Deliver us from Evil (73 page)

'You are content, then, to become a second Tadeus?' 'No. For
I
am wiser, stronger, greater than he.' 'Yet Lovelace, listen, for
I
have been considering this matter greatly. The power of the book
..."
'The power?'

'Yes, which you have since found in the blood of that creature which you bore

She paused suddenly; for Lovelace had raised his hand to quiet her, and his face seemed twisted with scorn and contempt. 'You presume,' he hissed softly, 'to instruct me on such a thing? You, Milady? You, who could not even approach the secret power without transforming yourself into the image of a whore?' He laughed bitterly; and as she sought to keep hold of his arms, he brushed her away, then raised his hand and struck her across the face. She was knocked to the ground and lay a moment where she had fallen; then reached with her finger to the side of her mouth. She felt blood. She licked it away; and gazed up at Lovelace. He was standing perfectly still, his face as frozen as one of the stones. She narrowed her eyes. 'You are damned indeed,' she whispered. 'Damned as surely as Tadeus was.'

Lovelace tensed, as though uncertain which way he should move; then he shook his head faintly and took a step back. 'No,' he whispered,
I
shall not be damned. For
I
do not come as Tadeus did, a feeble suppliant, but to invoke the powers of this place for my revenge. The spirit which destroyed him -
I
shall destroy it now in turn.'

He tensed again; glanced round at Sir Henry, who was twisting no more, but hanging limply like a butcher's carcass. 'Please,' Milady whispered.

She saw a tremor of something, a shadow, cross his face. But he shook his head. 'No,' he answered. His voice seemed suddenly, strangely tender. 'Leave me, Milady. Where
I
am going - you cannot come. Please go - go far from here - for you are all
I
have left to me still of life.' He reached beneath his cloak, and drew out a flask. He unstoppered it; and at once Milady felt its stench burn her throat. Through the stinging of her eyes, she saw how Lovelace was smiling at her very sadly now; then he raised the bottle, as though in a toast. He brought it to his lips; he began to drain it; and when he was finished, dropped it on the grass. At the same moment, he raised his hands to the sides of his head; and, closing his eyes, he began to gasp.

'Which way
I
fly is hell; my self am
hell;

And in the lowest deep a lower deep

Still threatening to devour me opens wide,

To which the hell
I
suffer seems a heaven.

O then at last relent: is there no place

Left for repentance, none for pardon left?'

John Milton,
Paradise Lost

H
e had known, even as he st
arted to drink the liquid, that
the vision of power it was opening to him, a blazing wall of infinite
light, would be greater than any he had made his own before, greater even than the very first, the Wanderer's, which had served to melt the abortion from his flesh - that same thing which, crushed, he was gulping down now. He swallowed more of it; and saw the light shimmer into a thousand colours, flickering and changing into a line of dark fire, still bright about the edges and with amber at its heart. The standing stones, just a shadowy facade, spanned the line from side to side; and then Lovelace blinked, and they faded and were gone. He finished the liquid; and knew that the line, its power, its space, were his. He gasped, for he had felt the line pass through him, and seem almost to become a part of himself. He clasped the sides of his head; he closed his eyes; and felt the world ripple in obeisance to his thoughts.

Yet not utterly. For even as he seemed to behold, within the depths of his own mind, the burning light of the universe of things, so also he felt a blackness polluting its gleam, a spillage of terror staining the flames. He knew from where the blackness was coming - from a creature which was feeding, like himself, upon the line, seeking to bend to its own will the blaze of power. Lovelace sensed the creature's mind for a moment blankly; then dared to meet, to engage with its spread. At once the blackness was spilling across his thoughts, heavy like a fog, so that only pinpricks of silver were left of the former blaze, casting weak and ghostly shadows; and Lovelace dreaded that even those might soon be lost. He sought to protect them; and at once the blackness seemed to weaken and turn. Encouraged, he strained harder. The contours of the line began to glimmer again and, as they strengthened, so the blackness grew thinner, and retreated all the more. Lovelace did not pursue it utterly - the time for that would come - but it had soon faded all the same to the margins of his mind. Lovelace smiled to himself. He could be certain now, certain. He was ready. The line was all his own.

He opened his eyes again, willing the world of the everyday to return. It appeared before him, indistinct but unchanged. He turned at once. Sir Henry was still hanging from the meat-hook. Lovelace raised his hand, gave the signal to a guard. A knife was drawn and Sir Henry's throat severed; blood, in a thick shower, fell upon the grass. As it did so, Lovelace sensed a thickening of the blackness again, billowing inwards towards the stain upon the grass, a mist of predatory and fell intent. Now, he knew, was the great moment of truth: for the Dark Spirit was coming, drawn again - as Faustus had once drawn it - by the scent of blood within that ancient place of power. Lovelace could see the figure before him, still shadowy but visible now; and he braced himself for the moment of attack. The line, he reminded himself - the line was all his own. He summoned all his strength, all his reserves of will and hate; then sought to make himself one with the light.

Suddenly, he could feel the attack. The creature's presence was all about him, and then he saw it: the figure from the coldest depths of his memories, its face deformed and gleamingly pale, its jaws gaping wide, its eyes as before an unpitying index of measureless power. It screamed as it felt itself washed by the light; and Lovelace felt the grip of its hands around his throat. But the grip was not tightening; and the light grew ever brighter, and the grip began to fail. The figure staggered back, a silhouette again; and then Lovelace saw, across its body, the glistening of blood; and its shriek was terrible to hear, as its limbs began to dry and crumble into dust. The blood lay upon the great line of light, a dancing cloud of crimson motes; and Lovelace smiled, for he could be confident now that the light was still his own. He raised his eyes to the corpse of Sir Henry Vaughan. Its flesh was drinking up the cloud of blood. The creature shrieked again, then Lovelace cried out too. The light was starting to burn his mind, for its brightness was too great and the flood of its power was scorching his thoughts. Yet he could not relax now, not ease his efforts; for the creature had virtually crumbled away; and his blood been drained almost wholly from the light. Lovelace gazed at the
golem
of Sir Henry's corpse: it was twitching uncontrollably. Very close. Lovelace thought; very close to success. Yet the agony in his skull was unbearable now; his hold upon the light was fading; and then he felt a terrible explosion of pain, and he screamed again, for he knew his hold was gone. At the same moment, the limbs of the corpse were rent from inside; blood, in a black rain, blotted out the light; and Lovelace saw before him the creature's face once more.

It lingered for a moment, a pale imprint upon an impossible darkness; and then it too faded, and all was utter black. Lovelace closed his eyes. He sought to recapture the flood of the light. The darkness pressed undimmed, and the light did not return.

He imagined he heard sudden laughter.

He started.

He had imagined it was his own.

'Did you not understand, sir, that all your designs of revenge will
serve only to succour me, and make me more whole?'

Lovelace opened his eyes. The darkness was still as total as before; yet there seemed to be, before him, a shadow of even greater darkness, wearing the form of a human figure; and then it turned, and Lovelace saw its face. It appeared, like the laughter and the voice, to be his own.

The face mocked him with a smile. 'Had you truly not comprehended that malice and hatred are what
I
feed upon? And what a dish, a rich dish, you have brought to me of both.'

Lovelace closed his eyes again. Still the darkness; still no light.

He felt the touch of something cold running sharp against his throat; and then a thin cravat of dampness, and the softness of a tongue. He sought to shrink away, but found it impossible to move. Only his eyelids could be stirred. He flickered them apart. There was a figure before him, the very image of himself, down upon its knees, lapping at the wound; then leaning back, lips damp, its smile very cold.

'A
pretty dish indeed.'

Lovelace gazed at the picture of his own face with revulsion and disgust; and as he did so, saw how the strength of its evil seemed to grow. He could not even close his eyes now; had no choice but to stare at the grinning mask. He struggled not to hate it, struggled to purge his mind of every thought. But he knew it was too late now; and the smile before him grew steadily more cruel.

Still Lovelace sought to annihilate his hatred.

'Too late,' the smile whispered. 'Too late, too late.'

Lovelace knew that it was true.

He struggled to put such a thought from his mind.

The smile grew broader still.

And then suddenly, from distant depths: the sound of footsteps.

The smile did not waver. 'Everything,' it whispered, 'must redound upon itself

The footsteps again; drawing nearer.

The smile parted, curling back from the teeth.

The footsteps echoing on flagstones now outside.

Suddenly, Lovelace stirred, and found that his paralysis seemed gone. At once he shrank back from the face. He felt soil underfoot, very powder)'; and then behind him, rough brickwork; and looking around, he knew where he was. Above him were the ruins of Wolverton Hall; behind him the cellars where the dead things still stank, slaughtered weeks before by his own avenging hand; and ahead of him and all around, the lair and refuge of his enemy - that final cellar he had never dared to enter. And the enemy was with him there now; and Lovelace knew that in that reservoir of evil and power his own powers would be as nothing, that a fly might as soon seek to destroy a spider in its web. And so he tensed himself for the end that he knew was surely coming; for the end - or for a beginning more terrible yet.

And then suddenly he heard the footsteps again. He looked round as he heard them stop; and he saw, standing in the doorway, a figure -shadowy and indistinct, as figures had always seemed indistinct before, when he had sought to glimpse them through the veil of power. Yet the power now appeared to be ebbing; for even as Lovelace watched, he saw how it was eddying and swirling away, so that the figure was growing ever less indistinct; he imagined that he recognised Milady. Yet he could not be certain; for he found it impossible to imagine what strength she might have, which could serve to dim the power of his adversary. And indeed, no sooner had he glanced at the figure than he heard in his ear a hissing, hell-like moan, and he saw, as he turned back again, his own face, its smile now vanished utterly and its jaws opened wide. Desperately, Lovelace twisted away, and fell into the dirt as the jaws bit air; then twisted once more, and leapt back to his feet. To his astonishment, the creature appeared suddenly frozen. Lovelace watched as his own looks faded from its face. He could see now how its skin was ashy white, and its eyes no longer blank but shaded by deep pain. It appeared even more hollowed and deformed than before; so that he wondered suddenly what wounds he had inflicted; how near to success he might have been after all.

Just as suddenly, he realised that he could hear the distant drip of water, the sound of a world beyond the cellar walls; and then, from behind him, footsteps again. He turned, despite himself.
Milady. It was her.
He stood frozen in astonishment. At the same moment, she screamed at him; and then he felt a pain slash across his back and a weight, icy cold, send him crashing to the floor. At the same moment, he heard a piercing shriek; and he felt the weight tense, and release him from its grip. As he had done before, he twisted free, and then round. He saw Milady with her dagger. It was dripping blood. She raised it again, and then stabbed it down; and again the creature tensed, as the blade was driven in hard.
It
staggered backwards as she pulled the dagger free; and then staggered again as she slashed across its throat. A spurt of blood hit her in the face; she screamed, and raised her hands to cover her eyes. The dagger clattered upon the stones of the floor. The creature seized her by the hair; it bent back her head, then bit into the naked curve of her slim throat. Deep it drank; deep and very hard; and then staggered back as Milady collapsed into the dirt.