Last Rites (31 page)

‘Sacrifice?’ Mason gasped.

‘I couldn’t think of a better word,’ Holmes said, almost apologetically. ‘Sacrifice. Offering. Gift, if you will. It all amounts to the same thing.You’re our gift and in return we will receive something we all need. Something we all cherish.’

‘Gift to who?’ Mason demanded. ‘Who’s going to give you what you all fucking want so badly?’

‘We don’t really have a name for it,’ Nigel Grant interjected. ‘We never have.’

‘Someone once called it a guardian,’ Kate Wheeler told him. ‘That seemed quite a good name.’

Mason shook his head again.

‘All those stories about Abbot Bartholomew and his treasure that you heard,’ Holmes cut in. ‘They were true. He and his colleagues were given a secret. A treasure. But it wasn’t the kind of treasure that can be counted. Not gold or silver. It was something more powerful than that. It was a power that could reverse what had gone before. Change things that had happened. It could heal. It could restore. It could even give life back to those who no longer had it. As long as the offering was made. Life is all about desire, whether it’s for money, fame, health or love but the need for sex is the greatest and most potent of all. The lust for lust if you like. That’s what Bartholomew and his associates knew and that’s what we’ve come to learn. The stronger the desire, the easier someone is to control.’

‘You’re fucking mad,’ Mason said, dismissively. ‘All of you.’

‘That may be but we have our beliefs and we stick to them,’ Holmes told him.

‘And what about the kids in Walston who killed themselves? ’ Mason grunted. ‘Were they offerings too?’

‘That was Latham’s doing,’ Kate Wheeler told him.‘He knew about the guardian. He knew that those with the strongest desires could be controlled most easily and he abused that knowledge. He took lives for his amusement. He didn’t give them as offerings. He manipulated those kids.Twisted their minds with their own desire until they killed themselves.’

‘So you killed Latham because he betrayed your little cult?’ Mason snapped.

‘He was an initiate who exceeded his position,’ Grant offered. ‘He had no right to do what he did. He had to be punished. The guardian punished him.’

‘There was no other way,’ Holmes insisted.‘Who knows what goes through the mind of a teenager? He wanted too much power too quickly. He couldn’t handle it. He showed no respect. So we brought him down here and he paid the price for his insolence.’

‘They say youth is wasted on the young,’ Grant chuckled. ‘So are certain kinds of knowledge.’

‘And you believe you can control this thing, whatever it is?’ Mason snorted, the bravado in his voice fading.

‘No, no one can control it.We worship it,’ Kate Wheeler added. ‘We give it what it needs so it repays us with the things we crave the most.’

‘At the beginning we thought that simply causing an affront to God was enough. Desecrating churches, killing animals and things like that. Then we came to understand it more and realised that lives were required.Animals were tried,’ Holmes added, wearily. ‘Horses, dogs, sheep, cats. But they’re not enough. They’re sufficient if one only wants to be free of a disease or an impediment but they’re not powerful enough offerings to allow the restoration of life. Only the offering of a man satisfies the cravings of the guardian fully. And once given, we are repaid.’

‘And how many people have you murdered in the name of this thing?’ Mason snapped.

‘We haven’t killed anyone,’ Holmes reminded him.

‘What about Usher?’ Mason demanded.

‘We offered him,’ Kate explained. ‘But he was ill. Cancer. The guardian wouldn’t accept the offering. It won’t accept anything impure. We left him down here.’

‘He died down here,’ Richard Holmes added.

Mason could feel his body shaking uncontrollably now and he didn’t care if the others could see his fear.

‘Please let me go,’ he said, his voice cracking.

‘No,’ exclaimed Kate Wheeler without a shred of emotion in her voice. ‘It’s almost over now, Peter, and we can’t go back. Not now. We’ve all got too much to gain. Next time it may be my turn and an offering will restore my father’s health but it isn’t my turn. Not this time.’ She stroked his head gently, the tone of the voice softening.

‘So whose fucking turn is it this time?’ Mason rasped.

‘What would you want, Peter? If you had the chance to change anything that had happened in your life what would it be?’ Kate purred.

‘I’d want to see my daughter again. I’d want her back. Alive,’ Mason breathed.

‘Then your death will be worthwhile, Peter.’

Mason heard the new voice and he twisted around madly to locate its source.

It came from behind his head and he couldn’t twist his neck enough to see who spoke the words although he recognised the voice immediately.

‘I waited. Now the waiting is over and what I’ve wanted so badly will come to pass. She’ll live again,’ said the voice. ‘Chloe will live again.’

The figure stepped into view, standing between Kate Wheeler and Richard Holmes, looking down at him with a beatific smile.

Natalie Mason reached out and gently touched his cheek.

82

He couldn’t speak.

Mason looked incredulously up at his wife but the words he wanted to say simply wouldn’t force their way past his lips.

‘She’ll live again because of you,’ Natalie announced. ‘Your life for hers. Wouldn’t you have given that before? Why not now?’

‘You knew about this from the beginning?’ Mason gasped. ‘You knew everything?’

‘I knew about the cult,’ Natalie informed him. ‘I’d been searching for some way to get over the pain of Chloe’s death. I found out about them. I spoke to them and they explained the situation and the possibilities. I had to believe them, Peter. My belief was all I had. I waited my turn and now my time has come.’

‘Oh, Jesus, Natalie,’ he said, imploringly. ‘Think about what’s happening here.This is bullshit.They’re all fucking crazy. Chloe is dead and nothing can bring her back. Certainly not this.’

‘I have to believe them, Peter,’ his wife crooned, still stroking his face gently. ‘They’re all I have now.’

Kate Wheeler put a comforting arm around Natalie’s shoulder and guided her away from the table where Mason was held. He writhed frantically against the ropes that restrained him.

‘It’s time,’ Richard Holmes told him. ‘We have to go.’ Nigel Grant nodded affably in Mason’s direction as he left. Richard Holmes stood looking down at Mason, his face expressionless.

‘Please,’ Mason croaked. ‘Let me go.’

‘It’s too late now, Peter,’ Holmes told him.

‘And what if it doesn’t accept me?’ Mason said, defiantly. ‘What if this thing comes looking for you or Kate or Grant or any of the rest of you?’

‘It won’t.’

‘How can you be sure?’

Holmes took a step back.

‘It won’t,’ he repeated then he turned and walked briskly away.

Mason was alone in the chamber.

He strained madly against the ropes, not caring that the hemp cut into the flesh of his wrists and ankles. He continued like that for fully thirty seconds then he simply slumped back onto the table, his heart hammering, his breath rasping in his throat.

He lay there motionless for another moment or two then tried again but still the ropes didn’t slacken.

Mason wondered if there was any way he could turn the table over. Perhaps, if he could flip the heavy piece of furniture somehow he could get out. But how to do that? He began rocking back and forth with increasing violence. The table didn’t budge. It was far too heavy. He had no other ideas. He was clueless. There seemed no way out.

Mason lay still, sucking in the dank air, his head spinning.

Then he heard the sound.

Far away to begin with. It was the noise he’d heard in the tunnels earlier. The wet bellows wheezing. And it was growing closer.

Mason tried again to free himself.

Come on. Think. There has to be a way off this table. A way to slip these bonds.

The wheezing was much closer and it was accompanied by a loud sucking sound. A sound like something very large slithering over damp earth. The rank odour he’d come to know so well was also more intense.

‘Please help me,’ he whispered, not knowing who the words were directed at. Perhaps at God. It seemed that no one else could help now.

Mason twisted his wrists frantically, not caring when the flesh there split and blood oozed over the table. He kept straining, desperate to free himself.

And all the while, the vile sucking sound filled his ears. The stench clogged his nostrils.

He tried to tell himself that this wasn’t happening. That it was a trick of his mind. Some monstrous dream that he’d wake from any second.

It couldn’t be real.

It couldn’t.

‘Help me,’ he said, aloud, his voice echoing inside the chamber.

The noise was very close now. Whatever was making it was in the chamber with him.

‘Help,’ he shouted. ‘Please help me.’

There was desperation in the words.

The stench was so strong by now that he almost retched. Whatever was with him must be only feet away but he couldn’t turn his head to see it.

It was just as well.

83

It was getting cold.

The wind that had been growing in strength all afternoon was now blowing strongly across the beach. It brought with it the scent of the sea and also the threat of rain. Dark clouds were gathering far out above the steel-grey water and a small boat was making its way back to shore before things got too rough.

Natalie Mason looked up and saw seagulls dipping and diving against the increasingly turbulent backdrop. She shivered as the breeze whipped around her then she took a final sip of her tea, got to her feet and walked towards the sea wall.

The tide was a long way out and there was nothing but sand six or seven feet below.

Somewhere out by the water’s edge she could hear a dog barking. As she looked more closely, she could see two children throwing a stick for the animal to chase. It scurried happily back and forth between them, each child petting it as it reached them. Natalie smiled and continued along the seafront, pausing to brush some strands of hair from her face.

The beach was more or less deserted except for the children down by the water and a couple who were walking arm in arm over the sand. Natalie liked it like that. When it was quiet. She had more time to think and she appreciated the stillness. Only the far-off crashing of the waves on the beach broke the solitude.

She headed for the jetty that stuck out into the sea like an accusatory finger, the water lapping around the rusted metal struts that held the structure up.

There was a single figure on the end of the wooden promontory and Natalie walked towards it.

When she got ten yards away she called once but the figure didn’t turn. It was peering out to sea, towards the growing banks of dark cloud and the diving seagulls and the little boat.

Natalie moved nearer, her feet tapping out a tattoo on the wood of the jetty as she walked towards the figure ahead of her.

The figure didn’t turn. It seemed more interested in the seagull that had landed on the parapet of the jetty and was sitting there motionless.

Natalie saw the figure extend a hand towards the bird as if to welcome it and the gull left its temporary perch and dropped down close to the figure.

Natalie hesitated, slowing her pace as the figure moved towards the gull. The bird seemed unconcerned and merely let out a squawk. The figure knelt close as if inspecting it.

The speed of the movement was incredible.The figure grabbed the gull by the neck in one hand and stood up instantly. The gull flapped its powerful wings once but the reflex was stopped as its head was torn away by the figure’s other hand. The body jerked involuntarily, the wings flapping again as the bird’s body was tossed away over the parapet of the jetty into the dark water below.

Natalie stood motionless, watching as the figure looked at the ripped-off head of the gull, holding it for a second longer before hurling it into the water in the same direction as the body.

Natalie closed her eyes briefly then sucked in a deep breath that was tinged with the taste of the sea.

At last the figure turned, nodded, then scampered back towards her.

Natalie scooped the figure up into her arms, smiling broadly as she felt the embrace returned so warmly.

‘Come on,’ Natalie beamed. ‘Let’s get home before the rain starts.’

She looked at the figure’s hands and saw that there was some blood on them. Natalie reached into her coat pocket, pulled out a tissue and wiped the crimson fluid away, stuffing the rag back into her pocket.

Chloe Mason smiled back at her, reaching for her hand as they walked back down the jetty.

They were still halfway along it when they felt the first spots of rain. Laughing, they began to run, wanting to reach shelter and escape what threatened to be a downpour.

Natalie pulled the bloodied tissue from her pocket and tossed it into a waste bin as she passed.

This wasn’t the first incident of the kind she’d just witnessed. There’d been a dog, a rabbit and several other birds. She didn’t know why. She didn’t want to know.

It was, she told herself, a small price to pay for having Chloe with her again.

The rain fell more heavily now, large cold droplets hammering down from the threatening clouds but to Natalie and her daughter it didn’t really seem to matter.

‘I shall but love thee better after death.’

Elizabeth Barrett Browning