was right; the night sounds had stopped outside the perimeter of the church. It was as if the night was holding its breath, paying its fearful respects.
Carter walked across to the door of the church. It leaned drunkenly against the remains of the side wall, the heavy oak weathered but solid. He paced around the outside wall, peering in as best he could through the stained-glass window. Back at the door he moved a few paces inside.
‘Careful, Robert,’ McKinley warned.
The inside of the church was damp and dreary. The few remaining pews were upended, a couple of mildewed hymnbooks strewn across the flagstoned floor. Mould crept up one wall, while what seemed to be a colony of bats made a black smudge in one corner of the half-collapsed roof. The altar was smashed; pieces of stone laid about like broken teeth. A large bronze cross was upside-down in the center of the altar, embedded in the stone as if it was Arthur’s sword.
At the far end of the nave was what seemed to be a faint light.
Carter pointed. ‘That’s where we go in.’
Bayliss stood shoulder to shoulder with him in the doorway. ‘Surely it’ll just lead to a vestry? A room where the minister would have put on his sacraments, and kept his records.’
‘That was the original purpose, but since the church was abandoned it’s become the entrance.’
Bayliss took a step backwards. ‘Entrance to what?’
Carter called the others forwards. ‘That’s what we’re going to find out.’
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
An odor of dead things wafted through the gray air, seeping into their clothes, making their eyes water.
There was only faded light coming from the far end of the church, behind the ruined altar. The rest of the interior of the ancient building was cloaked in darkness, from the night and from the memories of past deeds. Spirits of evil danced around them, unseen, touching their faces like a soft summer breeze, but tainting and taunting them, mocking their readiness for what lay beneath the ground.
Carter led them. He had confined his thoughts of Jane to a locked compartment in his brain, sure it would be opened, and stay open, when this was over, but determined to focus all his powers on fighting the good fight.
He had risked probing with his mind, sending his psychic swords into the opening behind the light. There had been fierce energy, flashing and fizzing without restraint, but ill defined, just a mass of uncoordinated movement.
Together, as a group, they reached the back of the church and entered the small damp room that used to serve the various clergy as a changing and store room. Dusty shelves against the walls were empty now of everything apart from mouse droppings. The floor was strewn with leaves and mould, the combination making it slippery underfoot.
In here it was apparent where the source of the light was coming from. The end wall had a fissure in it several feet wide; it was only still standing because it leant drunkenly on the sturdy side walls. Through the break in the wall there shined a bright white light that seemed artificial in its intensity.
‘Where the hell is the light coming from?’ Bayliss asked.
‘Hell might be right,’ McKinley said.
Carter placed his hand on one edge of the cracked wall. It felt cold to the touch, like a long-buried corpse. The light was intense but it wasn’t blinding, and he was able to see beyond it. He could see rough sides of what looked like a long stone tunnel that sloped downwards so that he could only see the first few yards before darkness took over.
‘There’s a tunnel,’ he said.
‘Do we have to go down it?’ Kirby said, and the tone of her voice gave its own response.
There was a sound like knuckles crunching and the front door of the church fell off its hinges and crashed to the ground.
‘There’s your answer, if you needed one,’ Carter said.
The remainder of the portion of the roof over the main body of the church dropped to the floor and gray dust billowed upwards like empty shrouds tossed in the air.
Carter looked at McKinley and the big American nodded.
McKinley lightly took hold of Bayliss’s shoulder and Carter gently folded his arm around Kirby’s waist. As a group, shoulder to shoulder, they stepped through the gap in the wall and entered the light.
The white light swallowed them as if they had stepped into the belly of a whale. The tunnel sides dripped with moisture, but it was warm inside. Under their feet the floor was uneven but dry, the stone worn and smooth.
Behind them they could hear masonry crumbling as the remains of the church tumbled like so many old building bricks abandoned by a child, the purpose of them forgotten and insignificant.
The deeper they moved into the tunnel the less bright seemed the light. The tunnel began to meander in all directions, snakelike, but constantly it took them downwards. In places it widened so they could stand in pairs, but for the most part they had to move along in single file. They were all wrapped up in their own thoughts, occasionally noticing the strange chiseled marks on the stone walls that probably meant something if they had had the ability to interpret them.
It was getting colder and their breath started to mist in front of them. The floor became more uneven, the ridges in the stone higher and more likely to catch a careless step. Water dripped from tiny faults in the walls, the stone beneath it green with algae. Once or twice they came to a fork where it was almost uncertain which direction to take, but each time Carter moved them forwards, certain he knew the way. No one doubted him.
‘What will we do if the light fades completely?’ Kirby said, but no one wanted to reply. They were all too busy trying to stay calm, trying to keep fear at bay.
And then the tunnel came to an abrupt end in the shape of a brass-hinged oaken door.
Then the light went out and it was totally dark.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Carter took control.
Darkness wrapped itself around them, an ardent lover, whispering and caressing, stroking and claiming.
‘Everyone hold hands,’ Carter said calmly.
Behind them, back in the entrance to the tunnel, clawed feet could be heard crackling over the stone floor.
McKinley spoke the words directly into Carter’s mind.
Strange high-pitched sounds were filling the tunnel, pursuing; Carter opened his mind.
Drawing on the others, especially Kirby and McKinley, he sent rhythmic pulses scattering down the tunnel, drawing on the strength of each of them, pulling out from them what he needed. The pulses met dozens of small masses of resistance.
‘I’d guess it’s the beetles that attacked when I was with Sian,’ he said.
McKinley turned his attention to the door barring their way. ‘Let’s see if we can get through this.’
It was difficult in the dark but his hand located the handle, and he feathered the fingers outwards on the wood so he could feel across to the lock.
‘There’s no key.’ He turned the handle. The door opened inwards.
Kirby screamed.
Beetles had leeched onto her neck, needling into the skin, trying to burrow inside.
