Shepherd's Cross (31 page)

Ted Wilson and Frank Gowland stood
behind him, their vacant eyes staring straight ahead, the force of Blackmoor’s
hypnosis still rendering them powerless like rabbits in a headlight; binding
the two unwitting apprentices to their dark magician.

‘Give me the girl,’ Blackmoor said, his
voice almost a whisper, as if he himself was in some type of trance. ‘He needs
her.’

Ben stepped in front of Cara. ‘Back off,
you fucking freak. Get away from her before I-’

‘Before you what?’ hissed Blackmoor. ‘You
have no idea what you are doing…how important she is to me.’

‘How important she is to
you
? What
about how important she is to
me
, her father, for God’s sake. Have you
any idea what you’re doing? You’re a fucking psychopath!’

‘Get out of my way,’ ordered Blackmoor,
taking a step towards them. Cara’s back was now pressed against the door; there
was nowhere left to run. Ben glanced down and saw the truncheon in her free
hand, and without warning he snatched it from her and lunged at Blackmoor with
all his strength. He might as well have lunged at a concrete lamp post; such
was the power of Blackmoor, who swept him away with a sharp backhand, sending
him reeling to the floor. Although still conscious, Ben remained where he fell,
dazed by the force of the blow. Blackmoor glowered at Cara. ‘We can do this the
easy way or the hard way,’ he said to her. ‘Give her to me…you have no other
option.’

Cara tried to shield Chloe from him,
turning her shoulder protectively as he held out his hands. There was no way
she was going to hand Ben’s daughter freely to him. If he wanted the girl, he
would have to pry her away from her. ‘Ted, Frank!’ she shouted, deciding to
give Blackmoor’s accomplices one last try. ‘Please…don’t let him do this. Don’t
let him-’

Bang, Bang, Bang! Cara screamed as the
door behind her thumped into her back. ‘Open up!’ shouted a voice from the
other side. ‘Let us in, or we’ll break the door down.’

‘Wilf?’ she said, softly at first, then
louder. ‘Wilf? Is that you?’

‘Cara?’ came Blackett’s reply from the
other side. ‘It’s Wilf, Cara; we’ve come to help. Are you alright? Can you open
the door?’

‘Wilf…thank God it’s you! Help, please
help! I’m trapped in here – he’s going to kill us. You’re going to have to
break the door down. It’s locked. Please…quickly…he’s here now…he wants to kill
Chloe!’

‘Stand back,’ shouted Blackett. Cara
turned to see a shocked Blackmoor take a step back from the door as the first
foot banged against it: then another and another; until there followed seconds
later a sharp, metallic snap of the lock’s bolt as it surrendered to the
relentless force of the men’s boots.

Blackmoor leapt back, almost knocking
Wilson and Gowland over in the process. His eyes darted left and right as he
considered his options; like the frantic eyes of an escaped convict who’d
suddenly found himself trapped in a corner by his pursuers. ‘Quickly,’ he said
to the two men, deciding that the best option for now was to flee. ‘Back to the
Round Room!’ The door slammed open, and Blackett and the others ran into the Hall
just in time to see Blackmoor, Wilson and Gowland rounding the corner of the
dining room and disappearing into the hallway beyond. Ben cried out with pain
as Liam Turner, who in the gloom of the entrance hall had failed to see him
lying there, tripped over his outstretched legs and went crashing to the floor.
Ben sat up and rubbed his leg. Liam was up as quickly as he had fallen,
instinctively rushing to his father’s side for protection.

‘What the bloody hell’s going on here?’
Bill Turner asked. He went over to Ben and helped him to his feet, before
walking across to Bronwyn. ‘She’s breathing,’ he said, rolling her onto her
back and sweeping the hair away from her face with his hand. ‘But she’s out for
the count. Looks like her head’s been banged against the wall,’ he said,
noticing the swelling on her forehead. ‘What’s happened, Cara?’

Cara’s strength had almost left her, and
she felt the inevitable tears welling up inside her. ‘Thank God you came,’ she
said, gently handing Chloe to Ben. ‘He was going to kill us all if you hadn’t
got here when you did.’ The first tear rolled down her cheek, quickly followed
by others.

Blackett put his arm round her as she
leant against him, appreciating the comforting feel and security of a strong
body. She was in no mood for talking now; her body quivering against Blackett
as the floodgates finally opened. ‘It’s alright,’ he said, pulling her into
him. ‘It’s alright.’

‘What happened, Ben?’ Bill Turner asked,
maintaining his concentration on Bronwyn as he spoke. ‘What’s going on? Where’s
Brian…I mean…Sergeant Jennings?’

Ben lifted his eyes from Chloe to face
the men gathered around him. ‘Those two,’ he said, nodding towards the hallway
beyond the dining room. ‘They’re not who they say they are. They’re some kind
of devil-worshippers; they wanted to sacrifice Chloe, and they would have if
you lot hadn’t have arrived when you did. They killed Sergeant Jennings, and
God knows who else, and they would have killed us as well.’

‘Where are they now?’ asked Turner, reeling
at the news of his friend’s death.

‘The Round Room. Wherever that is. I
think one of them might be dead…I think there’s only the leader left.’

‘I saw Frank Gowland and Ted Wilson with
him,’ Jack Cranfield said. ‘What the hell are they doing here?’

Ben looked at him. ‘It’s not their
fault. This sounds crazy, I know, but I think Blackmoor – the professor – has
put them under some kind of trance. They did the same to Bronwyn,’ he said,
following Cranfield’s eyes as they moved across to look at her. ‘But she came
round; whatever spell he put her under must have worn off.’

‘Are you trying to tell us that these
bastards have magic powers?’ asked Turner. ‘You can’t expect us to believe
that, can you?’

Ben shrugged and shook his head. ‘I know
it sounds ridiculous, but that’s exactly what I’m trying to tell you.’

‘Ben’s right,’ Cara said, wiping the
tears from her eyes and stepping away from Blackett. ‘Witches, Satanists,
occultists: I don’t know what they are. But what I do know is they murdered Sergeant
Jennings right in front of my eyes, and it’s more than likely they murdered
Reverend Jackson too. And what’s more,’ she continued, deciding that it was no
longer necessary to keep it a secret, ‘I’ve a strong feeling that they had
something to do with the deaths of Jed and Lee Carter.’

Several of the men gasped at this news. ‘The
Carter boys?’ asked Blackett. ‘What’s happened to the Carter boys?’

‘I don’t know for sure. But right now
they’re lying dead in the Station’s basement cell.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ whispered Cranfield, who
was one of the few farmers in the area to whom Mick Carter would occasionally
be civil.

‘And if we don’t get to Blackmoor now,’
continued Cara, ‘I reckon there’s a good chance that we’ll find Ted Wilson and
Frank Gowland dead too. We need to help them.’

Bill Turner gently touched the bump that
was rapidly rising on Bronwyn’s forehead, before struggling to his feet and
joining the others. ‘Alright, you lot,’ he said, removing a long, thick metal
torch from his coat pocket. ‘Let’s go and sort this bastard out, eh?’ His
suggestion was met with resounding grunts of approval from the others. He
turned to Ben. ‘I want you and your daughter to stay here and look after
Bronwyn; I think you’ve had enough trouble for one day. Cara, you stay here
too.’

Cara looked at him defiantly. ‘No way.
I’m the officer-in-charge here. And I’m the only one out of the lot of you who
has any idea where this Round Room might be. Come on…follow me.’

‘Alright, have it your way,’ Turner
said, following her towards the dining room.

6.30pm:
As Benedict Blackmoor ushered Wilson and Gowland past him into the Round Room,
locking the door behind him and removing the key, he was acutely aware that he
would never leave the room again. At least not alive.

‘What do we do now?’ asked Wilson. ‘Will
He help us?’

Blackmoor spun round and glared at him
with disgust, causing them to cower down before him. ‘You fools,’ he said,
pulling the spiked pole from the centre of the pentagram and turning it over in
his hands. ‘Don’t you realise that everything…
everything
…that I’ve
planned for is destroyed? We were so close.’ He took a step towards them. ‘And
now we must pay the price for failure.’

‘Will He not forgive us?’ asked Gowland.
‘Will He give us another chance?’

Blackmoor wiped away the sweat from his
forehead; the room was as hot as a sauna. The mist that had earlier filled the
air above them had disappeared, but the dark presence remained, circling them. Blackmoor
could feel Him moving amongst them, sliding Himself around them like an
invisible python. This was the end…he knew it. He also knew that if he was to
die, he didn’t want to waste his final moments in the company of the two
pathetic imbeciles kneeling before him. He spoke softly to them: ‘Like myself, He
does not look kindly on those who fail Him. Weakness cannot be tolerated. There
is no spell I can use that will save us now.’ Raising the sharpened pole above
his head, he went to bring it down on Ted Wilson, meaning to drive it through
his skull and split it in two. Wilson closed his eyes, waiting for the fatal
blow to be delivered. When no blow came, he opened them again, but what he saw
in front of him made him wish that he was dead.

The pale blue mist that had been there
earlier during Blackmoor’s black mass had returned, but this time it took the
shape of a giant fist. At first, the fist hovered above them like a judge’s
hammer, threatening to come down hard and crush them under its weight. As they
stood rooted to the spot, looking up open-mouthed towards it, the fist uncurled
itself and swept down to grasp the pole from Blackmoor’s hand. Blackmoor
released it without any resistance, as powerless to hang on to his weapon as a
baby that wants to prevent its mother from taking a dummy from its mouth. He
put his arms over his head to protect himself. ‘My God! Please forgive me,’ he
begged. ‘Give me one more chance to bring the girl to you?’

A deep, growling sound like that of a
wild dog came from the fireplace, blowing the flames into the room. And then a
voice that raged like thunder: ‘DELIQUISTI ME!’ - you have failed me – echoed
around the walls with such ferocity that the glass roof above them shattered
into a thousand tiny shards; pelting down upon them like torrential rainfall.
Neither Wilson, Gowland nor Blackmoor appeared to notice the banging on the
small door that led into the Round Room, or if they did, they paid it no
attention. Flames and sparks continued to shoot outwards from the fire,
catching hold of the wooden table upon which the Book of Prayers rested. The
book and the table beneath it exploded into flames and crashed to the stone
floor, spreading the fire across the room towards Wilson and Gowland. Flames
licked at their ankles and caught the hems of their robes; devouring the soft
material around their legs. They screamed and leapt aimlessly around the room,
trying desperately to quell the fire as it rose higher and higher around them,
until eventually it engulfed them entirely: their deafening screams turning to
dull groans as agony finally gave way to death and they fell to the ground; the
rancid smell of burning flesh and scorched hair permeating the air.

Blackmoor fell to his knees and wept:
for himself, but mostly for what could have been. Witnessing the power of his
God’s wrath filled him with fear, but it also filled him with sorrow. If only
he had sent King to fetch the girl…if only he had killed her in time…

But it was too late for regrets. He
looked up through the broken window into the night sky above him. ‘Do with me
what you will, my Master,’ he said, tears of sadness streaming down his face
and dripping onto the cobbled floor. An invisible force lifted him from his
knees, suspending him in the air three feet from the floor. Suddenly the small
door to the room caved inwards with the force of Wilf Blackett’s boot. Cara was
the first to enter, crouching down until she was inside and able to stand up
straight. She was followed by Blackett and Bill Turner, whose anger and
eagerness to seek justice drained away as they beheld the sight before them.

Heinous laughter filled the room, and
with one final scream from Blackmoor, the hand of mist that still gripped the sharpened
metal pole swung back and thrust the pole’s spike up into Blackmoor’s back and
straight through his chest. Cara screamed as blood spurted from the wound onto
the wall beside her; Blackett yanking her back by the collar as he
instinctively retreated towards the door he’d just entered. By the time that Blackmoor’s
corpse had been dropped to the floor like discarded waste, Cara and the others
had already fled through the doorway and into the corridor. Joined by the rest
of their group, they sprinted back through the Hall as if Satan himself was
snapping at their heels; stopping long enough at the front door only to collect
Bronwyn, Ben and Chloe on their way out.

Rushing outside and into the freezing
chill of a dark, January evening, they stumbled together along the driveway
like a drunken group of friends on their way home after a night out,
occasionally slipping on the ridges of the ice-hardened tyre tracks made by Blackmoor’s
Range Rover. It was only when they reached the edge of the lake that they allowed
themselves a brief respite, turning to look at Fellside Hall for the first time
since fleeing its grasp. It stared back at them with arrogant indifference, the
screaming and chaos replaced by silence and emptiness. There were no signs of
life to be seen or heard; merely a crumbling, derelict building that had been
left alone to die a long, undignified death.

Cara’s eyes widened as she saw movement
up by the roof of the Hall, only to relax as the cause of her concern came into
view, a ghostly-white Barn Owl flying silently by; hunting for a kill that
would see it through the night. She looked across to Ben and Chloe and tried
her best to smile.

‘Look!’ said Blackett, pointing to
flames coming from one of the windows. ‘There’s a hell of a fire starting. The
whole damn place’ll burn down if we don’t stop it.’

‘Let it,’ said Cara, her eyes remaining
on Ben and Chloe. ‘Let it burn.’

THE END