Deliver us from Evil (17 page)

'Greater than you, or any man.'

'How?'

'
I
am a compound of impossible things.
I
am alive and dead; spirit and clay.
I
own the secrets of the grave - and of ageless immortality.'

Robert struggled to keep his expression perfectly blank. 'You are a demon, then?' he asked. 'A spirit from Hell?'

Faustus shrugged. 'Men might think so, for we prey upon their blood.'

'We? There are many of you?'

Faustus shrugged again. 'More than the common run can know.' 'And Sir Charles? Your
friend.
Is he a demon too?' 'Why do you ask?'

'
I
saw him once. He was very pale, like you.'

Faustus laughed, and gazed towards the stones. 'You did not see Sir Charles,' he whispered. 'His outward form, perhaps - a shell - but nothing more. Sir Charles was a fool. A man who sold his soul - and discovered he had sold his flesh and blood as well. For he desired to be a vessel for the coming of the Most High - and his wish was duly granted - a vessel he became.'

Robert shook his head. 'No,' he whispered. 'What do you mean?'

Faustus glanced back round. His eyes gleamed brighter than they had ever been; and his skin seemed lit by some inner Fire. 'The Great One,' he cried suddenly. 'He will soon be here! Oh, Robert!' He gripped the boy tightly. 'How hard have
I
worked, and into what depths of learning and necromancy plunged, to discover the rituals that will summon Him here! And with what success have my efforts been crowned! Come!' He wheeled his horse round. 'Come and behold Him - the master of us all!'

'Who?' Robert screamed. 'Who are you talking about?'

Faustus widened his eyes. 'What?' he asked. 'Can you truly not guess?' He laughed at the fear he could see in Robert's face; then spurred his horse forward. At his approach, the dead paraded their arms. Staring into their faces, Robert recognised some as his father's men. One was Sergeant Everard; Robert called out to him, but not a trace of intelligence crossed the soldier's face. Then they were past him, and under the shadow of the giant stones themselves. Faustus reined in his horse. He sat still for a moment; then climbed down from his saddle. He lifted Robert and stood him, still bound, upon the grass. 'Follow me,' he ordered. He led the way into the centre of the ring.

A body was hanging from a lintel of the stones. It was framed by the moon and its naked flesh could be made out quite clearly, for it was cast silver by the light. Robert could see how it had been pierced through its ankles by a hook, and then he saw a drop of something falling from the head, and he heard a soft splash, and he understood why the body appeared so perfectly white, for it was being drained of all its blood. It swayed gently; and then, with a creaking of rope, it swung round in the breeze. For the first time, Robert was able to see the corpse's face. He tried to scream; he could not; no sound would come out. He tried to run; his limbs seemed made of lead. He could do nothing but stare into his father's face. And then at last it came: a shriek of horror, and loss, and disbelieving grief.

Faustus twisted his fingers through Robert's hair and dragged his head back violently, then placed a hand to cut off his scream. All was silent again, save for the creaking of the rope in the breeze. There was another drop of blood from the nose; another splash. Suddenly, Robert jerked himself free. He ran forward, stumbling across the centre of the ring, and shrieked out his father's name. Then he froze. Something was moving ahead of him. Something was stirring, and rising from the ground. It was the figure of a man: naked, drenched in blood; standing beneath his father, staring at the moon. Slowly, the figure turned. Robert stared into the face. He knew it at once; he had seen it before - beneath a black cowl, and in the painting that had hung in Wolverton Hall. But then Robert started. He stared into the man's eyes: he found himself shaking uncontrollably; and he sank to the ground. It was no man before him; nor anything, it seemed, that had ever been a man. Robert could not bear to look at those eyes again; and yet he did, as though drawn. He stared, and at once felt a damp warmth spreading from his groin.

'Feel no shame,' whispered Faustus in his ear, 'for it is right you feel such fear. You can see Him there, then - you can see Him through the outer shell of human clay?'

Robert cowered, bowed his head - anything to escape the void behind the eyes. '
I
...
no . . . ' He swallowed. 'What is it?' he cried.

Faustus spread out his arms. 'He has many names. Some of them you doubtless learned at your mother's knee. But He is older than them all. To those who grovel in a synagogue or church, He is the very Principle of Evil; but to those who dare, He is Eternal Knowledge, the Fountainhead of Truth. When Eve was in Eden, do you think, was she wrong to steal fruit from the forbidden tree? For the serpent did not lie. Eve ate the apple; and as she had been promised, won wisdom from its taste.'

'Yes,' whispered Robert. He stared up at his father. 'As she also won death.'

But Faustus had not heard him - he was stepping forward, then falling to his knees, bowing in worship at the naked man's feet. He began to chant in a strange language, and stood again, reaching feverishly for the arms of Captain Foxe, tugging hard on them, as he continued to chant. With a ripping of tendons, the corpse was pulled down from its hook. "Three baths there have been,' said Faustus, speaking now in Latin. 'Now receive the fourth. Emerge restored from it. No more a thing of clay!' He shuddered with exaltation and, with his bare hands, ripped apart the stomach of the corpse. He scooped out an armful of guts; and as though they were soap, began to rub them across the naked man's skin. Robert could bear no more. He looked about him for the nearest stone. He struggled to his feet and crossed towards it, determined to have no more of such an existence, to join his parents, to smash out his brains.

He paused by the stone, tensing himself. As he lifted his head back, ready to bring it down, a terrible howling filled his ears. It rose and fell, and Robert froze at once, for it seemed to pierce into his very soul and flay him apart. For a moment, he had thought it was his own scream he heard; for it had seemed to resonate with a pain that could only have been his. But then the howling rose and fell again; and this time, turning round, Robert knew that he was listening to no human sound.

Had Satan, he wondered, made such a cry, when he woke for the first time amidst the fiery wastes of Hell and, looking about him, understood how great had been his fall? Was it really possible, Robert asked himself, was it really true that he was staring at the form of the Evil One? His father had always taught him that Hell existed only within the soul, and the Devil likewise; but his father was dead now; perhaps he had been wrong? For
something
was standing there, lit by the moon, some terrible spirit of great and monstrous power. It howled again; and to Robert, listening, all the world seemed bleached with desolation and pain.

The howling fell away; but the figure still writhed, as though enveloped by the flames of an invisible fire. The gore that had been smeared across his skin appeared to be bubbling and melting into his flesh. The figure ripped at it; and Robert saw how the very limbs had turned viscous, as though there were nothing on the bones but a soup of blood and meat. It was flooding away now, spilling across the grass; still the figure wiped at it, smoothing his fingers across his body and limbs until, below the filth, Robert saw a whiteness as blinding as snow, and he realised it was not bone at all but naked flesh. The figure bent back his head and howled, as though to summon down the stars. Then he ran his fingers across his face, and the features of Sir Charles

Wolverton were forever obliterated, wiped away into a mess of gore; and though the eyes remained the same, there was a new face framing their measureless stare, emerging from beneath the shell of Sir Charles.

This new face seemed strangely and terribly deformed. Its nostrils were flared and its lips puckered, but otherwise the face seemed impossibly thin, as though its stare, like some glacier, had worn the cheekbones right away. And yet it was not in any physical deformity that the terror of the face existed, but rather in what it appeared to conceal: that measureless power upon which the eyes alone opened a window. Robert did not dare to meet their stare again; for he feared that, if he did, it would incinerate his soul.

A sound like a gust of wind swept through the stones. It was the creature's sigh. Even Faustus shuddered, and drew his cloak about him, as though the sound had chilled his bones. 'Welcome!' he cried. 'O Lord and Master, O source of all knowledge, of wisdom, of truth -welcome to this home, which
I
have prepared for You! Welcome.' He laughed, he kissed the figure upon his cheeks, he held him in his arms.

He was answered by silence. The long grass ceased to murmur; the distant bleating of sheep could no longer be heard on the breeze. All was still. And then suddenly Faustus shrieked.

'No,' he cried, 'no!' He tried to stagger back, but he could not escape. The figure seized him by the hair and, forcing back his head, kissed him, not on the cheeks but on the mouth; when he pulled his lips away, they were glistening and red. He licked them; then bent back Faustus' head once again, and bit into his throat. Robert, as he cowered behind a stone, could hear the puncturing of the skin, and then a snapping of bone; he peered round, and saw how Faustus' head was twisted half-way round. For a long time, the figure sucked on the wound; then he dropped his prey. Like a dried insect with broken wings, Faustus crawled across the grass. His flesh had been withered to the bone; as he twitched vainly, his limbs seemed to rustle and his head, as it lolled from the broken spine, to creak. 'But . . . no
..
. ' he whispered. '
I
am immortal
..
. ' He frowned. 'This cannot be
...
'

His eyes grew wide with the shock of his own death. His neck cracked. His skull hit the ground; it crumbled into dust. A wind began to blow, and the ashes of the corpse were blown across Stonehenge. Robert felt them against his face; they were very fine, and scratched his skin. He wiped them away, and saw how all the circle seemed engulfed by a storm, as eddies of dust were blown about the stones, so that the light of the stars and the moon was blotted out. Through the haze, and beyond the stones, Robert could just make out the Plain. It was empty: where the circle of the dead had been, there was nothing but a storm of burning ash. He rubbed his eyes and screwed them shut. He fell to his knees; then buried his face in the coolness of the grass.

When he at last stared up again, the dust was gone. The stars blazed brightly in the heavens; the shadows were cool and lined with silver. From across the open miles, a church bell rang.

He turned round.

The eyes were gazing down on him.

Robert wondered if he could run, but he was drawn into their stare. At once, he was lost: he could feel himself sinking, as the darkness grew cold and eternal all about him. But then the eyes closed, and the face grew twisted. The figure bent forward, as though doubled up with pain. He clutched at his stomach. For the first time, Robert realised that the body was as deformed as the face. The arms and legs were both unnaturally thin, but the hips were like a woman's, and the belly was swollen as though pregnant with a child. Again, the figure clutched at it and bent forward with pain. He knelt; then reached for Robert's arms. The fingers were so cold that they might have been ice. They gripped implacably; and as they did so, Robert felt his arms growing numb. He hoped, when he was fed upon, that his death would be quicker than Faustus' had been.

He stared into the terrible whiteness of the face. For a moment, a shadow appeared to flicker across it; and Robert imagined he saw self-loathing there, and horror, and regret. But he did not really know: for so rapidly did the shadow pass that Robert could not be certain it had been there at all. He searched the face for some sign of pity - but in vain. It was twisted again with agony; and in the eyes, the blankness remained.

The creature's swollen stomach seemed to pulse, as though some force within it were trying to escape. He doubled up again; and Robert found himself suddenly being knocked round. He felt his legs being parted; and then he was being lifted by his thighs. Something hard brushed against them; Robert tried to close his legs, but they were only pushed even further apart, and suddenly he screamed, for he was being impaled, and the stake was growing longer and thicker all the time.
Up and down, it thrust; up and
down; and Robert felt the world start to swim before his eyes, pulsing and contracting to the rhythm of his pain, quickening and melting, and beginning to dissolve. He blinked and looked again; but still the world was fading. Darkness was seeping in from the margins; darkness was flooding everything. Suddenly, deep within him, Robert felt a spurt of liquid ice; and at the same moment, the world was gone at last, and all was black.

'In what fantastic new world have
I
been,