Adam Cohen strolled up to the large villa where Heinrich Himmler was being interrogated. Inside the main outer doors stood two guards; one, a young man with a square-set jaw, asked for his Identity Card. Cohen flashed the pass he had taken from the body of Doctor Carstairs. The guard looked at the photograph then at Cohen; a puzzled look crossed his face until Cohen stared into his eyes. The young soldier then just nodded him on.
Inside, the villa was in uproar, people were running back and forward between a front room and the kitchen at the back of the hall.
“What’s happening?” Cohen asked an officer.
“Ah doctor. Where’s Carstairs?”
“Called away I’m afraid.”
“Never mind; it’s Himmler, he’s taken cyanide. We couldn’t find it in his mouth.”
Cohen rushed into the front room and saw a naked Heinrich Himmler roll around on the bare floor boards moaning through gritted teeth.
“Everyone out,” shouted Cohen.
An officer looked at him quizzically. “But doctor…”
“Everyone!” Cohen said, as he pushed the officer and two soldiers out of the room.
He closed the door and went over to where Himmler was lying– amid plush red velvet lined furniture.
“My Lord,” said Himmler, before going into a fit of coughing. “I never expected to see you again; but I know why you’re here, and you’re too late–my soul will go to lie with my SS comrades in the Totenkopf Rings.” He rolled over coughing while holding his stomach. Then he rolled back again and his head dropped to the floor. Unconsciousness had claimed him as Cohen approached and lifted his head.
“That’s your choice Heinrich. Where are these Totenkopf Rings?”
Himmler’s eyes fluttered open then closed. “They’re safe in the ‘Realm of the Dead’,” he said breathlessly, before he passed away.
Cohen knocked on the door.
“He’s gone I’m afraid,” he said as he pushed through the waiting throng.
During the ensuing melee he slipped out of the house and nodded to the young soldier still in a trance.
On the way back to the car he tried to piece it all together. These Totenkopf Rings were given to SS personnel for bravery and commitment to the cause, he thought. The souls must pass into the rings when they’re killed or die–bizarre, but possible. The rings are material objects so they can’t pass into another dimension, he reasoned. So where was the Realm of the Dead?
Cohen drove into the centre of Luneburg and parked by Market Place, dominated by the white Town House. He wandered through the streets of tall red- brick buildings to the Ilmenau River; his mind millennia away wondering what to do next. He came out of his reverie with the sound of laughter. Off duty British service personnel filled a river-side bar. Cohen went in and bought a beer then sat at a table by the window. His reverie started again as he watched the river flow. On the other bank an old wooden crane stood gazing at the river. A conversation between two soldiers, who sat at the next table, interrupted his thoughts.
“I tell you Sid that place looked spooky from the outside. God knows what went on inside before they tried to blow it up,” said a tall, thin man with cropped red hair.
“That Himmler was a right bastard. They say he was murdering people and putting the bodies under the floor boards or something,” said a corporal with dark, brown hair and pock marked skin.
“Excuse me lads,” interrupted Cohen. “I couldn’t help over-hearing. Is that Wewelsburg you’re talking about?”
“Yeah. Not the sort of place you’d want to visit. Pity they didn’t blow the whole place up,”
replied the soldier with red hair.
“How much did they destroy?” Cohen asked.
“Not much, a little fire damage to the inside of the North Tower. Those SS bastards didn’t have enough explosives to do a proper job before the Yanks got there.” The Corporal paused and took a sip of his beer. “The room with the marble mosaic thingy-they called it the ‘Black Sun’-was still almost intact when I was there. I didn’t get to see Himmler's Crypt with it being sealed off and all.
A Yank told me that the ashes of the SS big wigs were there.”
“Was there another name for the crypt?” Cohen asked.
“No, although shithouse would be a good one,” said the soldier laughing I wonder if the SS called it the Realm of the Dead? Cohen thought. “Well, I must get back. See you again," he said before supping the last of his drink.
The castle sat on a wooded hill above the small town of Wewelsburg in West Phalia. Cohen could see the towers rise above the trees on his approach. He had driven for three hours stopping only to refuel.
He parked his car around the back of an old farmhouse on the outskirts of the town and walked along the main road toward the drive up to the castle. The British Army had pulled out of the area, and any locals that were about simply ignored another stranger; after all they had been through Nazism, then liberation by American troops and, British occupation.
Cohen walked across the triangular courtyard of the castle then forced open the barred outer doors of the North Tower and walked into the damaged Obergruppenfuhrersaal. He stopped and gazed at the Black Sun set in the marble floor before heading out and descending the stairs to the crypt where he switched on the flashlight he brought. The concrete steps ended at a sealed metal door which had a bronze skull and crossbones in the centre. As Cohen approached, it shook until the heavy door opened.
Beams of pale light which shone through the windows high up the circular wall pierced the darkness and fell on the floor Cohen walked upon. The crypt had a concrete domed ceiling which he explored with the torch light. A wry smile crossed his face as the beam came to rest on a big concrete swastika in the centre. As he brought the beam down he noticed arranged around the periphery of the room twelve stone pedestals, which ringed a circular piece that resembled a pool.
Cohen shone the torch around the walls searching for a clue as to where the Totenkopf Rings were, but there wasn’t much else in the room. It had to be something to do with the pedestals, he thought. He shone the torch on each pedestal, but nothing seemed to stand out; he was about to give up when he noticed one structure wasn’t as dusty as the others. Cohen tried to push it, but it proved too heavy. Concentrating his mental energy; the pedestal swiveled out on a pivotal point to reveal a polished wooden box sitting in a recess.
Cohen lifted the large mahogany box out of its niche and set it down on the floor. He then released the catches and opened the lid. Inside, the box contained three compartments. There were two brass hooks on either side holding the front of the box. He released the small hooks, and the front swung down revealing twelve small drawers – four in each compartment. He pulled out one drawer by its gold handle and, two neat rows of rings stared up at him. Cohen picked up a ring at random and rolled it around his fingers. He closed his eyes and could feel the soul of the dead SS
man. But this person wanted to be left alone–something Cohen had no intention of doing. He swiveled the other eleven pedestals and lifted out the underlying boxes. He then took out all the drawers and arranged them in lines across the floor. With the pale window light reflecting off ten thousand rings Cohen shut his eyes and began a mantra. After a few minutes he opened his eyes and said: “You will follow me.”
For a moment nothing happened, and then he felt a great warmth flow through his limbs into the centre of his body. He cried out in ecstasy as ten thousand phantoms caressed his mind. Then a great wave of energy surged through his being–energy so raw he felt his soul being ripped out.
When he regained his faculties, he shouted: “Nobody will stand in my way now – now I have such power!”
He put the drawers with the rings in back in the boxes and then the boxes back under the pedestals.
Cohen left the crypt, left the castle and then left Wewelsburg–on to rule the Dark World.
The sense of helplessness in Matthew increased the closer Grondin got to the motionless pair.
Desperation seeped through his mind. He had to do something. But what? The air was filled with the sound of the piano intro to David Bowie’s ‘Time’ from a bar’s sound system. The following lyrics, Matthew thought, were apt.
He could sense Grondin enter his orbit. He and Jane were like two flies caught in a web about to be eaten by the spider, he thought. Then, just as Grondin made a reach for the pair, the power which surged through Matthew’s body before returned and, both he and Jane could move.
“Run!” Matthew shouted.
A startled Grondin could only watch as his prey ran away along the alley. But he regained his senses and flew after them at great speed. He came to a dead halt and couldn’t move as a figure descended into the alley and landed between predator and prey. Matthew glanced back, and what he saw made his heart leap for joy.
“Slow down Jane. Look!”
Jane turned her head. “It’s David–thank God!”
Matthew noticed, however, that keeping Grondin at bay was taking a lot out of David. In fact Grondin was moving. “I wondered when you would show up,” he growled.
David grinned. “Have you missed me then?”
“I knew I could only buy a little time to grab the Key, but that brat seems to be finding his latent powers. It looks like I’ll have to do this the hard way.”
A thick, suffocating mist fell on the lane, blinding Matthew and Jane. Dark shapes moved through the fog, which swirled in their wake–not monks as before, but what looked like human heads with tails rather than bodies. David made a grab for a shape he thought was Grondin but all he clutched was mist. The name ‘Jonas’ echoed through the fog sending shivers down Matthews’s spine.
The mist thickened around Matthew. “Jane! David!” He shouted, but there was no reply just the name ‘Jonas’ said over and over again. A figure approached him, and through the thickening fog he could make out a military uniform.
Matthew felt his legs quiver, for walking toward him was Adolf Hitler in full Nazi outfit complete with knee high leather boots. Fear paralyzed him; he wanted to cry out; wanted to scream for help, but his vocal cords had stopped working. The figure with demonic, crimson eyes came right up to him and snatched the Key from his jacket pocket; he could do nothing about it. In an instant Hitler turned into a laughing Didier Grondin and then disappeared.
As the mist cleared Matthew looked around the alley – everything seemed to be back to normal.
Jane ran toward him.” Mattie, what happened?”
“It’s Grondin–he’s got the Key.
David approached. “Are you all right?”
“David! He’s got the Key,” screamed Matthew.
“I know,” said David.
“Well, what are you going to do about it?”
“Let’s have a pint.”
“A pint!” Matthew and Jane shouted in unison.
Matthew eyed David. “I feel there’s something you haven’t told us. I mean why aren’t you chasing Grondin?”
“Second question first: He’ll be thinking I’m doing just that. As for the first question, well… the key he’s got, it’s a fake…a good fake.”
“What! Why’d you put us through all that then?” Jane asked.
“Because I had to make it look real–make it look as if we were protecting the real thing.
“So where is the real Key?” Matthew asked.
“What’ll happen when he finds out he has a fake?” Jane asked.
“Whoa! Slow down. Let’s go and have that drink then I’ll explain,” said David heading toward
“Jonas had a replica cast,” said David, sitting with Matthew and Jane in a cubicle at the back of a bar where low lighting illuminated the tables. “He took it with him over to what is now Holland.
Jonas then carried out the ultimate deception– committing suicide so that the Powers of Darkness could not make him disclose where the Key was.” Matthew stroked his chin. “So, the monks that have looked after it since didn’t know they were guarding a fake?”
“No, for the deception to work they had to believe they were dealing with the real thing.”
“So how did you find out the Key was a fake?” Jane interrupted.
“Ah well now, your boyfriend’s not the only one Jonas came to in dreams. Once he found out I had rejected my mother he told me the truth because he knew this day would come.” He took a swig from his pint. “You see, don’t you? He hoped that this deception would buy us time, which it will, to find and destroy the real Key. Also, this is the way I found out how and where to get the Key…the false Key after the Second World War.”
“I don’t understand,” said Matthew.
“Well, Jonas told me where the Key was. You see, Christiaan die Voech committed suicide believing the Powers of Darkness were onto him. He walked the void where he met Jonas.
“But wait a minute won’t the Dark Dimension know the whereabouts of the real Key now that Jonas is part of it?” Jane questioned.
“Yes, well I can only assume that he passed the Key to an unknown and trusted pure soul to hide.”
Matthew took a long sip from his pint. “I don’t understand why someone like you or a monk can’t destroy the Key?”
“I can’t even look at the Key without overwhelming dark feelings; you remember what you felt when you saw the fake Key, well multiply that by a thousand! A monk will never destroy such a relic it needs someone with just the right amount of demon seed. Any other person just can’t be trusted.”
“So where is the real Key?” Matthew asked, taking a sip of his drink and looking around the bar.
“It never left Arbroath Abbey, but where in the Abbey I don’t know. Fortunately Grondin, when he finds out the Key he has is a fake, won’t even know the real Key is in Scotland.”
“Back to Arbroath then,” said Matthew with a smile.
“Brothers!” boomed Grondin, in the back room of Le Moine in Chartres. “I have called this special meeting due to a joyous development in our cause.”
He chanted an ancient mantra which the brethren, standing in a circle around him, followed. The altar-extended for the night’s meeting- had black velvet draped over it. A small mahogany box with inlays of gold on the lid and a jewel encrusted bowl sat upon the drape.
“Will brother Rancourt step forward?” Grondin ordered.
Jacques stepped into the centre of the circle. Grondin took his hand and led him to the altar. “If you do this for me, I will look favourably upon your career.”
“Right,” answered Jacque.
What a pathetic small-minded fool, thought Grondin. But I need his pure soul. He then connected with the Dark Dimension. “Open the box,” he said, in a gravelly voice.
Jacque picked up the box and opened the lid. Inside lay a bronze key with a big handle. Rancourt gasped as he gazed upon the writing etched on the handle.
“Pick it up, and read it in reverse–right to left-it’s Latin,” said Grondin. He then watched Rancourt pick the key out of the velvet lining of the box and run his fingers over the etched letters.
He read the lines as the other brethren chanted another archaic mantra, which became louder causing Rancourt to raise his voice until he was shouting.
As he uttered the last syllable a white noose was thrown over his head from behind and Georges Lagrange pulled it tight around his neck – choking the life from him. He dropped the key and tried to pull the rope from his neck, but this just succeeded in the noose becoming tighter. His limp body fell back onto Lagrange, who placed it on the altar.
The chanting carried on as Grondin plunged a dagger into the sacrifice’s heart. Blood spurted up and seeped over the body’s robe. Grondin collected some of the blood in the bowl and then placed the Key in it. He then joined in the chanting while raising his arms and levitating a few centimetres.
“Now Great Master I have opened the gates to allow you and the ancient ones to enter the physical plane that is the Earth. You will regain your rightful place,” he boomed, as he rotated.
After a few minutes with nothing happening, he heard mocking laughter in his head. Hel said:
“Old Jonas and my son are worthier opponents than you think.”
Grondin emitted a blood curdling scream as the truth dawned – the Key was a fake.
David de Longford escorted Matthew and Jane back to New Amstel books and told them to get packed while he made a few phone calls. First, he found out that his car was impounded by the police. He sent Aada, the shop assistant, to the car pound with a cheque to collect the Audi. Next, he called the local office of DFDS, the ferry company, to book passage for three to Newcastle–as Matthew was still adamant about not flying. It was short notice but because it was off-season, and during the week there were free cabins on the ferry leaving that night. He booked two cabins and the car on board.
When Aada returned with the car David told her he would close the shop for a few weeks. He paid her an advance and advised her to stay away from the shop until he phoned.
After Aada left, he closed the shop and set the alarm. He then went into his private office and shut down his computer systems. After which he washed, changed and packed a few items for the journey–a journey back in time, he thought.
The early evening traffic was heavy as the black Audi with its three passengers headed toward the docks at Ijmuiden. Cars were streaming out of factories and offices clogging up the route.
After a forty-minute drive David parked the car outside the terminal, and they checked-in. Then he drove the car on board the Queen of Scandinavia amid refrigerated flower lorries heading for British markets.
Matthew and Jane dropped their bags in the cabin and went out on deck for a walk. The sun was setting as they stepped onto the well painted lower viewing deck.
“Back home then Janey?” Matthew said as he inhaled the salty air.
Jane planted both her fore arms on the wooden hand rail and stared at the final cars being driven on board. “Yeah, I’m looking forward to getting back.”
“But there’s still this matter to be resolved.” Matthew said with a dread rising from the pit of his stomach.
“Look there’s a bar up there. Let’s get a drink?” Jane said, pointing up to an upper deck where passengers were standing with bottles of beer.
They bought two bottles from a barman who took the drinks from a refrigerated old messenger push bike which was going nowhere. They then sat at a wooden table as a gust of cold wind swept across the deck.
“Do you think we’ll succeed Mattie?”
“Yes. With David on our side... yes.”
As the ship eased its way out of the docks and headed for the open sea Matthew and Jane booked a table for three at one of the three restaurants. Matthew asked for a darker part of the room–
thinking of David.
At eight o'clock in a darkened corner of the restaurant the threesome sat with menus in hand. A fresh-faced young man with a shaved head came up to their table and told them he would be their waiter for the evening. They ordered a bottle of red wine and settled down to study the menu.
The restaurant was half full-with couples eating and chatting– their faces illuminated by candlelight. The sound of classical piano drifted in from a neighbouring lounge.
“I’ll have the lasagne,” said Matthew, as he stared out of the window at a passing brightly lit oil rig, which looked like a Christmas tree on legs.
“Fish for me,” said Jane.
“The bean salad for me, with garlic bread, said David.
“That all?” Matthew asked.
“I’m a vegetarian!”
“I never imagined a demon being vegetarian.”
“What? You thought I’d be like a vampire that ate meat dripping with blood.”
They all laughed as the waiter approached for their order.
After the main dish Matthew sat swirling the wine in his glass as the waiter left with the empty dishes. “Grondin,” he blurted. “Can he be destroyed?”
David stared at him from under his black Homburg. “He can only be destroyed by an entity from the Dark Realm. He has grown so powerful that I doubt that even Hel could finish him.”
Matthew swirled his wine more vigorously. “Why has she let him get so powerful?”
“Oh, Mattie can we have a sweet? Jane interrupted.
“Yes,” he said, signaling to the waiter.
“That’s a good question I can only assume she left him to get on with it, then after a while she couldn’t stop him. She has been silent lately with what’s been going on–I don’t like it!”
After the waiter left with the sweet order Matthew asked: “Why was Grondin chosen as the Dark Soul Gatherer?”
“It was his destiny; just as it’s your destiny to deal with the Key.”
At nine the next morning the Queen of Scandinavia steamed up the Tyne. The morning was bright with a chill wind that caressed the surface of the river After docking, David drove the Audi out of the car deck and stopped at customs to allow for the passport check. He then picked up Matthew and Jane then left the docks and drove through the outskirts of Newcastle then onto the A1 for the journey to Arbroath.
Didier Grondin strode along Amsterdam’s Spuistraat. He passed people sipping coffee at outside cafes enjoying the autumn sunshine. He stopped outside New Amstel Books and tried the door; finding it locked he stepped back and looked up at the darkened first floor windows.
Grondin concentrated his mental energies on the front door which shook before swinging open and setting off the alarm. He then turned his attention to the flashing box on the back wall of the shop, and the eardrum splitting noise died as the unit crashed to the floor.
Grondin went through to the back of the shop and finding an old pine desk with locked drawers he pulled the handles. With the locks broken he searched for a clue as to where David de Longford had gone. But finding only bills and receipts he gave up and strolled along a short corridor which led to a stained wooden door. He tried the handle, but the door was locked. He focused his mental energy on the door, but nothing happened. This is his inner sanctum, he thought. He again tried the handle. “Damn you de Longford!” he shouted. There was a mental block around the room.
As he stormed out of the shop, he kicked over a rack of paperbacks, sending them flying. The books took a nose dive and slid along the polished pine floorboards before thumping into the far wall.
Grondin crossed the Singel Canal and passed the flower market where tulip bulbs were being sold to tourists. He then headed up the busy Leidsestraat before entering Leidse Plein with its street entertainers and aroma of brewed coffee. Turning along Stadhouderskade he passed the gates of Vondel Park where joggers vied with cyclists for precedence. The red brick masterpiece that was the Rijksmuseum came into view as Grondin crossed the road and strolled into Museum Plein.
Children sailed model boats on a large pond and laughed in the sun. Boys played football on the parkland in front of the Concertgebouw.
“I’ve got to calm down, and this is the perfect place to do it.” Grondin said to himself.
“I have to start thinking logically.”
Two scenarios, he thought. One: Jonas didn’t know he was taking a fake over to Maastricht–that would explain why the Dark Dimension knew nothing about the fake. But who would have switched the keys without Jonas knowing? He didn’t buy it! Two: Jonas had the fake made and took it over to Holland. He must have hidden the real one and then when he walked the Void the Power of the Light contacted him and the concealment was blocked somehow. Yes, that had to be it. But it still didn’t answer the main question. Where was the real Key?
He pulled out his mobile phone and pressed in a number.
“Hello Schiphol administration, Jan speaking. How can I help you?” A voice said.
“Yes, I’m Inspector Hoogmoed, Amsterdam police. We are trying to trace the whereabouts of a David de Longford. He is wanted in connection with an armed robbery. We believe he has fled the country and have reason to believe he has gone to Scotland. Could you check passenger lists to Scotland over the last few days please?”
“Can you hold for a minute?”
After a few minutes of bad ‘supermarket music’ the receptionist came back on the line. “Sorry, there’s been no one of that name travelling to Scotland from this airport in the last two days.”
“Okay thanks for your help.”
Grondin gazed at the modern facade of the Van Gogh Museum. Of course, the ferry, he thought.
He called DFDS ferries and ran through the same story. The assistant returned. “There was a Willum de Longford travelled to Newcastle two days ago.”
“Was he accompanied by anyone?”
“Yes. Mr. Matthew Wilson and Miss Jane Cargill.”
“Thank you.”
De Longford must change his forename every so often, he thought.
Grondin then called the KLM desk at Schiphol airport and booked a seat on the next flight to Aberdeen, which was at nine-forty the next morning. He then phoned Lagrange, “Georges get yourself on a flight to Aberdeen–this time we’re going in for the kill!”
France 1947
Adam Cohen, now Vincent Pontault, became a canditat libre to study psychology at the Sorbonne in Paris. He had been so persuasive at an interview with university officials they allowed him straight in without even checking his background.
He had moved in with two brothers of the Gate who had moved to Paris for work. They lived in a maisonette within a four-storey building on Rue Mouffetard in the Latin Quarter amid bohemian cafes and bars.
His room in the attic was small, but adequate; the dormer window looked out over the rooftops toward the Eiffel Tower. The walls were a drab grey and in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint.
The only furniture in the room was a bed and an old pine wardrobe.
Just in from a lecture, Pontault threw his jacket on the unmade bed and stared at the Eiffel Tower in the distance. The sound of talk and laughter floated up through the warm June air and in through his opened window.
Pontault headed out in search of a little intellectual conversation and some sustenance. He descended the stairs and walked through the high-ceilinged living room, which the three men shared. As he weaved his way around the old luxurious furniture Pontault felt a psychic tremor from the Dark Dimension pass through his mind, which brought him to a halt; for a moment he could see beyond the stars; he saw beyond consciousness, then just as it came it departed leaving him bewildered and confused. Hunger however, brought him back into the physical world. He descended the communal stairs and strolled out onto the busy street. Pontault entered a bistro and sat at a table in the corner of the room. The walls were made of hewn red sandstone blocks, and they had old pictures of Paris dotted around them. He attracted the attention of the busy waiter and ordered red wine and ‘the dish of the day’: filet mignon aux oignons.
A short man, and a dark-haired woman sat down at a table nearby and ordered wine. Pontault recognised the man; a bespectacled well-groomed person dressed in a dark grey suit, but couldn’t put a name to the face until he overheard the conversation on existentialism. Of course, he thought, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.
Pontault admired the theory, but he was living proof that one of the main premises was wrong.
He was in the world to fulfil a purpose: to gather souls.
After finishing his meal Pontault introduced himself and asked the couple if he could join them.
They were happy to allow him when he told them he was a psychology student.
“Of course.” said Sartre, pushing out a chair.
Pontault signaled for more wine and sat. “I have just begun a course in pathological psychology, but my main interest is in the evolution of the soul.”
“I hope you’re not offended, but you look older than the average student,” de Beauvoir said.
“I’m a mature student Madam and entered the university as a canditat libre.”
“And how do you find your studies?” Sartre asked.
“Interesting, but rather basic; I am keen to get on with my own studies on the human soul.”
Simone de Beauvior looked at him with a smile spreading over her face. “Give it time, everyone has to start somewhere.
The waiter approached the table with a fresh bottle of red wine, sat it down and then left with Pontault’s empty.
“Will you allow me to be blunt Monsieur?” Pontault asked as he refilled their glasses along with his own.
“Yes, I would rather that you were,” replied Sartre.
“I find one fundamental of existentialism flawed!”
“And which fundamental is that Monsieur?”
“It’s the premise that the conscious being is not here to fulfil a certain purpose.”
“And what do you base this on sir?”
“Well… myself! I am here for a purpose.”
“What purpose would that be?” Sartre asked.
“Before I answer that will you allow me to put a proposition to you?”
“Yes, very well,” said Sartre.
“If I could take you on a trip beyond the stars; beyond time itself would you at least acknowledge that there is the possibility I am here to fulfil some purpose?”
Sartre laughed and looked at de Beauvior while raising his eyebrows. “Yes! Yes!” Sartre said.
The laughter stopped as Sartre fell into a trance, and Pontault’s mind escorted Sartre’s out past the stars; out to the dark dimensions. Sartre’s body emitted a strained sigh as his mind saw human-like shapes move in the darkness.
“Stop it! Release him.” de Beauvoir shouted to Pontault.
“Just a moment Madam; he will be all right,” he said, turning toward her.
She jerked her head back at the sight of Pontault’s red eyes and gasped, “sacre bleu!”
Then Jean-Paul Sartre emerged out of the trance and stared, bewildered, at Pontault, who grasped his glass from the table while laughing and then took a swig.
“So, Monsieur, will you now take me seriously?”
“Yes,” said Sartre, nodding his head while looking at de Beauvoir. “I don’t know who or what you are Monsieur Pontault, and I don’t dispute something… something unnatural just happened to me. But it still does not tell me you are here for some purpose,” he continued.
“If you would do me the honour of coming to a meeting of my group in Chartres next week; then all will be revealed.”
“Yes, I will. And I will say one thing, you have me intrigued.”
“Until next week then Monsieur.” Pontault said as he rose from his seat.
“Madam!” He said, nodding to de Beauvoir.
De Beavior looked at Sartre with concern in her eyes after Pontault left. “Are you going to Chartres next week?
“Come now my dear beaver. You know me? I am intrigued, I have to go.”
“Well just promise me you will be careful? You didn’t see his eyes when you were under the trance–they were red!”
“I promise.”
The sun was setting behind the clouds, sending golden rays like huge fingers onto Chartres as Pontault walked along Rue du Massacre toward Le Moine. He had arranged to meet Jean-Paul Sartre outside the bar at quarter to eight.
When he arrived, there were several people sitting at the street tables enjoying the balmy evening. Sartre was sitting with one brother chatting and drinking coffee.
“I see you’ve met Alexandre,” Pontault said as he approached the table.
“Yes, and a man who knows his philosophy,” Sartre said, smiling at Alexandre.
Pontault looked into the bar. “Shall we go in gentlemen?”
The two men rose from the table and followed Pontault through to the back of the building.
“Evening Gaston,” said Pontault to the owner who was washing glasses behind the bar.
“Evening Monsieur Pontault,” he replied.
As they entered the back room Pontault noticed Sartre gaze at the altar with its bronze sculpted figure. He looked even more disturbed to see the men in the room don black habits.
Just after the meeting had started and the mantra chanting begun, Sartre made his way to the door. He turned the key and then the handle but found, try as he might, the door would not open.
Pontault approached the philosopher. “Why do you wish to leave?”
“Because I do not want to witness this… satanic worship!”
“We are here to usher in a new world,” said Pontault as the chanting rose in volume.
“Please open this door.”
“Very well. Will you wait in the cafe for me, and I will explain everything. Then you can do…well, anything you want.”
“All right, but I doubt if it will interest me.”
After the meeting had adjourned, and the brethren departed, Pontault joined Sartre at a table and ordered wine. There were a few old men sitting at the bar discussing the direction France should now head in the liberated world.
“Why did you really invite me here Monsieur Pontault?”
“Because as an atheist and an existentialist you were a challenge to me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“As Christ was a gatherer of sins–I am a gatherer of souls. The Goddess I worship installed these powers in me to prepare for a new world which will soon be upon us. The place I took you to the other evening is a dimension where the souls walk.”
“A spirit world,” interrupted Sartre.
“Yes, if you like.”
The owner put a bottle of red wine and two glasses on the table.
“Thank you, Gaston,” said Pontault.
There was an eruption of laughter from the bar as Pontault poured wine into the two glasses.
“You have shown me a wonderful thing, but it does not prove that you are here to collect souls.”
Pontault looked at Sartre and took a gulp of his wine. “Let me see, who could I bring forward?
Ah yes!”
Jean-Paul Sartre gasped as the face of Maximilian Robespierre appeared across the table from him.
“Or how about,” said Pontault, as Robespierre became Heinrich Himmler.
Sartre howled in anguish, “Oh stop, I’ve seen enough, they were bad people, and you’re evil. I’m going now!”
Pontault laughed as his own features returned. He took another swig of his wine.
“Go then you little man, and take your faulty theory with you,” he shouted.
When Jean-Paul Sartre returned to Paris, he discussed the matter with Simone de Beauvior; they kept the fact that proof had arisen that the theory was flawed under wraps.
USA 1953
Doctor Vincent Pontault drove his Buick along the side of the Hudson River into the town of Ossining as a heavy snow shower swept across the water. He parked his car in the lot of Sing Sing Correctional Facility and ran into the reception.
“Doctor Pontault to see Thomas Dowd,” he said to the receptionist, a short plump woman with frizzy, red hair as he put his identity card on the counter.
She looked down a list, and then said: “Doctor, will you take a seat in the waiting room please.”
He sat on a wooden chair and gazed at dancing snowflakes through a large plate-glass window.
Pontault thought of how he had been asked to lecture and partake in research at many institutes around the world after publication of his exceptional doctorate thesis on clinical psychology. He plumped for New York because the Psychology Department had a research program going, which involved interviewing some of the most dangerous murderers in America often just before execution. Although he was on another continent from the Key the desire to gather more dark souls, and these were dark souls, was tempting.
Pontault opened the file on Dowd the department gave him. The man had bludgeoned his employer to death after finding his pay packet was a few dollars short. Of the two initial arresting officers one was beaten to death, the other was rendered unconscious. Dowd went into hiding, but was arrested at gunpoint.
A big prison guard ambled in, and said to the waiting room: “Doctor Pontault, will you follow me.”
The guard took him out of the Administration Block and into a prison block. They waited outside a barred security gate until a thinner guard on the inside produced a set of keys and unlocked the door.
The large guard led Pontault along a clean corridor painted a light grey. The smell of disinfectant and polish was overwhelming reminding Pontault of mental asylums he had visited while studying in France. They passed through another security gate and stopped outside a door with a safety glass window. Pontault saw a figure sitting at a desk silhouetted by the sickly light which poured through a barred window on the wall opposite the door.
The guard knocked on the door, and the figure of another big guard came into view and unlocked the door. The two men entered the room which contained two wooden chairs and an old pine table covered in cigarette burns.
A man at the table raised his head and looked at Pontault with sad, brown eyes. He was unshaven and dressed in the blue overall of the inmate.
“Okay Doc you’ve got thirty minutes,” said the guard who unlocked the door.
“So, you’re the quack who will get me an appeal?” Dowd asked.
“I’m here to assess you from a psychological viewpoint rather than a legal one.”
After three half hour visits over three days Pontault declared, with the aid of his Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, that Thomas Dowd was indeed suffering from a personality disorder. Due to this there were mitigating circumstances for an appeal against the death sentence.
As he stood up to leave after the final session the guard who had met him in reception pushed him back into his seat and pushed his face into Pontault’s. He could smell his bad breath and saw the intent in his eyes. “Listen Doc this son of a bitch is going to no appeal. He murdered a brother officer. Where he’s goin’, is to the chair.”
He was tempted to break this man’s neck, but that would be counterproductive as he would need to kill the other guard. And what good would that do? The wretch’s soul was of no use, he thought.
He killed because of a mental disorder not because of a dark soul.
Two months later Pontault was on his way back to Ossining, this time to see Rosemary O’Connell a serial killer from Brooklyn. In his mind he ran through the facts in the file that had been sent to his Washington Square office. She worked in a department store, no previous record,
posed as a hooker to lure men to her flat where she killed them, dismembered the bodies then dumped the remains, in suitcases, into the East River. She killed five men over a period of three years.
Rosemary O’Connell gasped as Pontault walked into the interview room. He nodded to the female guard who had unlocked the door then sat down at the table.
“I’m here to assess you psychologically not…”
“I know you!” O’Connell interrupted.
“Legally, as was done before,” he finished.
Pontault felt something tug at his soul looking at this woman as he started the psychoanalysis.
“You might as well know I’m a soul gatherer,” growled O’Connell.
“What makes you say that, Rosemary?”
“That’s why I killed them–they were worthless pieces of shit. I wanted their souls.”
“Why did you want their souls?”
“I collect dark souls for a new world.”
The guards standing by the door chuckled.
“You ignorant fucking assholes!” O’Connell shouted at them as she stood up.
The female guard took out her baton and hit the prisoner on the backs of her knees while her male counterpart pushed the woman back onto the chair. O’Connell screamed and tried to get up again.
The female guard glared at Pontault. “Okay this interview’s over.”
As they pulled O’Connell out of the room, she turned to Pontault and rationally said: “I know who you are. Take my soul this time? I’ve collected others for you.”
Suddenly Pontault was in the trenches of the First World War. He could smell the earth, the urine, the blood and could feel the young soldier lying dead on top of him. The cursed bullet that knocked him over stopped the transference of the soul! The boy’s soul must have received something from him before he died, he thought.
Three months later Pontault received a letter asking if he wished to attend the executions of Thomas Dowd and Rosemary O’Connell. He wrote back declining the Dowd execution and accepting the O’Connell killing.
There were seven people including Pontault in the execution room. All were staring at the well-worn electric chair with its straps and electrodes.
The warden, John Wishart, a tall, thin man with combed thick, grey hair approached Pontault.
“I heard you didn’t have much of an interview with this one.”
“Yes, that’s right, but I’ll tell you, she wasn’t suffering from any mental disorder.”
“You astound me. That’s not what most reckon.”
Pontault was about to respond, but a barred door opened beside the electric chair, and O’Connell was led into the room from an adjoining cell. Her hair had been shaved off, and she wore a knee length blue cotton gown.
In the chair she waved away the approach of a priest, but whispered something to one guard who strapped her. The guard approached Pontault and asked him to follow. She took him to the chair and said: “You have one minute.”
“My Lord, I am ready,” said O’Connell
Pontault, with eyes ablaze, looked into her eyes. “You will follow me,” he said laying a hand upon her shoulder. He then took his place with the others.
One electrode was attached to her head and another to one of her legs. To aid conductivity a wet sponge was placed on her head.
The end for Rosemary O’Connell was quick. Pontault felt the power surge as six souls merged with his.
USA 1960
Leaving the library one day Vincent Pontault spotted Professor Ed Thewell reading a book on Demonology.
“Ed! I didn’t know you were interested in such things.”
The Professor raised his head and looked at Pontault over the top of his spectacles. “Yeah well, I keep an open mind; and it ties in with psychology I guess.”
“I’m getting numbers together for a night class on paranormal phenomena. Would you be interested? I have a research student and two others at the moment.”
“Oh, I don’t know… well I guess it would be interesting,” said Thewell looking around the library.
“Good, its next Tuesday night at seven in the meeting room at the back of the main building.”
Pontault surveyed the four men seated in the meeting room, “would any of you know a Demon if it stood next to you? Demons walk among you. You wouldn’t notice most of them because what you see is their human-like manifestation on the physical plane.”
“How do you know this?” asked Thewell, “I mean, you sound so sincere.”
Pontault scrutinized the faces in the room. There was Professor Ed Thewell, a man of vast psychological knowledge; John Wight, a research student involved in psychoanalysis who had an interest in the supernatural; Fred Troupe, an investment banker Pontault met in a bar in Greenwich Village who oozed a darkness; Jim Rodgers, a Physical Education teacher who approached Pontault while he lectured at a night class and expressed an interest in Demonology.
Pontault closed his eyes, and the class slipped into a collective trance. As he did with Jean-Paul Sartre, he guided their minds past the stars to the place where the laws of the universe were absent.
The collection of minds roamed the Dark Dimension before being confronted by shadows coagulating into a form–a huge form that roared into each mind.
The class found themselves back in the meeting room as they came out of the trance. John Wight jumped up and ran out of the class knocking over two chairs.
Pontault looked at the three remaining faces. “Anyone else feel the need to run?”
“What just happened there?” Fred asked.
“Well gentlemen, we have just visited the Dark Dimension. The entity that took form and entered your minds was the Goddess or Demon Hel,” said Pontault.
Ed Thewell smiled. “I think you have some explaining to do.”
So, explain he did, and in the process instigated the American Order of the Gate.
The resultant meetings grew in popularity, and two months after its instigation the night classes had thirty members, all of whom Pontault chose or admitted after meeting them.
Six months after the initial meeting Pontault was asked if he would consider conducting a meeting in Washington DC. He agreed to meet the potential brethren, and after a successful encounter, he set up a meeting once a month in a hall in Columbia Heights.
A year on, and there were two gatherings per week of thirty in New York and one meeting of twenty in Washington DC. Such a gathering in the capital did not go unnoticed, however, even with utmost secrecy. An unflattering article in The Washington Post ran with the headline: ‘Satanists Gather in the Capital’.
After reading the article Pontault wrote an anonymous letter to the newspaper stating that the meetings were not Satanical, but paranormal; just people interested in unexplained phenomena.
Furthermore, he wrote, the meetings were carried out in secrecy to protect the identities of the members; safeguarding them from ridicule.
Vice President Lyndon B Johnson knocked on the door to the Oval Office and walked in.
President Jack Kennedy was sitting gazing out of the window at the manicured south lawn of the White House.
He swiveled round in his chair. “Ah Lyndon!”
Kennedy threw the Washington Post over to the front of his desk where Johnson stood. “Have you seen this?”
“Yes, I have Sir.”
“Jeez Lyndon we can’t have Satanists meeting here right under our noses!”
Kennedy paused for a minute and stared into space. "We have enough stuff on our plate at the minute without this. We're Christians, elected by Christian voters. I can’t let this go on; you’ll have to lean on this–see if they’ll go away.”
“Yes sir, I’ll see what I can do, but we have known of Satanists in this country for a while.”
“Yeah, but now it’s out in public and right here in Washington.”
“Okay, I’ll get right onto it.” Johnson said, turning to leave.
“And Lyndon.”
“Mr. President?”
“Remember, we’re also democrats!”
“Sir.”
Jean Solway, secretary to the Chair of the Psychology Department of New York University, looked up from her typewriter. “You can go in now Mr. Grosvenor.”
A stalky man with dark brown cropped hair stood up in the waiting room and walked over to the mahogany door with Professor Badeau on it in black letters. He knocked and waited.
“Come,” said a deep voice.
Antoine Badeau got up and walked round from behind his cluttered desk. “Mr. Grosvenor,” he said shaking the man’s hand.
“Professor Badeau.”
“You’re with the FBI?”
“Yes, I’m with the National Security branch,” said Grosvenor, flashing his identity card.
“What can I do for you?”
“I’ve come to see you about Dr Pontault.”
“Ah, this’ll be about the article in the Washington Post.”
“Well… yes.”
“Doctor Pontault is an excellent researcher and lecturer. He has a keen interest in the paranormal that’s all Mr. Grosvenor - not Satanism!”
“Yes sir! But there’s no smoke without fire, and we have it on good advice that there are–shall we say-peculiar activities occurring at these meetings.”
“I will have a word with Dr Pontault.”
“We hoped that you would have more than a word. I've heard from on high that your budget next year could well be increased.”
“If I cooperate?”
“I leave it in your hands Professor.”
With that Grosvenor strode out of the office–nodded to the secretary and left.
Antoine Badeau stared at an autumnal landscape painting on a wall next to his desk. The painting reminded him of his Quebec homeland. He pressed the intercom on his desk. “Miss Solway, could you find Dr Pontault and ask him to come and see me?”
Pontault pointed to the Chair’s door, and Jean Solway nodded. He knocked and walked in.
“You’d better sit-down Vincent,” said Badeau, placing a sheet of paper on a pile in front of him.
“Is something wrong Antoine?”
“I’ve just had the FBI in for a visit.”
“The article in the paper–right?
“Yes, they want me to dismiss you… for an increase in budget.”
“So, what are you going to do?”
“Nothing, hell I’m one of the brethren!”
Silence reigned over the two men, broken only by the sound of traffic from the streets below the window.
“I’ll stop the Washington meetings.”
“That’ll take some of the heat off for now.”
“Thanks for this Antoine. If there’s anything I can do for you?”
Over the following months Pontault kept as low a profile as possible going about his research and lecturing. He stopped the meetings in Washington DC and cut back the New York meetings from weekly to fortnightly.
USA 1963
After hearing nothing from the FBI for a year Pontault started the meetings in Washington again due to member pressure, but at a different location.
At the second meeting Pontault came out of a trance and gazed at the surrounding brethren. Their heads swung from side to side as they chanted the sacred mantra introduced to them by their master.
Something was about to happen, he thought–he could feel it.
The doors to the hall burst open, and seven men dressed in dark suits strode in with drawn handguns.
“FBI! The meetings over gentlemen!” shouted a tall man with a long, thin face broken by a wide, brown moustache.
“Why?” Pontault boomed.
“National security!” the tall man answered.
“National security? In what way are we a threat to national security?”
“I’m just carrying out orders. Will you now leave the building and go home. The meetings are suspended until further notice.”
The members disrobed while looking at Pontault, who thought of engaging the spokesman in an argument, but instead left the building and drove back to New York.
Pontault brooded on the Washington situation all the way back home. Worse was to come, however, for when he met Antoine Badeau the next day he heard that Agent Grosvenor had been back again, this time asking about the New York meetings.
Pontault sat at his desk and gazed at the falling leaves as they fluttered in the wind over Washington Square. The Kennedy administration was out to get him. Something had to be done.
But what?
He heard on the radio that President Kennedy was on the re-election trail and was due in Dallas on the twenty-second of the month. There had been reports of fears that there might be an assassination attempt by a sniper. The month before, United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Adlai Stevenson, had been jostled and spat on in Dallas, and there had been fears of a sniper.
Friday the twenty-second of November; Pontault stood in an excited crowd which lined Dealey Plaza in Dallas awaiting the Presidential motorcade; children in the arms of their parents waved miniature stars and stripes flags on sticks.
The first car to enter the plaza was a white Ford Sedan carrying four policemen. Then several police motorcyclists purred by. The second car was an unmarked police white Ford Sedan carrying the Sheriff and other lawmen. Then a dark, blue Lincoln Continental Convertible entered the plaza.
In the front were two policemen one of whom was the driver. In the middle sat Texas Governor John Connally and his wife. On the rear left sat Jacqueline Kennedy, waving to the crowds. On the rear right was President Kennedy himself looking relaxed and happy.
As the car, with a police motorcyclist on each side, turned left into Elm Street Pontault felt an exaggerated heart beat from high up in the Texas Book Depository building. He looked up and saw the glint of a rifle barrel from an open sixth floor window.
A shot rang out and Kennedy slumped forward. He had been shot in the back and the bullet had passed through him and hit Governor Connally, who shouted: “Oh no! No! No! They mean to kill us all!” Another shot missed the car. Pontault could feel the sniper’s heart beat rise a gear. He will miss again, he thought. He went into a trance, and focused on Lee Harvey Oswald up at the depository’s window, but he was refocused on darkness behind a fence and a trigger was pulled which ended the life of the thirty-fifth President.
There was mass confusion at first as people could not believe what they had just witnessed. Then they cried and then screamed and then shouted as they realised the President had just been killed in front of them.
Pontault turned from the tragic scene and walked back to his car then drove north out of the city.
As he settled down for the long journey back to New York screaming police cars sped past him in the opposite direction, heading into a shocked city.
In a theatre claiming he was a patsy Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested. He was charged with the murder of John Franklin Kennedy. While Oswald was being moved from police headquarters to the county jail Jack Ruby, a Jewish businessman, shot and killed him in retaliation for the murder of the President.
Antoine Badeau stood looking out of his window at the brooding sky which threatened rain as Doctor Pontault entered his office.
“Vincent,” he said, still gazing out of the window.
“You wanted to see me, Antoine?”
“Yes, I know where you’ve been these last few days.”
The statement hung in the air for a moment.
“Just taking care of a bit of business.”
“More than a bit of business!”
“Antoine, I had nothing to do with what happened in Dallas, but I know who did! Anyway, I want you to be my assistant; a number two sort of thing. You know the power I have; I meant it when I asked if there was anything you wanted.”
“Very well Vincent or should it be ‘my Lord’; I crave to be immortal like you.”
“You will have it, but remember there can be no turning back.”
“I accept that.”
The Johnson administration had no interest in Pontault and his meetings. Whether it was because of the war in Vietnam, or other matters closer to home was anyone’s guess. The meetings carried on in both New York and Washington unabated albeit in a clandestine manner.
USA 1981
Vincent Pontault enrolled as a PhD student at the New York University Department of Politics.
Psychology was no longer a driving passion. He knew the time was right for a move into politics.
Pontault was an acquaintance of Professor Neil Patrick, the Chair of the department, so acceptance was a formality
In his first year Pontault studied American Politics, international relations and political theory.
He also joined the Republican Party after being introduced to Edmund Clarke, the Governor of New York.
Back in the Psychology Department, Pontault knocked on Antoine Badeau’s door and waited.
“Come in Vincent,” said a voice from behind the door.
Pontault opened the door. “Nice to see you as ever Antoine.”
“How are the political studies going?”
Pontault took a seat studying the reflection of sunlight on Badeau's glass desk top. “Fine.
Antoine, I want you to go over to France and rekindle the Order of the Gate in Chartres. Europe is after all where the Key is.”
“You want me to leave everything and move to Europe!”
“Yes.”
Badeau pursed his lips while gazing at Pontault. “Why don’t you go? You’re the Master.”
“I have unfinished business here, but I will join you.”
“Oh, I don’t know…”
“Antoine, I don’t have to remind you of your immortality and your allegiance to the Order.”
Pontault said, in a calm, but persuasive voice.
“Yes, my Lord I will go as soon as you require.”
“Adopt another identity because in the seventeen years since your immortalization you haven’t aged – another reason its best you go to France.”
France 1981
The sun shone through white, wispy cirrus clouds as Antoine Badeau stepped down from the Corse Air International flight just in from Montreal. It’s good to be in the home country; he thought as he walked into the Orly terminal and collected his bags.
A tall, dark skinned man with bushy, white hair approached him through the crowds of the busy concourse. “You are Antoine Badeau?”
“Yes.”
“I am Daniel Durand; Vincent Pontault asked me to meet you.” He lifted a suitcase. “Will you follow me please?”
They walked out to the main car park and stopped at an old white Renault. Durand unlocked the car, and then he placed Badeau’s luggage in the spacious boot.
As they drove through the leafy Parisian streets Badeau turned to Durand. “Are you one of the Brethern?”
“Yes, I am, and have been for a long time.”
“I am to restart the meetings.”
“I know I am to help you.”
They drove into the Latin Quarter and parked outside a four-storey building in Rue Moufftard. As they climbed the communal stairs Durand said: “I’ve lived here for many years. The room you’re in used to be Vincent’s while he studied at the Sorbonne.”
Durand opened the front door, and they passed through the spacious living room. Antoine followed the Frenchman up a set of stairs until they faced an old, wooden panel door. Durand turned the handle, and the two men walked into a musty attic room. He opened the windows to allow fresh air in to chase out the mustiness.
Durand turned to leave. “I’ll leave you to it.”
“Thanks for this Daniel.”
“That’s okay; we’re of the same ilk.”
“Daniel, Vincent told me you could help me change my identity.”
“Yes, I know people who can do this–for a price.”
“Of course, I will pay–it has to be done.”
“What name would you like?”
“Jean-Baptiste Charlot.”
Antoine lay on the old bed in the attic room with the windows open listening to the sounds of night time Paris. He gazed up at the starry, late spring sky just visible through the orange glow of the street lights. Why Jean-Baptiste? He asked himself. The answer: because he had been having dreams featuring John the Baptist. He turned on his side and looked at the old oak wardrobe. Was he an incarnation of the saint?
The next morning he went for a walk through the Latin Quarter toward the Seine. Cafe owners were washing their windows. Waves of soapy water flowed across the pavements and dropped onto the roadside. The day was bright but overcast; a slight breeze caressed the white blossom on the cherry trees which lined the streets.
He passed a small church and felt a strange compulsion to go in. The heavy, dark wooden doors were open to allow early morning worshippers entry. Badeau climbed the few steps and then walked in. The smell of candle wax and polish greeted him, both mixed with the natural mustiness of an old stone building. Once his eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness, he could make out a high pulpit at the side of the altar. Lines of empty pews like soldiers on parade stood in the foreground.
Gothic arched stained-glass windows depicting biblical scenes broke up the side walls. The one that caught his eye was of John the Baptist baptizing the Christ.
He sat down on a pew halfway between the door and the altar. There was no one else in the church–the silence was claustrophobic.
As Badeau was about to get up and leave he saw something move out of the corner of his eye–
something in one window! He turned his head and gazed in wonder at the centre window of the three on the wall next to where he sat. The figure of John the Baptist was moving. In fact, it had stepped out of the glass and was taking on a three-dimensional human-sized form as it descended through the stale atmosphere of the building. Badeau resisted the urge to scream and run as the saint hovered above the pew in front of him.
“Why do you bring darkness into this place of light?” The Baptist asked, in a hoarse voice.
Badeau looked around the church. “I come because I have been having dreams…I believe I am an incarnation of you.”
“My line reincarnates no more. I live in heaven – I have touched the face of God.”
A slight breeze blew in through the open doors and made Antoine shiver.
“You chose darkness, and by coming here you will be removed from the physical plane,” the Baptist continued.
“Me! I am immortal.”
“That matters not.”
“What about my master?”
“He has his destiny; his time will come.”
Badeau turned around sensing a presence behind him. A street urchin of no more than four years had sat in the pew behind him. When he turned back the Baptist had gone and the child was standing in the aisle next to where he was sitting.
“Come,” said the boy with one of his arms outstretched toward Badeau.
Every fibre in his body screamed: “Don’t take his hand!” But as he did, his soul left his body, and went toward the light. The lifeless body then slumped back on to the pew, and the child walked along the aisle toward the door and vanished.
When Pontault heard of Badeau’s death from Daniel Durand, he couldn’t believe an immortal had been taken. It must have been by someone or something powerful, he thought. He would need to be vigilant from then on.
USA 1985
After gaining his Doctorate in 1985 Yale University hired Pontault as Assistant Professor of Political Science lecturing and researching American Politics and International Political Economy.
Promoted to Associate Professor in 1986 he was then promoted to full Professor a year later.
In 1989 Pontault, who had befriended Edmund Clarke through Neil Patrick, was appointed as Chief Legislative Assistant to newly elected Senator Clarke. After two years he stepped down from the position, and became White House staff member, and National Security Council Advisor.
Pontault stepped down from his position at the White House in 2000 to help Edmund Clarke with his presidential campaign. In 2001 the Clarke administration made him Secretary of State.
The Order of the Gate meetings continued through the years although remaining in an underground capacity. The membership however had grown to unprecedented numbers.
USA 2001
President Ed Clarke stood up and walked around his desk in the Oval Office. “Vincent, I need your advice on something,” he said, as he leaned on the front of the desk.
Pontault sank back into his seat.” Of course, Mr. President.”
“We’ve known each other for a few years now. I value your advice as a friend and in an official capacity.”
The President walked back round his desk, and he then stared out through the centre window of the three behind his seat. “The west’s oil supplies are dwindling as you know, and the Arab countries hold all the aces. If only we could lay our hands on the rich Iraqi oilfields. You have your finger on the international economy. What are our options?”
“Well, there’s one option, but you’re not going to like it.”
“What is it?”
Pontault took a deep breath. “An attack on the USA!”
“We’ve been attacked before haven't we!”
“An orchestrated Arab terrorist attack on the American mainland... a false flag!”
“What! That’s crazy.”
“Think about it, the American public would be up in arms calling for revenge. All you then have to do is release information that Iraq is harbouring terrorists and there are suspicions they are developing nuclear arms. This will give us the justification to invade and topple the dictatorship in the name of democracy. The oil fields will then need to be protected.”
“I see you have it all planned out. What of the other world leaders? What of the security services?”
“The western countries will go along–it’s in their interests. The security services! Come on Mr.
President, you know this type of thing has happened before with or without the president's approval.”
“Can you do this Vincent?”
“Yes, I can sir.”
“I don’t want to know when or where.”
“Yes Mr. President. Do I get your approval?”
“Yes.”
France 2003
Didier Grondin opened the cab door and climbed in. “Rue Mouffetard,” he said to the driver. He had just flown into Charles de Gaulle on the Air France flight from Washington. The journey was delayed due to an electrical storm over Dulles, but he felt elated to be back to restart the Order of the Gate in France.
As the cab headed into the centre of Paris, he thought of Daniel Durand who had died the previous year leaving him the house in the Latin Quarter. He also thought of Ed Clarke and how shocked he had been at his resignation. He granted his request for a new identity and a job waiting in Chartres.
It hasn’t changed at all, thought Grondin as the cab pulled up in front of the building. He paid off the cabbie, climbed the stairs and entered the old house.
Walking through the cold living room with its ghostly forms of sheeted furniture Grondin decided it was time for him to intensify his search for the Key. He was powerful, and he’d gathered enough dark souls, but he was tired. Tired of searching out the darkness in mankind, tired of playing games.
Grondin sold the house in Paris and bought a large villa on the outskirts of Chartres. He took up the job as a local magistrate, organized by the American Embassy.
Matthew gazed at the vast expanse of the Forth Rail Bridge while they drove over the neighbouring road bridge. “That sight is on a million biscuit and cake boxes exported around the world.”
“Yeah, that or the Loch Ness Monster, said David with a grin.
Dark, brooding clouds swept in from the unforgiving North Sea as the black Audi rolled down hill then negotiated the roundabout beside Elliot Golf Course. The car then headed into Arbroath.
“Where do you want me to go?” David asked.
“Jane, do you want dropped off at your house?” Matthew asked, turning his head round to face her from where he sat in the front passenger seat.
“Could you drop me off at Timmergreens Shopping Centre please?”
Matthew guided David to the centre where Jane checked she had everything. “Well, I’ll see you boys tomorrow I guess.”
She grabbed her bag out of the boot then slammed it shut before tapping the side of the car and then walking away.
“Where does she stay?” David asked, as they passed Keptie Pond with its mock medieval sandstone water tower standing on a mound exposed to all the North Sea threw its way.
“This is going to sound strange, but I don't know. I never thought too much about it; she just shows up at my house or we meet in the town.”
They drove the rest of the journey in silence with Matthew pointing the way.
“Is it wise to stay here?” Matthew asked, as they drew up outside his house, “Grondin’s henchman know I stay here and, it sounds a little soft, but now I see the house I don’t want to stay after that episode with the monks.”
“Is there anywhere else we can go?”
“Yeah, my cousin Jake’ll put us up.”
“It’ll be all right to stay here tonight, but let’s go see him.”
“Right, gives a minute?”
Matthew opened his front door and entered. A shiver ran down his spine as he recalled the ghostly monks around the house. He switched on the central heating and then collected the pile of mail from behind the front door. After a quick survey of the house to check that everything was okay, he got back into David’s car and guided him to Almerie Close.
Matthew pressed number thirty-five on the steel wall plate which had the flat alert buttons for the peach coloured building that rose above the pair.
“Yeah, hullo!” answered a metallic voice.
“Jake, it’s me, it’s Mattie!”
“Oh, hi mate!”
They heard a buzz then a click.
“Let’s go.” Matthew said, pushing the security door.
They climbed the stairs to the first landing where a well-made man with a shaven head and a black beard stood outside a maroon door.
“Where have you been hiding you toe rag,” he said, and then laughed.
“Good to see you too Jake,” replied Matthew. He then turned and pointed to David. “This is David, a good friend of mine.”
“Wow! You look like you’ve had too many nights out with this guy, Jake said, nodding in Matthew’s direction. “Good to meet you, come on in.”
Matthew sat on the lounge settee. “Where's Cath?
“She’s away to yoga classes. She'll be back in an hour or so.”
“Jake, we need a place to stay. We hoped that you could put us up for a few days?”
“Sure, that’ll be okay. But what’s wrong with your place?”
Matthew looked at David. “We’ve got a little story to tell you.”
“Okay, hold it. I’ve got beer in the fridge.”
He disappeared into the hallway before returning with six cans of export.
“Right then,” he said, switching on the CD player, “You guys like AC/DC?”
“Perfect,” said David, as the opening riff to ‘Hells Bells’ filled the room.
Jake then handed each of his visitors a can and then opened one for himself. Then the two visitors unleashed the facts on to Matthew’s cousin.
“Wow man! I never thought I’d meet a real demon. I mean you watch films and listen to Metal Music, but David, you’re the real thing,” said Jake, shaking his head.
“Yeah well, let’s concentrate on finding the Key, and then we can carry on with the hero worship,” said David.
“Right, I’ll stay off work and give you guys a hand.”
Matthew shook his head. “No, just carry on as normal for now.”
“We may require a strong pair of hands when these people we told you about show up.” David said.
“Okay. Well, just let me know.”
“Thanks Jake,” said Matthew, as he stood up and took a slug from his can. He looked out of the large sitting room window into a supermarket car park, where shoppers were loading up their cars with groceries.
Didier Grondin watched as the city of Aberdeen appeared from under the clouds. The air stewardesses sat down and strapped themselves in as the KLM flight from Amsterdam descended into north-east Scotland.
After collecting his bag, Grondin sat drinking insipid coffee in a cafe as he watched the arrivals monitor. The direct flight from Paris was on time and due to land at ten fifty-five.
Grondin threw his newspaper aside when he saw Georges Lagrange amble through arrivals.
“George! A good flight?” he asked walking toward his colleague.
“Hmm! Okay I suppose.”
“Let’s go hire a car and we’ll head south to Arbroath.”
Matthew jumped out of his bed and opened the curtains to a day illuminated by a pallid, wintry sun.
People were walking their dogs along paths lined by leafless trees in the park across the road. He dressed and then pushed open the kitchen door in search of some coffee.
“Grondin’s close,” said a voice.
Matthew spun round with thumping heart. David was sitting in the corner.
“Jesus David! You gave me a start.”
“We can’t stay here much longer–we’ve over slept.”
“Yeah, sorry.” Matthew said as he filled the kettle. “I was tired.”
“We best move down to Jake’s and plan our next move,” said David standing up, “I'll get ready.”
A tall, thin, dark-haired woman opened the front door to Jake’s flat. “Hi Mattie; you’re looking thinner.”
“Hey Cath! You look great as usual. Meet David.”
“Hi David, come on in. Jake said you’d be staying for a few days. He’s at his work, and I’m just heading off to mine. There’s a spare bedroom with two single beds – just help yourselves. Hope you don't mind the stuff lying about. The beds are clean, I gave them an air.”
“Thanks,” said David.
After Cath had gone the pair sat in the lounge.
“We should go up to the Abbey. I know the curator; he would let us look behind the scenes so to speak.” Matthew said.
“Not a good idea, Grondin will either be there or having it watched.”
“Yeah but, I’ve been thinking, he'll try nothing until we find the Key.”
“I don’t want to take the risk of him getting to you.” David said rising from the settee. “Was there anything in your dealings with Jonas that would show where the Key is?”
“I’ve racked my mind–I can’t seem to come up with anything positive.”
The door alert buzzer sounded making the pair look at each other. Matthew rose and went into the hall and then lifted the receiver. “Hullo?”
“Come on then, open up Wilson!”
“Janey!”
Grondin jolted awake and shouted: “de Longford!” The BMW driven by Georges Lagrange was just passing through the village of Marywell to the north of Arbroath. “Sorry about that Georges, I must have dropped off.”
“We’re almost there, anyway.”
“As you’ve gathered de Longford’s in town, and we’ve got to track him and his fan club down-pronto.”
“So where do you want to go–to his house?”
“No, they won’t be there. We’ll go book in to that hotel you and Caron stayed in, and then I want you to go to the abbey and have a look for them. If they’re not there, just keep an eye on the place.”
“Where are you going?”
“I have an idea where they might be.”
Matthew entered the living room and set mugs of coffee in front of Jane and David.
“So, you guys going to the Abbey?” asked Jane.
“No Grondin’s here, and he’s waiting there for us,” answered Matthew, who then turned to David. “How about the cave at the cliffs where the renegade monks had their altar?”
“Yeah, I’d like a look out there. It should be okay as long as we’re vigilant.”
So, the next day, with Jane sitting in the comfort of Jake’s living room, Matthew and David headed out along the cliff top path. The afternoon was windy, and showers of rain drifted in off the grey sea and soaked the cliffs
The pair descended into the inlet where the cave lay at the base of a conglomerate cliff. They jumped from the path onto the beach and entered the cave amid the foreboding shrieks of seagulls.
Matthew switched on his flashlight which caused shadows to jump onto the walls.
They walked deep into the cave, rounding a gentle bend.
“Anything coming to you yet Mattie?”
“No, nothing.”
After a moment they came to the back wall where Matthew shone the torch over the carved-out altar. He picked out the seat covered in green moss due to a spring, which flowed down the wall from a fracture.
They searched about–tapping the wall area around the altar – but nothing revealed itself!
Matthew stood on the seat and probed the ceiling, but to no avail.
“I think we’d better head back,” said David, after an hour of searching. “This is fruitless!”
They made their way back to the mouth of the cave just as the waves were creeping toward the top of the beach, and leaving wide, frothy arcs in the sand as they withdrew.
Matthew couldn’t help thinking he was being watched as they climbed the steep hillside path in the descending darkness. At the top he breathed a sigh of relief glad to be on the way back.
As they passed an overhanging piece of cliff a figure flew up and over the edge with jacket flapping in the wind and eyes ablaze. Grondin hovered over the path behind the two walkers. David sighed and turned around, but the figure had disappeared over the edge within the blink of an eye–
satisfied with the knowledge that the Key had not been found.
“What’s up?” Matthew asked.
“Nothing–come on let’s get back.”
David browsed through the science shelves of Arbroath Library while Matthew had a meeting with his supervisor. After a while he wandered outside to have a look for Grondin.
“We’d better get back,” said Matthew, as he joined David.
When they entered the flat, Jake was sitting chatting with Cath and Jane.
“Hey, the two amigos! How’s it going chaps?”
“All right Jake. How’s yourself?” answered Matthew.
“Any luck?” Jane asked.
“Nothing,” said David, sitting down.
Jake stroked his beard. “Cath’s going for some fish and chips, do you guys want some?”
“Am I?” Cath said, frowning at Jake.
Matthew shook his head. “Why do you stay with this guy Cath?”
“Animal magnetism Mattie–something you know little about,” said Jake.
Saturday morning blew sleet and rain over Arbroath, which was eroding the glistening frost on the pavements.
“I know where the Key is!” Matthew said as he strode into the kitchen where Jake and David sat drinking coffee.
“What!” David shouted.
“It’s in the Sacristy.”
“How did you find that out?” Jake asked.
“I’m not sure! It must have been hidden in the depths of my subconscious mind and surfaced last night now we require it.”
“Like these UFO abductees who recall things under hypnosis,” said Jake.
“Yeah, something like that–I guess.”
David stood up. “Well, where about in the Sacristy?”
“We’ll need a ladder,” said Matthew.
“You can’t walk into the Abbey with a ladder.” Jake pointed out.
“I know, we’ll head there tonight under the cover of darkness with a ladder and torches: agreed gentlemen?”
“Agreed!” David and Jake said in unison.
The full moon shone down promising an overnight frost as the foursome set off for Arbroath Abbey. Matthew watched as a group of people, heading for a night out, walked along the other side of the street laughing and joking. Time this was over–one way or another, he thought.
They walked up the gentle slope of the Outer Precinct toward the West Front of the Abbey with
the deserted visitor centre to their left in darkness. Matthew imagined hooded figures passing along the illuminated arches above the West Gate.
The group passed through the arches of the Gatehouse then followed Abbey Street round by the Abbots House. The South Transept dominated the background lit by a pale, white light, making it look like a huge one-eyed phantom.
“I stashed an extending stepladder in the hedge up here earlier on using Jake’s van.” Matthew said, leading the others into Abbey Green, a small park to the side of the main building. Matthew grabbed the steps and crept up to the perimeter fence. “We’ll keep the torches off until we’re well in the grounds – agreed?”
“Okay,” agreed David.
They climbed the part of the fence that wasn’t hedged and then walked over the neat lawn toward the South Transept.
“All right, Mattie why do we need a ladder?” David asked.
“Because we need to access a doorway to a former treasury strong room in the upper reaches of a wall.”
The group passed in front of the South Transept and entered the Nave area.
“Should be okay to switch on the torches now,” said Matthew, walking around one of the bases of the former columns.
A gust of wind blew laughter from a nearby pub as Matthew opened the well weathered, wooden Sacristy door and flashed his torch around. A shiver ran up and then back down his spine as he stepped over the threshold. Pale moonlight shone through a big Gothic arch window and fell upon the stone floor. David stepped in and shone his torch up onto the top far side of the right-hand wall.
“There it is – there’s the doorway to the treasury,” he said holding the beam steady on the black rectangle.
Jake extended the step ladder and placed it on the wall under the doorway. He then climbed up, and the last Matthew saw of him was a pair of white trainers disappearing into the inky darkness.
The laughter came again as Mathew climbed, but this time it sounded close at hand.
“Hear that?” David said, looking at Matthew out of the darkness, “Ghostly laughter. They used to imprison mad people in here.” Great, thought Matthew as he climbed into the dark.
Once into the room he shone his flashlight on to the wall behind the door. “Right – one block in and two up from the floor. Ah, here it is!” He put his fingers on the block and caressed it as if feeling the textural quality of the sandstone. He then placed the fingers of both hands around the rock and teased it out. Centimetre by centimetre the block eased out under the increasing pressure of Matthew's fingers until it fell into his hands. He put the block down and shone his torch into the vacant, rectangular space. There was a small wooden box at the back. Matthew thrust his right hand in and retrieved the box. He blew a thick layer of dust off the lid and opened it to reveal the Key. It looked much like the fake: bronze with a green patina, however the etching on the handle was much clearer.
“Okay let’s go,” said David, gazing at the Key.
They descended the stepladder back to the cold flagstones of the Sacristy.
“Did you get it?” Jane asked. “Let’s see it?”
Matthew opened the small, dark wooden box and exposed the most important key in the world.
Detective Sergeant Jim Doyle leaned back on his chair and sighed, it was Saturday night and there wasn’t much happening. Busy for Uniform but not for him, he thought. Detective Inspector Derek Watt, his boss, had taken the night off to attend a dinner party so he put his feet up on the desk, looked at the paperwork and yawned.
The phone on his desk rang.
“Hello.”
“Jim?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s Margaret in the comms room; there’s a call come in from Alan Bridges asking if someone senior would go to the Abbey to deal with a disturbance; as Inspector Brown and DI Watt aren’t on duty that leaves you.”
“A disturbance! Uniform deals with them.”
“Another unit responded to the call from a resident: John Hodges and Dale Whitton.”
“So, what’s going on?”
“He says he’s seen nothing like it. Can you go?”
“Okay–on my way.”
After seven years on the force DS Doyle had seen many things, but nothing could have prepared him for what awaited him in the Abbey grounds. He had gone by foot as it wasn’t far and just as quick when Arbroath’s one-way system was taken into consideration. As he approached, he saw a police van parked at a strange angle beside the Visitor Centre.
He strode into the Abbey through the open West Gate just as a spine-chilling scream pierced the air, which unnerved him, and made him halt. After regaining his composure Doyle walked over the Nave and through an arch on to the Cloister lawn. PC Alan Bridges appeared out of a group of people who were standing gaping at the proceedings. “Jim! Thank God! I don’t know what to do here.”
Doyle gazed in horror at a man hanging upside down in mid-air to the side of the South Transept; his cries were masked by the screams emitted by a two and a half metre tall woman with grey skin and blood red eyes.
A human male or what looked like a human male flew backwards through the air at startling speed. He cleared the perimeter hedge before he crashed into the Abbey Bowling Club building, which stood at right angles to the South Transept.
Doyle arched his shoulders as the body hit the small sandstone building. “Christ, no one could’ve survived that!” he shouted as he turned his attention to Alan Bridges. “We’ll need to call in armed officers Alan this is beyond us for fuck's sake!”
Matthew realised with horror he had made a terrible mistake as he watched Jane’s eyes turn from human excitement to demonic lust.
“Hel!” David screamed as he jumped in between the pair and slammed the lid shut.
“Yes!” boomed the huge shape of the demon which Jane was becoming.
“Run!” David shouted as he grabbed Matthew, shaking him from his transfixion.
Jake, however, needed no such persuasion–he was out of the door and half way across the Cloister lawn. David slammed the Sacristy door shut after Matthew and he were outside. Then as they ran toward the Cloister, the ancient door shattered into a thousand shards, and Hel strode through the arched doorway.
Matthew and David ran over the lawn toward the perimeter hedge, but were finding it hard going.
It was as if they were running through tar. Matthew came to a halt followed by David who turned his head and saw Hel walk toward them in the glow of the streetlights. Then suddenly they were free; Jake had crept up behind the demon and smashed the stepladder into her back. He turned and ran, but was swept off his feet and turned upside down–to hang five metres off the ground.
“Jake!” Matthew screamed.
“You run with the Key; I’ll try to hold her off and rescue Jake.” David shouted to Matthew.
At this point four policemen, and several people came running in, among them the curator of the Abbey, just as David summoned up as much psychic energy as he could. He then sent Hel back through the air to crash into the South Transept.
Matthew ran toward the perimeter hedge, but halted in his tracks as dark hooded figures emerged menacingly from the ground. He turned and ran back to where David was trying to break the psychic link that held Jake in the air.
“What are you doing back here Mattie?”
“It’s because of them.” Matthew said, pointing toward the ghosts.
“They can’t touch you–remember.”
Hel shrugged off the broken parts of a wooden bench that had sat for decades at the foot of the South Transept. She then turned on David and sent him soaring over the hedge. The demon then approached Matthew.
Just as the creature was in striking distance Matthew flew backwards over the group of people on the lawn. The demon screamed and made her way toward him, sending the spectators running for their lives.
“Fuck! There’s no way this could get much worse–is there?” Matthew asked himself as the abomination approached. The answer came in an evil laugh which resonated around the Abbey grounds. The source was standing, dressed in dark clothes, in the glassless rim of the Round ‘O’ at the top of the South Transept.
Matthew felt himself being lifted off the ground and, despite trying to oppose the power, he flew up toward the grinning Grondin. Meanwhile the screams of Hel, who was being held down on the lawn, seemed as if they would destroy the Abbey.
Matthew looked on as he neared the black disk pierced by what looked like two red hot poker tips. He stood on the rim next to Grondin with a grip on the side as if his life depended on it– which it did!
“Matthew!”
I know that voice, thought Matthew as he turned his head.
“Jonas!” He shouted. But it can’t be, he thought.
“It is me; I have come to protect you and the Key.”
Matthew stared in wonder at Jonas–he looked so much alive– gone was the gaunt ghostly look; his eyes sparkled with love, so much so that Matthew wanted to hug him–to hug his ancestor.
“Give me the Key Matthew and I will look after it one more time,” said Jonas in a soft lilting voice.
Mesmerised, Matthew took out the small wooden box from inside his jacket.
“No!” screamed David, who had recovered from the crash into the bowling club house and was climbing over the perimeter fence. But it was too late Grondin snatched the box and released the psychic hold on Matthew, who then fell forward. Fortunately, David moved into position; caught him with a psychic net and then lowered him to the ground.
The Abbey grounds filled with the shouts of armed police moving into covering positions. They were guided initially by DS Doyle. Matthew noticed Grondin had gone, along with Hel and her minions. Jake was sitting on the Cloister lawn holding his head.
“Jesus, I fell for his tricks again!” Matthew said as he turned toward David.
David watched the police as they closed in and said: “No time for self-pity let’s go.”
In the blink of an eye Matthew and Jake found themselves outside the Abbey beside the Visitor Centre. David had started walking along Hamilton Green.
“Where are you going?” Matthew asked.
“I’m sure I know where they are,” replied David.
Matthew and Jake ran after him.
They never noticed the figure that stepped out of the shadows and followed them.
Jim Doyle had been approaching Jake to see if he was all right when he discovered himself next to the Visitor Centre outside the Abbey. He took advantage of the situation by ducking into the darkened doorway when he heard the voices of the men he then recognised from inside the Abbey.
He trailed the three men unable to explain how he had found himself outside the Abbey. Then again, he had seen many bizarre things he couldn’t explain that night.
The threesome turned right into Leonard Street and followed its length into Stanley Street heading east. Doyle pursued as close as he dared, watching the search flashlights and listening to the shouts of the armed police squad in the Abbey grounds. The three men led him into Springfield Park, and on toward the sea.
The sky clouded over, and an onshore wind blew a light rain into his face as the policeman followed his quarry along the hilltop path that led to the cliffs.
“Where the hell are these three going?” He asked himself after following them for twenty minutes along the winding path at the top of the sandstone cliffs when they suddenly disappeared over the edge.
When he got to the place where they had left the path, he discovered a path which led down a steep hillside to an inlet with a pebbled beach. He made his way down the path cursing the fact the clouds had obscured the moon.
On the beach Doyle stared into the black maw of a cave and thought there’s nowhere else they could’ve gone. So, he climbed the waves of pebbles and entered the large rough arch.
As he moved through the suffocating darkness Doyle winced at the crunch of every footfall on the shingle. He had no desire to be captured by any of the creatures he had seen earlier.
The policeman peered into the black looking for some sign as to where the three men he was following had gone. On and on he crept with his hands out in front to give warning of some protruding rock face or something worse.
He doubted if the men had entered the cave and was considering turning back when he saw a red glow in the distance round a bend. His curiosity aroused; he pressed on. He couldn’t recall this cave from a childhood of exploring the area during the school holidays. Most of the caves he explored were tiny compared to this monster.
As he approached the red glow a chant filled the air. Some mantra in Latin, he thought.
Eventually he saw it: a circle of hooded monks. Their black habits were edged with red from the light, which emanated from a glowing circular symbol that seemed like it was cut into the rock of the cave floor; the man who had been standing in the Round ‘O’ presided over them. He stood beside an altar with a box and other articles upon it.
A shiver ran up the detective’s spine. Devil worshippers, he thought. “God, this in Arbroath! I’m going to put a stop to this,” he said to himself as he strode forward toward the circle. Suddenly he was grabbed from behind, and a thick cord thrown around his neck.
Matthew nudged David as Georges Lagrange pulled Jim Doyle around the circle toward the altar.
There was a thick, white cord around his neck, which Lagrange tugged, and his hands were tied together.
The pair, along with Jake were hiding behind a rock in the shadows.
“He was in the Abbey,” whispered Matthew.
“He’s a policeman–I saw him guiding the armed squad,” said David.
Lagrange pulled the hapless detective toward the altar while his master opened the box next to which lay a bejeweled bowl. Matthew felt the little hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
“What are they going to do with him?”
“It looks as if he’s to be the pure soul.” David answered.
“What?” asked a shocked Matthew.
“They can’t perform the invocation without someone with a pure soul, and what’s worse he’ll be sacrificed.”
“David, you can’t let that happen.” Matthew whispered as loud as he dared.
“I can’t do anything about it.”
“Why not?”
“Try moving?”
Matthew found that his whole body was paralysed.
“Now look up – your eyeballs can still move.”
What Matthew saw when he looked up froze his blood. Jane or rather Hel in the form of Jane gazed down upon them from a hovering position on the ceiling of the cave. She grinned at Matthew, who looked away.
“Pick up the Key human,” commanded Grondin.
DS Doyle did as he was told due to Lagrange tightening the cord around his neck.
“Now read the text on the handle in reverse–right to left!”
“It’s Latin–I can’t read Latin!” Doyle gasped.
“Read it!” Grondin Boomed.
After a tug on the cord and a look into Grondin’s red eyes Doyle began to read. As he read the chanting increased in volume.
Matthew gazed at Jake and wondered what he made of all this.
The chanting reached a climax as the words the detective read came to a stuttering end. Grondin then picked up a dagger and made to stab Doyle, who turned, and diverted the blow, but was slashed across the arm. Lagrange hit him over the head, and Doyle fell, unconscious onto the floor–
Lagrange allowing the cord to slip through his hands.
Grondin dropped the Key into the bowl and then raised Doyle’s wounded arm to allow blood to run over it.
Suddenly there was a growling noise as if the rock of the cave was angry at what had transpired.
After the noise died away the rock melted, and blackness hissed out from all around like a dirty gas leak.
“Shit! What’s happening David?” Matthew asked.
“The ancient ones are breaking the ionic bonds that hold the molecules in the rock together.
That’s how they will enter the world–they’re going to seep in between the atoms!”
“I am the resurrection and the life, he who believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” Grondin shouted, raising his arms and looking up into the disintegrating cave ceiling.
“The idiot still thinks he’s the Anti-Christ,” snorted David.
“So, it looks like we’re beaten,” said Matthew, shaking his head.
“Not if I can help it,” said David as he raised his eyes up to Hel– now in demon form.
“Mother! Grondin means to betray you; he will keep the Key, thus exercising complete control over the dark ones.”
“You lie, he is under my control.” Hel boomed.
“Why did he keep you pinned down at the Abbey while he grabbed the Key?”
There was a snarl then a crash as Hel smashed into Grondin. The ghostly monks scattered–their hoods flapping back to reveal white skulls.
The two demons crashed around the walls, each caught in the others grasp while the rock was melting and spreading out from the altar area. More of the evil dark matter escaped to poison the atmosphere.
“Quick Mattie–we can move.” David shouted as he ran toward the disintegrating altar. He grabbed the Key and threw it to Matthew. “Read it!”
Matthew began to read it in reverse.
“No! Read it normally.”
As Matthew read the Key amid the scenes of chaos David picked up the bowl which contained the blood of DS Doyle. When Matthew had finished David took the Key then placed it in the container. The black matter was sucked back through the inter-atomic spaces as the rock began to re-gel.
“I need your help, Mattie!” David shouted as he pointed toward the wrestling demons. “Right now-minds together!”
The two men ran toward the demons and released a psychic blast which swept them into the re-gelling back wall of the cave. With a horrendous scream the two monsters joined the dark matter being sucked back into the Dark Realm.
David and Matthew collapsed on to the cave floor mentally exhausted from the psychic blast. The place was in darkness… natural darkness-normality had resumed.
A head appeared from behind a rock. “What happened?” Jake asked.
Matthew and David fell around in laughter.
“Where were you? Matthew asked with tears rolling down his cheeks.
“I couldn’t look!”
“Well, we sent them through to the Dark Realm and locked the gate,” said David.
“Where’s the Key?” Matthew asked.
“I’ve got it. Let’s get out of here,” replied David.
Just then a groan came from the direction of the altar.
“The copper!” Matthew shouted as he ran toward the sound.
He found DS Doyle lying by the altar; he lifted his head and noticed he had lost a lot of blood from the wound on his right arm. Matthew took out his handkerchief and tied it around the cut.
“Press hard here,” he said to the policeman as he helped him to his feet. They then followed David and Jake out of the cave and up the hillside on to the cliff top path.
“I won’t pretend to understand what was going on down there when I drifted back into consciousness, but I reckon you guys did us all a favour.” Doyle said, walking unsteadily along the path.
“What about the armed police back at the Abbey?”
“I’ll handle that tomorrow.”
Back in Jake’s flat Cath ran to let the three hero’s in. “Well, I take it the world has been saved?”
“Yeah,” said Matthew.
“You want to have seen these guys in action Cath,” said Jake.
“How do you know, you were hiding behind a rock,” taunted Matthew.
“Yeah well, I peeped around it occasionally.”
They all laughed after which Jake related the whole story to Cathy–accompanied by the cans of beer they had bought on the way back to the flat.
The next morning, Matthew woke up to find David putting things in his travel bag.
“Where are you going David?”
“Back to Amsterdam–I’ve got a business to run.”
“Yeah,” said Matthew, nodding his head. “Will you come back over some time?”
“Of course, I’m in Scotland quite a bit. Why don’t you come over to Amsterdam? You’re going to
have plenty time, because it looks as if you’re in for a long life with that demon seed in you.” He took the Key out of his pocket, “this is yours,” he said, handing it to Matthew.
“What’ll I do with it?” Matthew asked, as he put the Key in his shirt pocket.
“It’s up to you–you’re the guardian. You can destroy it, or hide it again.”
“I can’t help thinking about Jane.
“Yeah well, Hel was a cunning adversary.”
Matthew saw David off from the car park outside Jake’s flat then checked to see if the Key was in his pocket for if he didn’t, he feared something horrible would happen and he didn’t want that…again! After satisfying himself that the Key was safe, he headed home to a changed world–a world where he knew more about himself.
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