Mason could feel his body shaking uncontrollably now and he didn’t care if the others could see his fear.
‘Please let me go,’ he said, his voice cracking.
‘No,’ exclaimed Kate Wheeler without a shred of emotion in her voice. ‘It’s almost over now, Peter, and we can’t go back. Not now. We’ve all got too much to gain. Next time it may be my turn and an offering will restore my father’s health but it isn’t my turn. Not this time.’ She stroked his head gently, the tone of the voice softening.
‘So whose fucking turn is it this time?’ Mason rasped.
‘What would you want, Peter? If you had the chance to change anything that had happened in your life what would it be?’ Kate purred.
‘I’d want to see my daughter again. I’d want her back. Alive,’ Mason breathed.
‘Then your death will be worthwhile, Peter.’
Mason heard the new voice and he twisted around madly to locate its source.
It came from behind his head and he couldn’t twist his neck enough to see who spoke the words although he recognised the voice immediately.
‘I waited. Now the waiting is over and what I’ve wanted so badly will come to pass. She’ll live again,’ said the voice. ‘Chloe will live again.’
The figure stepped into view, standing between Kate Wheeler and Richard Holmes, looking down at him with a beatific smile.
Natalie Mason reached out and gently touched his cheek.
82
He couldn’t speak.
Mason looked incredulously up at his wife but the words he wanted to say simply wouldn’t force their way past his lips.
‘She’ll live again because of you,’ Natalie announced. ‘Your life for hers. Wouldn’t you have given that before? Why not now?’
‘You knew about this from the beginning?’ Mason gasped. ‘You knew everything?’
‘I knew about the cult,’ Natalie informed him. ‘I’d been searching for some way to get over the pain of Chloe’s death. I found out about them. I spoke to them and they explained the situation and the possibilities. I had to believe them, Peter. My belief was all I had. I waited my turn and now my time has come.’
‘Oh, Jesus, Natalie,’ he said, imploringly. ‘Think about what’s happening here.This is bullshit.They’re all fucking crazy. Chloe is dead and nothing can bring her back. Certainly not this.’
‘I have to believe them, Peter,’ his wife crooned, still stroking his face gently. ‘They’re all I have now.’
Kate Wheeler put a comforting arm around Natalie’s shoulder and guided her away from the table where Mason was held. He writhed frantically against the ropes that restrained him.
‘It’s time,’ Richard Holmes told him. ‘We have to go.’ Nigel Grant nodded affably in Mason’s direction as he left. Richard Holmes stood looking down at Mason, his face expressionless.
‘Please,’ Mason croaked. ‘Let me go.’
‘It’s too late now, Peter,’ Holmes told him.
‘And what if it doesn’t accept me?’ Mason said, defiantly. ‘What if this thing comes looking for you or Kate or Grant or any of the rest of you?’
‘It won’t.’
‘How can you be sure?’
Holmes took a step back.
‘It won’t,’ he repeated then he turned and walked briskly away.
Mason was alone in the chamber.
He strained madly against the ropes, not caring that the hemp cut into the flesh of his wrists and ankles. He continued like that for fully thirty seconds then he simply slumped back onto the table, his heart hammering, his breath rasping in his throat.
He lay there motionless for another moment or two then tried again but still the ropes didn’t slacken.
Mason wondered if there was any way he could turn the table over. Perhaps, if he could flip the heavy piece of furniture somehow he could get out. But how to do that? He began rocking back and forth with increasing violence. The table didn’t budge. It was far too heavy. He had no other ideas. He was clueless. There seemed no way out.
Mason lay still, sucking in the dank air, his head spinning.
Then he heard the sound.
Far away to begin with. It was the noise he’d heard in the tunnels earlier. The wet bellows wheezing. And it was growing closer.
Mason tried again to free himself.
Come on. Think. There has to be a way off this table. A way to slip these bonds.
The wheezing was much closer and it was accompanied by a loud sucking sound. A sound like something very large slithering over damp earth. The rank odour he’d come to know so well was also more intense.
‘Please help me,’ he whispered, not knowing who the words were directed at. Perhaps at God. It seemed that no one else could help now.
Mason twisted his wrists frantically, not caring when the flesh there split and blood oozed over the table. He kept straining, desperate to free himself.
And all the while, the vile sucking sound filled his ears. The stench clogged his nostrils.
He tried to tell himself that this wasn’t happening. That it was a trick of his mind. Some monstrous dream that he’d wake from any second.
It couldn’t be real.
It couldn’t.
‘Help me,’ he said, aloud, his voice echoing inside the chamber.
The noise was very close now. Whatever was making it was in the chamber with him.
‘Help,’ he shouted. ‘Please help me.’
There was desperation in the words.
The stench was so strong by now that he almost retched. Whatever was with him must be only feet away but he couldn’t turn his head to see it.
It was just as well.
83
It was getting cold.
The wind that had been growing in strength all afternoon was now blowing strongly across the beach. It brought with it the scent of the sea and also the threat of rain. Dark clouds were gathering far out above the steel-grey water and a small boat was making its way back to shore before things got too rough.
Natalie Mason looked up and saw seagulls dipping and diving against the increasingly turbulent backdrop. She shivered as the breeze whipped around her then she took a final sip of her tea, got to her feet and walked towards the sea wall.
The tide was a long way out and there was nothing but sand six or seven feet below.
Somewhere out by the water’s edge she could hear a dog barking. As she looked more closely, she could see two children throwing a stick for the animal to chase. It scurried happily back and forth between them, each child petting it as it reached them. Natalie smiled and continued along the seafront, pausing to brush some strands of hair from her face.
The beach was more or less deserted except for the children down by the water and a couple who were walking arm in arm over the sand. Natalie liked it like that. When it was quiet. She had more time to think and she appreciated the stillness. Only the far-off crashing of the waves on the beach broke the solitude.
She headed for the jetty that stuck out into the sea like an accusatory finger, the water lapping around the rusted metal struts that held the structure up.
There was a single figure on the end of the wooden promontory and Natalie walked towards it.
When she got ten yards away she called once but the figure didn’t turn. It was peering out to sea, towards the growing banks of dark cloud and the diving seagulls and the little boat.
Natalie moved nearer, her feet tapping out a tattoo on the wood of the jetty as she walked towards the figure ahead of her.
The figure didn’t turn. It seemed more interested in the seagull that had landed on the parapet of the jetty and was sitting there motionless.
Natalie saw the figure extend a hand towards the bird as if to welcome it and the gull left its temporary perch and dropped down close to the figure.
Natalie hesitated, slowing her pace as the figure moved towards the gull. The bird seemed unconcerned and merely let out a squawk. The figure knelt close as i
f inspecting it.
The speed of the movement was incredible.The figure grabbed the gull by the neck in one hand and stood up instantly. The gull flapped its powerful wings once but the reflex was stopped as its head was torn away by the figure’s other hand. The body jerked involuntarily, the wings flapping again as the bird’s body was tossed away over the parapet of the jetty into the dark water below.
Natalie stood motionless, watching as the figure looked at the ripped-off head of the gull, holding it for a second longer before hurling it into the water in the same direction as the body.
Natalie closed her eyes briefly then sucked in a deep breath that was tinged with the taste of the sea.
At last the figure turned, nodded, then scampered back towards her.
Natalie scooped the figure up into her arms, smiling broadly as she felt the embrace returned so warmly.
‘Come on,’ Natalie beamed. ‘Let’s get home before the rain starts.’
She looked at the figure’s hands and saw that there was some blood on them. Natalie reached into her coat pocket, pulled out a tissue and wiped the crimson fluid away, stuffing the rag back into her pocket.
Chloe Mason smiled back at her, reaching for her hand as they walked back down the jetty.
They were still halfway along it when they felt the first spots of rain. Laughing, they began to run, wanting to reach shelter and escape what threatened to be a downpour.
Natalie pulled the bloodied tissue from her pocket and tossed it into a waste bin as she passed.
This wasn’t the first incident of the kind she’d just witnessed. There’d been a dog, a rabbit and several other birds. She didn’t know why. She didn’t want to know.
It was, she told herself, a small price to pay for having Chloe with her again.
The rain fell more heavily now, large cold droplets hammering down from the threatening clouds but to Natalie and her daughter it didn’t really seem to matter.
‘I shall but love thee better after death.’
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83