Omega (39 page)

'I know
...
At least the Madness is over. The survivors will
survive.
And multiply.'

'And if there'd been no Madness or practically none? If people had known about the vinegar masks weeks earlier - even days earlier ?'

She should not have said that she knew, but Gareth did not freeze up as he might have done. 'I know, Brenda. That was
...
a terrible misjudgement, if you ask me this side of that locked door. But to be fair, you can't blame the Government altogether; they went on what the experts told them and the experts said a major Dust outbreak was unlikely.'

'Was "unlikely" a firm enough prediction to gamble on?
...
Oh, I'm not trying to trap you into dangerous thoughts. I'm just a bit stunned, that's all.'

'Aren't we all? And being safe down here, we've all got Guilt with a capital G nagging at us, so it's not enough to blame natural disaster.'

'I haven't noticed all that much sense of guilt,' Brenda said. 'Mostly it's "I'm all right, Jack".'

'Sometimes both - and that makes it worse. . . . God, this isn't a dic
tatorship yet. We're still entitl
ed to our own views on policy.'

Not a dictatorship? Brenda asked herself - can he really believe that? But she said no more than: 'Even Intelligence agents.'

He smiled. 'Even us.'

She read for a while in silence and then asked: 'There are things that don't even go into the Digest, aren't there? That don't go down on paper at all?'

'Well . . .' he said, cautiously. 'It's only Top Secret, after all. Which means it goes to quite a lot of people. . . . What did you mean, anyway?'

She tapped the page in front of her. 'For instance - it mentions the witch-hunt thing. More than mentions, in fact - it names the areas where it's strongest and weakest -lists the kind of incident that's taking place, everything from a form of trial claiming to enforce the Order in Council, to straight lynchings - says where witches are reported to have consolidated themselves in static communities or defensive bands - even analyses how well the Crusader network has survived and how much influence it has. The only thing it
doesn't
give is Beehive's attitude.'

'To the Order in Council?' he asked, drily.

'Oh, come off it, Gareth. To the witch-hunt. To these impromptu "trials". To t
he lynchings. It doesn't say if
Beehive agents - putting it baldly - are trying to cam? things down or stir them up.'

‘Y
ou know I can't comment on that.'

'I know you can't. I was just pointing to the omission which would strike any careful reader as deliberate.'

He paused and then said: 'Let's just put it this way. I hope
I’
m
never sent on that kind of job. Only for God's sake don't tell anyone I said so.' He smiled diffidently and all her instincts told her his smile was genuine.

She had pushed him far enough. He must know that, as the Chief's mistress, she was perfectly well aware that the witch-hunt was a deliberate creation from the start to deflect anger from the Government, and as such was still being fomented and encouraged by Gareth's own colleagues in the field. Did he think she was testing his loyalty? Perhaps
...
She sighed inwardly. They were both trapped by love; she by her love for Reggie into th
e smothering of conscience, Gare
th by his love for her into the abandonment of caution.

'You know I'd never hurt you, Gareth,' she said gently. 'I may be . . . well, what everyone knows I am. But I am
not
a listening-post.’

Gareth blushed for the second time, whether from the intimacy of her remark, or from jealousy of Reggie, or both, she did not know. She smiled at him anyway and got up to file the Digest away.

When he had gone she took the file down again and reread the Digest from start to finish, thoughtfully.

Moira and Dan thought very carefully before they even suggested the 'lighthouse' to the rest of the coven. The temptation to leave things as they were was strong; Camp Cerridwen was consolidating itself gratifyingly well, the central cabin was now roofed and warm, the cook-house was almost ready for use and thanks to an exceptionally mild autumn the ploughing and sowing had progressed faster than they had expected. Relations with the villagers of New Dyfnant, already excellent, were being cemented by growing personal friendships. From the point of view of geography, defence and natural and stored resources, Camp Cerridwen was probably as secure as any survival-group in Britain - and far more secure than most, if the reports Geraint Lloyd was exchanging with his handful of ham radio friends were at all typical. The handful had now increased to six in Britain and two in Ireland, apart from intermittent foreign contacts. Two of those who had fled from the floods had managed to return after the waters subsided, and having been prudent enough to seal their equipment in polythene sacks before they left, were able to get them working again. Another, whom Geraint had not heard from since before the earthquake because his set was mains-powered, had succeeded in converting it to battery power, and had rejoined the network. Recharging or scavenging for batteries remained a problem, of course; one ham had succeeded in building a water-wheel charging plant similar to Greg's, while another pedalled a bicycle-dynamo contraption the whole time he was on the air; their ingenuity, fortunately, seemed to match their compulsion to communicate.

Four of the six reported active witch-hunting in their areas, of varying degrees of intensity. One of them, in Warwickshire, guessed shrewdly that it was being deliberately and centrally fostered. But it was the news from a ham near Marlborough that Moira and Dan found particularly disturbing when Geraint passed it on to them.

'There seems to be a whole stretch of Savernake Forest where the situation's the other way round,' Geraint reported. 'It's a bunch of witches who are doing the persecuting and everyone's shit-scared of them, Joe says. A right black lot they must be, by the sound of it. They threaten disaster to anyone who offends them and if he goes on doing it, the disaster
happens.
...
Joe can't make up his mind if it's suggestion, real black magic or sabotage organized to
look
like magic; point is, people have found it does happen, so they toe th
e line. Most of 'e
m believe it
is
magic'

'Are they camped in the Forest?' Dan asked. 'This black lot, I mean.'

'They were, till a couple of weeks ago. Then they commandeered a village - a more or less undamaged one but there were only about a dozen survivors in it after the Madness. The witches simply ordered them out and they went. By then they were too scared not to. And -since then, more people have been drifting in - almost as if once they were dug in in the village, they sent out a call to their mates to come and join them.'

'Does anyone know who they are? Any names?'

'Joe says not - but their queen bee's got a local nickname: the Black Mamba. Joe's talked to people who've seen her. Young, good-looking, long black hair and a holy terror. She and some man are the leaders but when they deal with anyone she does most of the talking and she's the one they remember.'

'I'm afraid,' Dan said, 'that sounds very much like Karen and John.'

'You
know
them?'

Dan nodded. 'Karen Morley and John Hassell. It was John's wife who got killed on Bell Beacon - the Sabbat Queen....'

'Oh, God, yes. I remember.'

'John was terribly bitter afterwards and you can't blame him. But he'd have come through, on his own. Karen was the coven Maiden; she took Joy's place as High Priestess and got working on him. Persuaded him to fight back by going black. They wanted us to join them and when we said no, they set off - about twenty o
f them altogether -for Savernake
Forest. We never saw them again but by God we heard about them. They're the Angels of Lucifer.'

'The ones who killed Ben Stoddart? - or at least said they would and then staged that terrible thing at Eileen's old Unit?'

'The same. And Ben Stoddart died.'

'Jesus!
...
Could they really
do
that?'

'They could and they did, Geraint. We're certain of it. If I were you I'd tell your friend Joe to stay clear of them. . . . Oh and don't tell him you know their names or who they are. It wouldn't do any good and if word got to them that he knew...'

'I get the message ...' Gcraint looked a little embarrassed. 'Look, if I said this at the parent-teacher meeting (we're still holding 'em, did you know
that?) I'd be in trouble. But I
know damn well that witchcraft works. And if the Angels of Lucifer have power, then so have you lot. Can't
you
do some thing about them?'

Dan looked at Moira who said: 'Not yet, Geraint. We may have to one day but the time's not ripe. Consolidation's our job right now. Because when we
do
clash with them ...'

'Pistols for two and coffee for one ?'

'Something like that, yes.'

When Ge
raint had gone, Dan said: 'I'd hoped we could put off the lighthouse till
we
were dug in. But if the Angels are mobilizing already...'

Moira nodded and they called the coven. It still consisted only of themselves, Rosemary, Greg, and Sally. Eileen and Peter had both, separately, asked to be initiated, but Moira, although she welcomed them to most of their Circles, would not bring either of them fully into the coven as long as the tension between them and Eileen's tormented ambivalence were unresolved. And Angie, while benevolently disposed, said she felt 'more at home on the sidelines'.

It was five years since Moira and Dan had las
t created an 'astral lighthouse’
. The house next door to them had been put up for sale and with thoughts of forming their own coven already in their minds, they had very much wanted it to be bought by the right kind of neighbours. They had set up a Circle in their bedroom, and enacted the Great Rite together with dedicated solemnity and in a white heat of love; at the moment of orgasm they had forged the thought-form of a shining light over the empty house, and fervently envisaged its purpose. Within a week, Greg and Rosemary had appeared, liked the house at once, and paid their deposit on it. (Nine months later little Diana had been born; 'And that,' Dan said contentedly when he first held his daughter in his arms, 'must have been some lighthouse.")