at the treatment his people received from the Catholics. He had to be a Jew in secret but that wasn’t enough for him; he found Kabbalah, only he used what he wanted from its teachings to escape death. He left Spain, eventually winding up in Scotland and Kulsay. Even there he was pursued by the forces of the Pope.’
‘So his hatred of Catholics was doubled,’ Kirby said.
Carter nodded. ‘When he disappeared after the battle with
Bayliss stood and crossed over to the bar. ‘Drink, anyone?’
Kirby went across to help him. ‘Okay, so if we believe deMarco is still alive somewhere, what’s he been waiting for?’
McKinley banged the glass of the window and everyone looked at him.
‘I went to see my wife after she died,’ he said. ‘They take you to the morgue and lead you through to a quiet room. It’s very cold, and smells of swimming pools and toilets. A green sheet covers the body, and the lights are very bright and the walls are very white. I could see blood dripping from the walls but it wasn’t really there. I just imagined it coming out of her and coating the walls. They ask you if you’re ready and you say you are, but you’ll never be ready, and then they pull back the top of the sheet and ask you if this is the person. And it was. Only when the man pulled the sheet back over her head I could see that there was someone else on the bed with her, a kind of shadow man. I shouted and tried to pull the sheet off again but of course they just thought I was hysterical and dragged me away. Then I saw him slip down from the trolley and smooth himself into a corner of the room. He was dressed in black and was very thin so no one else could see him, and he was pointing.
‘I looked where he was pointing, and there were other shadows. I’m sure the shadow I saw scurrying beneath a bed was just that, a shadow, but it seemed real. The lighting in the ward was dubious, and no one likes the atmosphere of hospitals. It’s always a bit disturbing even for the most levelheaded of people. But I was upset and everyone else was calm but very insistent. I was ushered away but not before I saw a black shape take up its position directly at the foot of my wife’s bed. Not before I saw the man shadow pull himself as close to the bed as he could. As the room fell into a hospital slumber the shadow at the foot of the bed sloped forward and covered my wife like an eiderdown, but one that soaked into her body until it disappeared and my dead wife swelled slightly from within.’
McKinley suddenly sat on a chair away from the others. With head bowed as if in prayer, he seemed shrunken.
Carter turned to Kirby and Bayliss. ‘John is telling me that he thinks I’m right.’
‘Come on then,’ Bayliss said. ‘Right about what?’
‘DeMarco has been recruiting people for one more battle. Dead people mainly, but if there weren’t enough of those he takes them anyway. Like the management team from Waincraft. Like the crofters. Like Jane.’
Bayliss walked to the bar and poured himself another large whisky. ‘And deMarco is performing this recruitment drive here on Kulsay, is that it?’
Carter pointed to the floor. ‘Not
Kirby coughed. ‘What I don’t understand, well there’s loads of it really, but if deMarco is Jewish, a convert or what ever, and his grievance is against the Catholic Church, why is he recruiting non-Jews, and even Catholics?’
Bayliss threw his glass to the floor where it smashed like childhood dreams. ‘Come on, deMarco!’ he shouted at the top of his voice. ‘Come on, Alphonse. Are you up for recruiting a shit like me? I’m a true challenge, a real non-believer. Can you…’
There was a sound like jelly being poured from a jug and McKinley called out, ‘Carter.’
Everyone turned to the window where McKinley was sitting; only he wasn’t seated comfortably. His feet had sunken into the ground almost up to his knees so that he was slumped forwards, half on and half off his chair.
Carter stood but before he could move across to him McKinley motioned him to stay where he was.
‘I tried to stop myself from sinking into the floor,’ McKinley said. ‘But it didn’t work. I had to use my ability to keep what ever it is at bay. You won’t be able to pull me out without using your psychic power.’
Kirby put her hand on Carter’s shoulder. ‘Which means opening yourself up, and making yourself vulnerable to attack.’
‘Come on,’ Bayliss said. ‘We can pull him out if we work together.’ He bustled over to McKinley, standing behind the chair, and grasped the large man’s shoulders. ‘Push back, John.’
‘No,’ Carter said. ‘You’ll break his concentration and we’ll lose him.’
Kirby took Bayliss by the arm and guided him away. ‘Leave Robert to deal with it.’
Carter closed his eyes. McKinley stared at him for a moment and then closed his. Kirby was certain she could feel an energy buzz in the room, like an electric generator humming a monotonous tune. McKinley began to move his head up and down like a mockery of nodding. Then his upper body joined in so that he was rocking forwards and backwards in the chair as if demented. Carter raised his arms in the air, spread them and then thrust them hard against his side.
McKinley rocked forwards so far that it looked as if he was going to fall on his face. Then he propelled back again, hit the chair hard, and his feet and legs reared up until they were over his head. The floor where he had been encased was rippling as if liquid. It looked like a crystal clear surface of water and Bayliss couldn’t take his eyes away from the figures and shapes he could see. The motion of McKinley’s body carried his legs over his shoulders and he fell backwards out of the chair.
His eyes opened at the same time as Carter’s.
‘Did you see them?’ Bayliss said. ‘Did you look into the…’
McKinley walked over to Carter and thrust out his hand. ‘I owe you.’
Carter shook his hand and then sat down. The forces that had been pulling on McKinley were powerful; not just physically, but their mental strength was strong.
A roar of cracking masonry ripped through the room like the cry of a wounded animal. The walls of the Manse began to buckle as if being squeezed, and slowly but certainly a hole began to form in the floor at their feet.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The hole was perfectly symmetrical. Small at first; gradually it widened out, never deviating from its circular shape, never getting distorted. If the movement of it opening had been accompanied by music it would have been Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony, the lavish Fingal’s Cave.
McKinley placed an arm across Bayliss, indicating they should both move away from the lip of the hole. Carter took hold of Kirby’s arm and all four of them moved towards the door. The floor was all but gone now, and the hole opened almost as wide as the room. From within the hole they could see flames, though there was little heat; and there were screams.
‘It’s Dante’s Inferno,’ Bayliss said.
‘Only it’s deMarco, not Dante,’ Carter said, and as he spoke the outer wall of the room broke in two and pieces of the masonry fell into the opening. Great plumes of smoke and flame billowed up, eager tongues of fire.
‘The ceiling,’ McKinley shouted, and the whole of the ceiling began to collapse downwards.
They rushed out of the room and into the entrance hall. The staircase had fallen in on itself; the windows were shattered, great panes of glass hanging in cracked arrangements of irregular pattern. The marble floor tiles were popping up, one by one, as if pushed from beneath.
Carter turned to face the others. ‘We need to get out of here, and fast.’
‘What are we waiting for?’ Bayliss said and moved to run.
Carter held a hand to the man’s chest. ‘They’ll try to stop us.’
The front door crashed open, the force flinging the heavy oak hard against its hinges, pulling them from the wall.
Bayliss pointed. ‘That doesn’t look like we’re being prevented from leaving. That looks like an invitation to
