Omega (23 page)

For a moment, such was the intensity of the shouting and the dance, Friell thought John and Karen would couple in wild ritual orgasm before their eyes. But at the moment when no other outcome seemed possible they leaped together at the altar and John dragged the struggling hare out of its basket and Karen seized a knife. They both screamed in unison: 'Kill Ben Stoddart!' as Karen slashed the hare's throat and John flung the blood direct from the pulsing, severed neck across Ben Stoddart's picture.

The screaming seemed to reach an unbearable pitch; Friell could no longer tell if his own voice was a part of it. The detached observer was swept away and he saw in a flame-lit dream the picture of Stoddart being ripped to pieces by the talons of two demonic figures, a dancing man and a dancing woman whom he barely knew.

A blow came down on the back of his skull, and the split second of awareness that remained to him was filled with the thought, 'Oblivion will be a relief!'

'Hey, love - what's the matter?' The man put his beer down on the wall, the better to attend to the dishevelled and breathless young nurse who had cannoned into him. 'Take it easy, now...'

The girl gasped 'Police, police', clinging to him for support. One of the half dozen people who had been drinking outside the pub called urgently through the saloon-bar door: (Mike, ring the cops, quick' - which of course brought everybody out to see what was happening. The nurse, exhausted anyway by her two-kilometre run from the Unit, was pouring out her story in near-hysteria to a growing crowd. If she had not been so obviously and genuinely terrified, it wo
uld have been an incredible tale
; the commando raid, the cut telephone lines, the staff herded at gunpoint, the roped mad patients, the wild flame-lit dance, the crescendo of murderous chanting, the blood sacrifice . . . 'They said they were the Angels of Lucifer,' she sobbed, 'and they've gone, you'll never catch them now, half an hour ago - they kidnapped Dr Friell and Nurse Parker, took them with 'em - and the mess they left, and getting the patients back, it was awful - couldn't get help, no phone, and they'd done something to all the cars - I ran
..

She broke down at last into wordless tears, just as a police car arrived and whisked her away. But by then the bare bones of the story, and the loaded words 'Angels of Lucifer', had been heard not only by thirty or forty villagers but also by eight London-bound and five Bristol-bound motorists.

Moira had been on edge since early evening; that something was brewing - something evil and specific - she was certain. She had a feeling that it had to do with John and Karen, but she could not be sure whether this feeling was clairvoyance or guesswork. Putting Diana to bed kept her attention off it for a while because the child was particularly lively and talkative tonight, but as soon as she had settled down Moira found herself brooding again. Dan was not there to talk to about it; he had an evening appointment with one of the few clients who had become more, not less, friendly towards him since the discrimination against witches had begun to be felt, and he would not be back till about nine. She knew Rosemary and Greg were eating, and that Sally probably was, so she did not like to disturb them.

She turned on the television for company. BBC i offered a Western, and BBC 2 a discussion on schizophrenia, neither of which tempted her at the moment. ITV had a series comedy, undemanding and cheerful; she left it on, giving it half her attention while she prepared a meal for Dan.

At about half past eight, without warning, she felt a brief wave of vertigo and gasped to herself, automatically throwing up her psychic defences. She knew she had picked up something which had the flavour of malignancy, of
black magic - not directed at her, but sensed by her be-' cause of its intensity and because she had some personal link with its source.
It's got to be John and Karen,
she told herself, sombrely. She sat down, closed her eyes, and cast deliberate mental circles around Diana and Dan. She relaxed a little - the peak of whatever-it-was seemed to have passed - but she was still uneasy.

At ten to nine Dan came home; she ran to greet him, smiling with relief. They returned to the living-room together just as the continuity announcer broke into the comedy with a news flash:

'The headquarters of the Anti-Pagan Crusade announced a few minutes ago that their president, Mr Ben Stoddart, died suddenly at about 8.30 this evening. The cause of death is still uncertain but he had been protected by a bodyguard of Crusaders ever since the recent threat by the so-called Angels of Lucifer and they insist that physical attack can be ruled out. That is the end of the news flash.'

Stanley Friell drifted back into consciousness, his head throbbing. He was lying on a narrow mattress on the floor of a closed van, and to judge by its high and steady speed the van was on a motorway. One of the Angel women was squatting beside him, watching him, and as soon as he opened his eyes she called 'Karen
!
'
and clambered forward.

A few seconds later
Karen was looking down at him. ‘
How do you feel?'

'Not too bad, in the circumstances. Did you
have
to slug me?'

'Sorry about that but we couldn't leave you there, you know. We're ninety-nine per cent certain you're reliable but we couldn't afford the one per cent. You knew too
much. And at the speed we had to get out, there was no time to argue. Slugging was quicker.'

Friell nodded, carefully. 'Don't blame you. I'd have done the same. . . . Anyhow, the Unit's become a dead end for me. I think I'd rather join you.' He rolled sideways to ease his limbs and caught sight of Jenny Parker, still uncon
scious and wrapped in a blanket
on the other side of the van. 'Good God! You brought
her,
too?'

Karen smiled. '(A), as a consolation prize for you since we'd kidnapped you! and (B), because her reaction to the ritual suggests she's promising material for the Angels of Lucifer.'

'Fair enough.
...
I wonder how Ben Stoddart's feeling now?'

'Oh, it's been on the radio already. You're not joining amateurs, Stanley. Ben Stoddart is dead.'

Stoddart's death gave Harley his first opportunity to test the 'sensitive news' system which he had devised in consultation with the experts of BBC News and ITN. Each of the latter had a small news-studio in Beehive, with a hand-picked staff, in close touch with Harley's own office. The moment a news story was classified as 'sensitive', its handling was transferred to the Beehive studios - whose output could be integrated with those of the Surface studios during news bulletins in the same way as that of OB vans or of the Parliamentary interview studios.

A hunch made Harley rule that Stoddart's death was 'sensitive', and he was glad later. At first, the death itself; the almost immediate official confirmation by doctors and police that neither violence nor poisoning had killed him; the 'spontaneous' demonstrations in Parliament Square by crowds chanting 'Ban the witches!' and worse (illegally, since Parliament was sitting but with little police interference); Quentin White's impassioned speech in the House demanding 'in the name of our martyred friend' that, pending legislation, a more stringent Order in Council be made declaring the professing or practising of witchcraft illegal - all these could have been suitably handled by BBC and ITN on Surface without Harley's guidance. But when the first hint of the Banwell Emergency Unit raid came in, Harley knew he had been right.

He told BBC and ITN to hold the Banwell story till the news was harder and a suitably guarded version of it could be released. Within half an hour, he had received a concise police report, and spoken to the Unit chief (a personal appointee of his own) on the telephone. Ten minutes later, he let the BBC and ITN loose on the story in all its lurid detail - with the only provisos that the Unit was to be described as 'a small isolation hospital for the specialized treatment of violent mental patients', no mention was to be made of the Dust or of any connection between the Unit and the earth tremors, and no one was to be interviewed on camera except the Unit chief and the local police superintendent.

For apart from the Dust, there was no need to censor the story. The Angels of Lucifer had carried out their threat in a way bizarre enough to turn the witch-hunt into a stampede. Harley had merely to sit back and watch.

The Order in' Council which Quentin White was demanding had in fact already been prepared, and tonight was psychologically the ideal moment to impose it. So at 10.30, half an hour after the Banwell story had hit a public already stunned by the death of Ben Stoddart, the Prime Minister announced that as from midnight, the new Order in Council made the practice, profession or promotion of witchcraft illegal. Penalties ranged from a minimum fine of £10 to a maximum prison sentence of two years. Certain
periodicals were prohibited by name and the Home Secretary was empowered to add to the list.

As soon as Ben Stoddart's death was announced, Moira and Dan knew the time had come. Rosemary, Greg, and Sally agreed with them at once. Dan and Greg stowed the roof-rack load in the van's central gangway, while the women made hot soup for the thermos flasks and other last-minute comforts; there seemed no minute-by-minute urgency. But the report of the Banwell raid changed their minds about that; Moira hurried upstairs to dress Diana, if possible without waking her too much. The child was a little querulous and confused at first, but fortunately soon decided it was a surprise game and cooperated, happily if sleepily.

Moira nearly had her ready when Rosemary ran upstairs. 'Got to go
now,
love. There's a small crowd gathering on the corner of the road - can't sec much from this end but they could be after
us.'

They hurried down together, Moira carrying Diana. Both vehicles were still in their garages; Sally was already in the car back seat and Dan behind the steering wheel. 'Keep Di on your lap,' he told her as she climbed in. 'No time to tuck her in behind.... Greg's going first, because the van's bigger and heavier in case we have to scatter the crowd. The moment we see him go, I follow. Right? You can start the engine while I open the door.'

He got out and stood with his hand on the already-unlatched garage door, which was of the up-and-over type, while he watched through the window towards Greg's garage. In the waiting silence, Moira suddenly heard the noise of the crowd. The corner was over a hundred metres away but they must be beginning to move nearer. . . .

Greg's door crashed upwards, quickly followed by Dan's, and Moira had the engine running before Dan jumped in beside her. She held Diana tightly as the car surged and swung to fit in behind the van. She could see the crowd reacting, spreading across the road to challenge them; sec Greg's momentary hesitation, and then his sudden acceleration as he drove full tilt at the mob. She wanted to shout encouragement,
It's them or us, Greg,
but she must not distract Dan, who was matching Greg's speed and might have to react quickly. In seconds they were ploughing through, people scattering to left and right - she didn't think anyone stayed long enough to be hit but she couldn't be sure. . . . Faces, shouts of anger, the glint of a flaming torch, the rattle of flung stones on the roof, Diana screaming. . . . Then they were away, free, circling round behind the estate to join the by-pass.

She had thought Diana's scream was of fright but now she was able to look at her. A stone must have found the open window because her forehead was bleeding and she was whimpering in Moira's arms, trying (as she usually did when she was hurt) not to cry. Moira said, 'Di's hit but keep going,' and started cleaning the wound with a tissue while she soothed her. Diana attempted a smile and said,
'Horrid
people.'

'Yes, darling, horrid. But they can't catch us now. . . . She's all right, Dan. . . . Hold still, my love, while I stick a little plaster on it.'

They drove in silence for a while, out into the country, skirting Heathrow; they had agreed not to stop till they were well into the Chilterns and certain none of the mob had jumped into cars and followed.

Dan glanced down at Diana to make sure she had fallen asleep and said at last: 'I wonder when we'll be back.'

Sally leaned forward, her forearms on the tops of their scats, her head between theirs. 'I didn't tell you before, my
love
s, because of little ears. But I
could see our houses as we came round the back road. That lot weren't carrying torches for nothing, you know. Our places were well alight already. . . . Sorry, dears, but it's
got
to be forward, 'cos there's nowhere to go back to.'

11

They drove for about an hour before Greg pulled into a lonely woodland verge beyond Great Missenden, where they loaded the van roof-rack to clear the central gangway for domestic use. Rosemary made toast to go with the hot soup and they stood around sipping and nibbling and say
ing little. Now that the planne
d-for crisis had overtaken them, they all admitted to a sense of unreality; even the burning of their homes seemed a fact from another existence, and the brief drama of their escape a fictional episode. Too much had happened in a few hours; erstwhile friends had dragged witchcraft's name into the mire, psychic murder had triggered off mob violence, their religion and Craft had been declared criminal and now they were nomads in a land with too little open space where nomads might breathe. It was nearly midnight on a still August night, with nothing familiar around them but a van and a car crammed with all they possessed. Their minds needed a rest before they could take it all in. At this moment, all they felt (and they felt it unanimously) was the need to see tomorrow's dawn in a new landscape, a long way from the treachery of friends and the ash
es of their homes. Physical
distance seemed to have spiritual meaning; let them seize that distance and they would feel strong.