Heathen/Nemesis

Eighty

Kill him.

Donna felt as if a tiny voice were whispering in her ear. She kept the automatic raised as Dashwood ran his hand over the cover of the Grimoire.

Blow the fucker’s brains out.

‘You killed my husband,’ she said quietly, the words sounding more like a statement than a question.

Dashwood shook his head.

‘It was none of our doing,’ he said. ‘He brought about his own death because of his betrayal.’

‘You murdered him.’

‘Is that what the police told you? That he was murdered?’

‘They said they were reasonably sure he wasn’t. That his death was an accident.’

‘Then why don’t you believe them?’ Dashwood asked, smiling thinly.

‘I don’t know what to believe any more,’ she said, keeping the gun trained on the other man. ‘All I know is his death is linked to that book.’ She nodded towards the thick volume.

‘Possibly. As I said to you, it is very important to us.’

‘And just who are you?’ she wanted to know.

‘Surely you must know by now. We are The Sons of Midnight.’ He spoke the words with reverence. ‘And always will be.’ Again that smile. ‘At least now we have our Grimoire back we can be safe again. Safe from men like your husband, who sought to expose us.’ He eyed Donna impassively. ‘Do you have any idea of the power this book contains? No, you couldn’t. Your mind isn’t capable of comprehending such power. The power of life. The power to give life.’

He looked down at the cover of the Grimoire and touched the crest lovingly. Even in the darkness Donna could see his eyes blazing with a ferocity that belied the appearance of the rest of his body.

‘Edward Chardell, the author of this book, believed that life was immortal. Not so much in time, as in essence. This book,’ again he held it up, ‘was published as Chardell was dying. It contains his theories and his researches. The sum total of knowledge he’d spent years accumulating. He says that life exists outside and independent of Creation, and independent of birth too.’

Donna looked puzzled.

‘He says that life can, and does, attach itself to inanimate as well as animate objects. Organic life can exist, can be made to exist, anywhere and within everything. Within the bricks and mortar of a house. Within a jewel.’ He smiled. ‘Within a car.’ He paused a moment. ‘Do you believe in ghosts, Mrs Ward?’

Donna shrugged.

‘As far as Chardell was concerned, a ghost was merely living consciousness without a body to house it. The body can function without consciousness, in a state of coma or sleep. Why should consciousness not function without a body? It becomes a separate entity, able to enter objects at will, or if guided. Guided by men like myself. I’m not saying I can bring the dead back to life; there are limits even to my abilities.’ He chuckled. ‘But I have studied the words within this book and I can bring life to what were otherwise lifeless objects.’

He pointed at the gun.

Donna felt something pulsing in her hand, as if she held a beating heart. The sensation was vile. As she looked down she saw the .45 moving slightly, the butt throbbing in her grip.

She did see it, didn’t she?

The barrel seemed to twist, snake-like, the muzzle opening up like a mouth, growing wider.

Donna dropped the weapon and stepped away from it.

The .45 lay at her feet.

She blinked hard and looked at it again.

‘No, you didn’t imagine it,’ Dashwood said. ‘The Church would call it a miracle.’ Both he and Parsons laughed aloud. ‘Fascinating, isn’t it?’ Dashwood said, smiling. ‘Your husband thought so, too. That was why he sought us out, why he wanted our knowledge.’

‘He was going to destroy you,’ Donna said. ‘He knew you needed the book to survive; that was why he took it from you.’

Dashwood raised his eyebrows questioningly.

‘He wanted knowledge. He wanted to learn and he would do anything in order to gain that knowledge. He threatened to expose us, yes, but in order to expose us he first had to join us. To learn about us. The best way to destroy is from within. Your husband knew that.’

Donna felt her heart beating more rapidly.

No, this couldn’t be.

‘He wanted what we had,’ Dashwood said. ‘He wanted to be one of us.’

‘No,’ Donna murmured, shaking her head.

‘How well did you know your husband, Mrs Ward?’

Donna was quivering.

‘How do you think he knew so much about us? Why should we consider him such a danger unless he could damage us?’

‘He took the Grimoire. That was why you wanted him dead,’ Donna said.

‘But how do you think he got close enough to take it in the first place?’

Donna shook her head.

‘What did he tell you?’ Dashwood asked. ‘Did he tell you he was one of us?’

Donna didn’t answer.

‘No. He didn’t, did he?’ Dashwood said, smiling.

‘He couldn’t have been,’ she shouted. ‘I know about you. I know about what you do. You kill.’

‘Some things are worth killing for,’ Dashwood told her. ‘Some knowledge has a high price.’

‘He wasn’t one of you,’ she said defiantly. ‘He wouldn’t have done the things he ...’

‘What things, Mrs Ward?’

‘The initiation rites. I read about them.’

‘What wouldn’t he have done?’ Dashwood chided.

‘He wouldn’t have killed . . .’ The sentence trailed off.

‘Killed a child?’ Dashwood smiled broadly. ‘He wouldn’t have killed a child, is that what you were going to say? He wouldn’t have fornicated in front of us, he wouldn’t have taken the life of a child, he wouldn’t have urinated on the cross. You think he wouldn’t have pissed on Christ.’ Dashwood bellowed the final words, the noise echoing around the chamber. ‘How well did you know your husband, you bitch? How well did you know him? Could you see into his mind? You ignorant, stupid bitch.’

Donna leapt forward, grabbing the .45.

She rolled over, aiming it at Dashwood, squeezing the trigger.

Nothing happened.

He merely stepped back, away from her through the exit.

As he did she saw him raise his hand, the index finger pointing at something behind her.

Donna kept squeezing the trigger until, finally, she hurled the automatic away with a wail of despair.

The door of the chamber was slammed shut. She and Julie were trapped.

They ran to the door but it was firmly closed, unyielding despite their frantic efforts to open it. Julie turned, sliding exhausted down the damp wood, her back to the door. Donna continued thumping at the recalcitrant partition.

‘Donna.’

Julie could scarcely force the word out. She grabbed her sister’s leg, waiting until she’d turned before pointing at something inside the chamber.

‘Oh, Jesus,’ Donna whispered.

Was this imagination? Or madness?

The wax figures in the tableau of Sharon Tate’s murder were moving frenziedly.

Rooted to the spot, their limbs jerked insanely, as if charged with some kind of kinetic energy. Arms and legs thrashed wildly.

Then the sounds began.

Screams of pain and terror rose from frozen throats and drummed in the ears of Donna and Julie.

Those who’d died that night in 1969 were dying again, their agony finding a new voice.

Donna watched, her eyes bulging in their sockets, her throat constricted.

Julie too found that she was paralysed by the sight.

Only when the figure of Charles Manson turned and looked at her did she finally allow her own scream to escape. It mingled with the others in a hideous cacophony of suffering.

The figure took a step towards them.