate poodle from the basket.

“The Sacrifice!” Brenda called. “Come back to us, Magister! Satanus comes when the Sacrifice is made!”

Julie had the struggling poodle bitch now. Strong, capable, pony-girl’s hands took Sukie by the scrawny neck and the thin rump. And what was that in Brenda’s hand?

Jerry saw the flash of steel.

A kitchen knife! It was the knife he had used to slit open the journal of Alfred Douglas Davenant. And it was to be used to slit open Mrs. Raybould’s yipping and snarling pet!

Julie grinned as she held the bitch. Then she advanced to the stone slab where the long cadaver rested greenly. Another girl came forward eagerly at Brenda’s signal. Together the two girls held Sukie out like some butcher’s carcass, each taking a front and back leg. Sukie looked her astonishment and howled her grief.

“Blood for Satanus!” Brenda called. “Blood for the Magister!”

Magister? Of course! Master, when translated from the Latin. Magister was—

Lord Titus Brindley!

Jerry knew exactly what Brenda intended now! He knew the reason for her cries to Satanus and the Magister! Lord Titus Brindley was the Master she called upon—Lord Titus, who had been waiting for two centuries for this conjunction of events! Lord Titus, who had been the focus of most terrible emanations during the time he had lain in the cavern called Hag Hole! Powerful forces had been at work trying to gain his release—fantastic and evil forces that had lured the poor Boy Scouts into Hag Hole; frightful emissions of elemental power that had turned the Nazi bomber off course so that it could deposit its bomb-load on the Castle and pave the way for the landslips that eventually cleared the way from the cellar to the cavern! Jerry understood it all now.

Brindley had been the most efficacious black magician since the Dark Ages: his liaison with Satan had not ceased when he had perished in Hag Hole! Some fearful pact must have been enacted between awesome Prince and terrible servant!

But so far nothing had been accomplished! Whatever mysterious astral forces had brought the Heinkel smashing on to Devil’s Peak had not been enough to gain freedom for the Brindleys. Though the Castle had been obliterated, the awesome and Satanic powers had been misdirected! No Boy Scouts’ penknife or Signals Lieutenant’s tool-kit had been enough either to release the Coven! The poor wretches who had been lured into Hag Hole had even tried to gnaw through to the Brindleys in their desperate possessed state! But the forces of evil had been blind, undirected, and ineffective, until Brenda took the initiative! Until Brenda cast her terrible spell on the schoolgirls!

The Brindleys had lain waiting until the psychic forces released by the twelve virgins were in readiness. And Brenda would enable the Grand Master of the Coven to lead them to a most horrid awakening! Jerry felt sick. Brenda was utterly dedicated to her task. All her short and strange life had been a preparation for her inherited mission. She was come to the cavern so that Satan’s priest could live again! Jerry watched the blade of the knife, mesmerised by its flashing menace.

The poodle yipped only feebly now, for it could sense the great and gathering miasma of evil above the canopy. The thing had a form that mocked the human shape. There was a broad, hairy face, with eyes of violent red coals; shoulders that sloped forward, and a vicious stench emanated from the Shape, foul and horrible! The sulphurous fumes from the terrifying Hand and the waves of foetid corruption from the gloating figure above made Jerry retch; bile flooded into his mouth, and he had to turn to spit it out. Something beneath him jabbed sharply into his side.

He felt cautiously beneath his body and dragged the obstruction out of his anorak pocket. The candles he had taken from the Mountain Rescue boxes. He pushed them away from him. As he did so, the green cadaver on the stone slab arched upwards.

“He comes!” screamed Brenda.

“Yes!” the girls screamed back, exhausted by joy and tremulous excitement.

“The Hour!” screamed Brenda, and Jerry saw that the long-dead, emaciated cadaver had moved!

He shuddered. His fingers clutched at something by the stalagmites that screened him: he gripped hard on the candles—candles?—he had pushed away. But they were made of cardboard. One small part of his mind considered the information supplied by his fingers; the rest was overwhelmed by a surge of great horror, for withered arms moved upwards.

Worse followed!

Lord Titus’ long skinny hands moved out to encompass the screaming miniature poodle.

Brenda abased herself at this sign of resurgent life and authority. The two schoolgirls released the unhappy white bitch to the dead man’s arms and followed Brenda to their knees. The sacrifice would be completed by the Magister!

Above, the vast Shape was almost formed. There was a thick torso, gnarled like a huge oak, and covered in greasy tufts of thick hair. The face was a straining mask of pure malicious delight; yellow fangs glimmered in the flaring sulphur flames; sharp, curved horns glinted awkwardly. The terrible apparition bent to inspect the offering below.

“Satanus!” whispered Brenda.

Lord Titus Brindley, clasping the whimpering form of Sukie to his gaunt chest, creaked to his feet. The withered, dry flesh shone with oil. And then Jerry saw the face, greenly glowing, greenly alive. There was an expression of intense hatred combined with flaring hope on the dried flesh. His eyes shone through the smoke, anticipating the sacrifice.

“Don’t!” Jerry implored as the green cadaver got to its feet.

He whispered the words from the journal: “Deliver this Thy servant from Unclean Spirits!” But would God act? Would a Sword of Fire appear?

“Save me from the Venomous Serpent,” Jerry said, as Brenda placed the kitchen knife on the altar and reached her ancestor’s reactivated body.

There was a dead silence in the cavern.

The skinny arms lifted Sukie high. The knife glittered on the altar.

There was a rush of indrawn breath near Jerry.

For a moment he thought that some angelic presence had manifested itself to confront the forces of evil. He jerked to look towards the cavern door. It was a woman.

“Sukie-darling!”

“Mrs. Raybould!” Jerry gasped.

Couldn’t she see what was happening! Didn’t she recognise her danger!

Mrs. Raybould appeared quite oblivious of the frightful scene before her. She stood just inside the cavern, peering into the smoke-filled interior with no hint that she saw what it contained.

Jerry heard a groan from the canopy, and with it the creaking of old, long-dead bones.

“Satanus!” rumbled the voice of Lord Titus Brindley.

“Sukie!” called Mrs. Raybould.

Then Jerry saw that she was fumbling in her apron pocket for her spectacles. The Hand flared in a last furious efflorescence before the tapers were consumed. Sukie heard Mrs. Raybould and yipped for her life.

“Sukie!” Mrs. Raybould yelled, spectacles on her long nose.

“Sukie-what’s-she-found-now!” she reproved.

Above the canopy, the vast goat’s head grinned. Brenda saw Mrs. Raybould, and a gleam of delight came into her eyes.

“Mrs. Raybould, they’ll sacrifice you!” Jerry roared.

Brenda and the girls heard.

They turned, just as Jerry’s hands tightened on the cardboard tubes.

What was he doing? He was hobbling towards the table, after Mrs. Raybould!

Brenda and the girls watched Mrs. Raybould walk, blinking, to the altar.

The frightful cadaver held Sukie high.

Then Brenda yelled: “Get her!”

The awesome corpse turned, with the poodle bitch yipping frantically in its dried, bony hands.

“Who are you?” Mrs. Raybould called. “That’s my Sukie!”

“The Sacrifice!” croaked the emaciated skull.

“Yes!” Brenda screamed.

“Yes!” the girls echoed, getting to their feet.

“No!” Jerry bawled.

“You shouldn’t be down here!” Mrs. Raybould reproved. “Sukie, get down!”

Sukie bit hard, wriggled and, summoning all her frail strength, launched her thin body on to the long table. The green cadaverous figure groaned once more, and Jerry could see a kind of life in its horrid, decayed eyes. But it was not intelligence, not yet! Only a fearsome elemental force was in that body. The ceremony would not be completely successful without a sacrifice. And here was poor, idiotic Mrs. Raybould offering herself to these malevolent creatures! Even as she reached for Sukie, the girls were around her, oiled bodies gleaming with young muscle!

Jerry paused. What in God’s name could he do?

“Burn them, Lord!” he whispered, but words, however comforting, were ineffective. He gripped on the cardboard tubes.

Ideas raced through his mind. Throw them? To what effect? He raised his hand and saw what he had picked out of the Mountain Rescue box,

Flares!

He could make his own Sword of Fire! Arthur Douglas had told him what to do!

In each hand he held a powerful flare, which could burn at a huge temperature and whose vast flames could be seen for miles! He had a weapon! Fire against Evil! Light against Darkness! The Flames of the Sword of Fire against the Venomous Serpent!

“Satanus!” groaned the voice of the black magician, a world of imploring hopelessness in its tone.

“Don’t touch her!” Jerry yelled. “Don’t or—”

He stopped.

Brenda stared, fire-dark eyes full of a great hatred; the vicious smile-snarl on her face was reflected on each one of the girls’ faces. They knew he could not harm them.

Then the cadaver was moving. It held out withered arms for the sacrifice. And it took the glittering knife from the altar.

“Get off to your beds!” Mrs. Raybould whimpered, struggling against disbelief. “It’s not nice down there!”

The cadaver took a step towards her. Jerry heard the clump of a heavy boot—Brindley’s club-foot—on the rock floor.

Then he acted, almost for the first time in his life, without conscious thought. What he intended—what he tried to do—was to save the woman. First he stooped and rubbed the end of each flare on the ground: immediately both powerful flares were alight, red wholesome light bursting from the cardboard tubes. Then he rushed at the terrible green corpse.

He was ten paces or so away, but it took him a second or two to get into a stumbling and painful run.

“Satanus!” bawled the corpse. There was a glimmer of understanding in the decayed eyes. Jerry held the flares out.

“No!” shrieked Brenda.

Overhead, a rumbling shook the cavern, and a stench of filth and detritus filled the air; the Hand of Glory guttered down. Jerry sensed that he was the mark for forces of evil too horrifying to dream of. Cold dankness hovered above him in a coiled mass.

The cadaver saw Jerry’s run. It staggered to meet him, face straining with the effort to clutch this new offering to its withered torso. The girls ran towards Jerry’s side of the table, crying out in a frenzy. They ignored Mrs. Raybould and her poodle. Brenda’s arms were raised high as she shrieked for help,

“King of Darkness!” she implored. “Come down to us!”

The cold clammy air almost stifled Jerry. He saw a cluster of dreadful slimy things, hovering near the green, creaking corpse. They fled as he waved a brilliant red flare high.

He was full of a great jubilation now. He had acted, and whatever the outcome he had conquered that weakness Debbie had despised so much. He had faced the Adversary!

Then he kicked against a chair leg, gasped with pain, and went down.

The cadaver loomed above him. High-pitched, well-educated voices yipped with pleasure. Brenda shouted a threat. Sukie howled in fright.

Jerry saw the club-foot. There was a short, mouldy shank, a twisted ankle, and a slimy contraption of leather and rusted iron about the foot.

He was sick to the soul, yet his new-found courage did not desert him. Somehow he had kept one flare in his right hand.

In agonizing pain, he lashed out with his good foot at the rotted and rusted contraption on the revived magician’s foot. Immediately it gave, and the cadaver keeled over.

Jerry pushed out his hand to ward off the collapsing corpse. Withered tissue jarred against his hand; and then the cadaver let out an appalling roar of anguish. Jerry saw why.

Stiff with terror, gulping air frantically, retching at the nearness of the long-dead body, Jerry understood the reason for the great booming roar from the black magician’s shrivelled throat.

The blazing flare was stuck in the two-centuries old flesh! The flames and gases ate into the withered flanks. The Sword of Fire had transfixed him!

“Satanus, help your servant!” the long-dead creature groaned.

But the flames had found the well-vaselined skin, and Lord Titus was a mass of blue and red flame!

Jerry rolled aside, clear of the table and its cold assemblage. The girls were watching helplessly as the ancient corpse staggered to its feet, covered in fire.

Brenda screamed with rage, seeking the assistance of the snarling beast above. But it was uninterested now!

“Come out, come out!” Mrs. Raybould shouted, as if oblivious of the eerie sight. “You should all be in your beds! It isn’t right!”

Jerry got to his feet in considerable pain.

“Magister!” screamed Brenda, but Lord Titus ignored her. Flame came from his white hair, from all over his body, even from his mouth. And behind him, burning its all-consuming way into the dried-up organs of his body, the bright red flame surged on.

“It’s over! You’ve failed!” Jerry shouted in triumph.

The girls fell back as he retrieved the other flare, which still burnt as fiercely as the one embedded in Lord Titus.

“Stop him!” yelled Brenda.

But Jerry Howard could not be stopped—would not be stopped.

He reached out to another of the Brindleys and fired a mop of brown hair, then he set light to a mouldy coat, then another, then another; clothing, dry flesh, ancient hair, all flamed up brightly.

“No!” screamed Brenda. She looked up. “Satanus, come down! Destroy the unbeliever!”

Jerry grinned at her. He could feel the heat of bright, wholesome, evil-destroying fire as it pushed aside the cold clammy things above. He kicked over the guttering Hand of Glory and grabbed the cauldron of still-liquid oil.

“Get back to bed!” he shouted to the girls. “She’s not your mistress now!”

“Don’t!” Brenda begged, as Jerry launched the oil over the table. It ran on to the laps of the burning Brindleys, intensifying the blaze.

“It’s the Devil’s birthday, isn’t it?” Jerry shouted. “You need candles at a birthday party!”

He was beside himself, intoxicated with relief from fear. He was in an insane delirium of joy, strength and arrogance.

Julie was the first to blink out of her hallucinated condition. She gasped as she saw the flames.

“Oh!” she screamed as she realised that she was naked.

The girls hid their breasts and ran.

Brenda stood in the cavern weeping at the sight of the mass incineration of her clan.

It took several minutes for Sam Raybould and Bill Ainsley to convince him that they should not join the Brindleys, for Jerry was become a pyromaniac. Twice he tried to set light to them.

At last Jerry calmed down and recognised the two men.

“We came back to see how you was getting on,” said Raybould.

“I’m all right!”

There was a satisfying crackling of flame as the canopy came down. Brenda was sobbing in Bill Ainsley’s comforting arms. The big red face of the lorry-driver cracked into a grin.

“All right now, Brenda. No harm done! There’s a thaw come outside—we can go early!”

Jerry’s exultation left him when he saw her terrible, fire-dark eyes. They were full of undying hatred. He shivered and dropped the shell of the flare. The girl was struggling to say something.

“Hush, now, Brenda!” ordered Bill. “You need your sleep, lass!”

Still the girl’s eyes were on Jerry. He wished that he had burned her too. She whispered at him:

“…He will avenge the Magister!”

“Well, what’s been going on here?” the cafe-owner demanded, realising that he was in no danger.

“Well,” said Jerry, conscious of the fearsome, hating eyes, “there was a bit of an accident.” Then as he left the cavern, his courage asserted itself once more. “Happy Birthday!” he shouted at the smouldering ruins and glowing long-dead bones. “Happy Bloody Birthday!”