‘Forget about the Watcher,’ I call out to Armand. I reach into the chest, wrap the remaining six daggers in the silk cloth and place them hastily in the leather bag slung over my shoulder. ‘We came for the daggers and we have them. Now it’s time for us to get out of here – fast! The Watcher is trying to raise the dead. And we’re in a crypt. Who knows how many bodies are buried in here?’

‘What?’ Armand says, suddenly aware of the imminent danger we face, and looks fearfully at the floor of the crypt, as if expecting an army of undead to clamber out of the ground in answer to the Watcher’s dark summons.

I skirt past the Watcher and, grabbing Armand and the closest monk, start to herd them towards the stairwell leading out of the crypt. ‘Just trust me on this one. We need to get out of here. Right now!’

Just as we reach the stairwell, Armand stops and looks back at the Watcher. Drawing his pre-loaded pistol from his belt, he cocks back the firing pin and takes aim at the skull talisman with which the Watcher is trying to raise the dead.

‘I can’t kill the Watcher with this shot,’ he says, steadying his pistol. ‘But I’m sure going to try to stop it from raising an army of undead warriors.’

Blam! The report of his eighteen-inch pistol barrel in the confined space of the crypt is enough to rupture your eardrums. In less than three heartbeats the pistol-smoke starts to clear, revealing the skull’s shattered bone fragments lying on the stone floor.

I call out triumphantly, believing that Armand has foiled the Watcher’s diabolical spell. But then I notice the sadistic sneer on the Watcher’s face – a sneer so malicious it could burn down the Vatican.

Armand was too late. The Watcher had already finished its incantation.

And the dead start to rise.

The six slain monks on the crypt floor are the first to answer the Watcher’s unholy summons. Their bodies convulse, infused with the diabolical breath of black magic. One by one, they clamber to their feet and set their death-glazed eyes upon us. As if things couldn’t get any worse, there’s a haunting, grinding sound as the stone lids atop the three tombs inside the crypt are pushed aside by each ancient corpse stirring within!

The corpse in the tomb closest to the stairwell is the first to push aside its lid. First a skeletal hand appears, cloaked in dust, and then the tattered remains of a threadbare burial shroud. Another hand appears, followed by a skull crowned with wisps of silver hair and tatters of rotting flesh hanging from its cheekbones like strips of aged leather.

Armand crosses himself. ‘Holy Mary! We’ve got a problem. Best if we got off this rock as fast as we can.’

‘You don’t need to tell me that,’ I say, every inch of my body trembling as I make my way into the stairwell, taking the steps five at a time.

And so our flight from the monastery begins – a desperate, panicked flight. Pushing and shoving one another, we tear up the stairs, driven by the tortured moans of the corpses that are lumbering after us, and by the screams of the remaining monks as they are cut to shreds, I can only imagine, by the Watcher.

Emerging from the stairwell, we race through the church, spurred forward by the sounds of pursuit reverberating from below, the slim hope of surviving this nightmare increasing with each passing second. But we find our escape blocked by the three monks that had previously lain dead in the church entrance. They have now clambered to their feet, animated by the Watcher’s magic, and they set the death-white orbs of their eyes upon us the instant we enter the nave.

But it’s what I notice through the church doorway that makes my eyes widen in pure terror. For the twenty monks who had sacrificed their lives to delay the fallen angel from entering the church have also answered the Watcher’s call. The courtyard is swarming with the undead, and they lurch towards the church doors, determined to block our sole means of escape.

‘We don’t stand a chance!’ I breathe, coming to an abrupt halt behind the monk who accompanied us out of the crypt. I’m transfixed by the horrific sight in the courtyard. ‘We can’t fight our way through them. There are too many!’

‘Now is not the time to give up. As long as we have the strength to wield steel, there is still hope,’ Armand snarls. ‘We must first seal those doors.’

He then races forward to engage the three undead monks, who have started to move up the nave. His blades a whirring blur of death, he slices through the animated dead in a matter of seconds. Even before the last of the monks has fallen to the ground, Armand grabs a heavy iron candelabrum, dashes over to the doors, slams them shut, and – just as the undead in the courtyard reach the outside of the church – wedges the candelabrum through the door handles, sealing the church entrance.

Not a second later, heavy thuds are rained upon the doors, which vibrate under the weight of the assault, but they hold firm.

‘Jakob – you need to hold this section.’ Armand directs me to brace my back against the doors. ‘Let nothing get through. And hand me one of those holy daggers.’ Tucking the dagger I hand him into his belt, he looks back at the monk who raced out of the stairwell with us. ‘You – what’s your name?’

‘Brother . . . Brother Nikolaos,’ the monk stammers in stilted German, his throat so constricted by fear that he can barely speak.

‘Nikolaos, listen carefully. Jakob is going to hold the doors, and I’m going to take care of whatever emerges from the crypt. But we won’t be able to hold them off forever. That’s why I need you to find us a way out of here. You know the layout of the monastery better than we do. You have to find us a way out of this church and then off this rock. Do you understand?’

‘Yes . . . yes.’

Armand crosses over to the monk and places a hand on his shoulder. ‘Good. Then get started. And try to remain calm. Remember that we are in our Lord’s holy temple. He watches over our every step whilst we are in His church.’

The conviction in Armand’s words, and his careful reference to the holy ground upon which we stand, seem to comfort and reassure the monk. Brother Nikolaos exhales heavily and his eyes flash with purpose. He then cranes his head around the church, thinking of a possible solution to our predicament.

Armand, meanwhile, flexes his shoulders in preparation for combat and hastens over to the entrance to the crypt stairwell. His features set in a grim mask of determination, he kisses his blades and readies himself to face the oncoming horde of undead.