Black Cathedral

A shudder passed through her body. He held her tighter.

‘Why did they take you?’

‘Because of you!’ she shouted at him, her voice rising hysterically. ‘ To make you come here.’ She started to sob again, her whole body shaking and heaving. ‘They tore out my eyes to stop me from seeing them,’ she said softly.

‘I’m going to get you out of here,’ he said.

‘A noble sentiment,’ a voice said, a male voice, deep and sonorous.

He jerked his head up, looking for the source of the voice, but there was nobody else in the chamber.

‘Where are you?’ he shouted. ‘Show yourself!’

‘As you wish.’ Another voice sounded behind him; higher pitched than the first — almost feminine.

Carter spun round.

Three figures stood by the wall, tall and imposing, cloaked in gray, cowls covering their heads, making it impossible to distinguish features or gender. Carter scanned the wall quickly looking for a doorway, or some gap in the smooth stone; some way the figures could have entered the chamber. He saw nothing.

Carter stood up and took a step towards them. ‘What do you want with us?’

Nothing, only silence.

The figures were drifting in and out of focus, shimmering, as if they were standing behind a heat haze.

‘Let the girl go.’ Carter took another step and was about to move again when the figure to the left raised its arm. He froze midstride, unable to move.

‘Why should we?’ Three voices merging into one; baritone, tenor and soprano, speaking in a macabre harmony.

‘She’s done nothing to you.’ Carter struggled to move his body but it was useless. He was paralyzed.

‘Bring us the others!’

The central figure raised its arm and Carter was hurled backwards through the air. His body hit the wall, the back of his skull cracking against the rough stone. With a groan he slid down the wall to the floor and darkness enveloped him.

Jane switched off the phone and threw it down on the bed just as Kirby emerged from the en suite bathroom wrapped in a white fluffy towel, her dark hair hanging in wet ringlets about her face.

‘Problems?’ Kirby said, pointing at the phone.

‘You heard?’

‘It was hard not to.’ She sat on the edge of the bed, grabbed another towel and rubbed her dripping hair. ‘So, do you want to talk about it?’

‘I wouldn’t bore you.’

‘You won’t. Honestly.’ Despite her youth there was a sensible maturity about Kirby that Jane had always liked.

‘It’s just my mother being…well, mother. She’s looking after the girls for me and never misses an opportunity to tell me what a terrible parent I am.’

‘That’s not fair,’ Kirby said.

‘Not according to her. I take it you heard about David and me?’

‘Was it supposed to be a secret? Hard to keep, secrets, when you’re surrounded by psychics. Actually, Raj told me. Don’t ask me how he knew though.’ Kirby smiled sympathetically. ‘It’s a shame. I always thought you and David were rock solid.’

‘We were…once.’

‘What happened?’ Kirby continued towel drying her hair but was wholly focused on Jane.

‘The job happened.’

Kirby reached across to the dressing table, picked up her hair dryer and started blasting her curls. ‘Did I ever tell you about Malcolm?’ she said over the noise of the dryer.

Jane shook her head.

‘We were together for about five years. I didn’t tell him about the job at first. For ages he thought I worked in the Civil Service — which I suppose was true in a way. It was only after we’d been together for quite a while — a few months, I think — that I told him what I actually did.’

‘How did he take it?’ Kirby had never opened up about her private life before.

‘He was fascinated. He wanted to know all about it; what cases I was working on — all the details. Looking back on it now, I think his interest bordered on the unhealthy. It became something of an obsession for him. He started spending hours on the Internet, researching psychic phenomena and all the related mumbo jumbo. I suppose he was trying to find out what made me tick.’ She switched off the dryer and ran her fingers through her hair, fluffing out the curls. ‘The turning point came when I was sent to investigate that house in Bradford. Do you remember the one? The Lockhart family?’

Jane nodded. She had a photographic and retentive memory, and could list all the cases, certainly the recent ones, without reference to any notes.

‘If you remember, they had the teenage daughter — a troubled soul — and there was an awful lot of poltergeist activity. Things moving from room to room, clothes ripped to shreds, all manner of noises and smells. Well, everything was fine until we started getting similar activity at home. Malcolm was a keen golfer and he got home one evening to find that a couple of his clubs had been taken from his bag, twisted into pretzels and dumped on the bed.

‘He was angry at first, but gradually, as more and more things happened, he started to get freaked out by it. It was when he started getting messages flashing up on his computer screen — rather bizarre messages, mostly of a pornographic nature — that he turned on me. I could understand that the poltergeist activity was affecting him, but he was also freaked out by me, or rather by my abilities, and had been for a while. He couldn’t really deal with the fact that I was psychic; couldn’t get his head around it at all. He thought I had the power to read his mind and tell what he was thinking, and that bothered him a lot.’

‘And could you? Tell what he was thinking, I mean.’

‘Of course I could. But there was nothing paranormal about it. He’s a man, for Christ’s sake. And Malcolm was not the most complex of the species; not by any stretch of the imagination.’

Jane laughed.

‘Anyway, I sorted out the poltergeist thing, but shortly after that he packed his bags and left. He just couldn’t handle it…me…anymore.’ She put the dryer down on the bed. ‘I guess what I’m trying to say is that these powers we possess, what ever they are, set us apart from the rest of them; the normal ones. We can’t help it and, I suppose, neither can they.’

‘I’m not sure I’d go that far,’ Jane said.

‘Think about it. Of the five of us here, who has a stable relationship? None of us. John — single for as long as I’ve known him. Raj — his partner, Neena, walked out on him three years ago and there’s been no significant other since. Me; I’ve just told you. Since Malcolm there’s been no one else, and in all honesty I’m in no hurry to put myself through the wringer again. Now you.’

‘John has been alone since his wife died.’

‘Christ, I didn’t know that,’ Kirby said, her hand fluttering at her lips.

‘That’s okay and anyway you forgot Robert.’

‘Well, you know him better than I do, but from what I’ve heard my theory applies to him as well.’

Jane wondered what she was implying, but let it slide. She didn’t really want to delve deeper on the subject of Robert Carter’s love life. ‘You’re forgetting something. I’m not a psychic.’

Kirby’s eyes narrowed slightly. ‘Are you sure?’

‘I think I’d know.’

‘Well that’s not what I’m getting from you. I’ve always thought it. Takes one to know one, as they say.’

‘No, I’m sorry, Kirby. You’ve got your wires crossed. I have no psychic ability whatsoever.’

Kirby shrugged. ‘If you say so.’ In her experience this wasn’t something about which a person could be persuaded. It was far too personal.

Outside thunderheads were gathering ominously again, rolling in from the sea; black nimbus clouds, bunching in the sky, heavy with rain. They let loose a flicker of lightning then, a few seconds later, growled