now, having taken possession of swords, flails and maces from their English victims. They twisted and staggered as they came, travelling on limbs that were smashed or pierced, or on stumps from which the feet had been shorn, but they showed frightful speed. Their torn faces, crusted with the mingled blood of their victims and their own clotted mucus, were contorted by the madness of the damned.
Father Benan could feel their eyes on him as they advanced like shades through the darkened chapel. The storm in the other rooms had reached a terrifying crescendo, but he continued determinedly with the rite, his body drenched and shaking.
'Behold the cross of the Lord!' he cried, holding up the iron crucifix. 'Flee, bands of enemies!'
Still they came, horrible manifestations of the night, the stench of carrion pouring off them in waves so thick the very air swam with it. One by one, they smashed the pews, ripping them up from the stone floor and casting them aside.
The priest held his ground on the altar.
'The Lion of Judah, the stem of David has triumphed!' he shouted, but his voice was lost in the tumult. 'God the Father, in the name of Jesus Christ thine son, may thy mercy be upon us all.' He had to duck as a something was flung at him. It missed his face by inches. But he had the fleeting fancy that it was somebody's torn off hand.
'We drive thee out, unclean spirits, whoever thou art!' His throat was raw with shouting. 'Every devilish tribe, in the name of God and by the power of Our Lord Jesus, be thou uprooted and driven from those fashioned in the likeness of God and redeemed by the precious blood of the divine Lamb.'
He made a hurried sign of the cross. But no scream of tortured souls greeted this powerful symbol, no reek of burning flesh. The thing in the bishop's vestments was at their forefront; now that it was close, its once ornate robes looked filthy and had been shredded as though by an eagle's talons. Benan tried to focus on this fiend in particular. Had it really once been a bishop of the Christian church? Had the dark magic that had invoked this army of the dead seeped down into some cathedral crypt, where sacred bones lay in tranquil repose? As it stepped up onto the altar, he moved forward to meet it, hoping to recognise its face and maybe reason with it. But all he saw, when they were almost nose-to-nose, were the startled features of Otto, the earl's portly cook. They had been torn from the Brabancon's head in one piece, and draped bloodily over this abomination's own desiccated visage.
Benan backed away, fighting to suppress a scream.
'Dare no more, malicious serpent, to persecute God's children! May the Almighty God command thee!'
He made another sign of the cross, but now they were filing up onto the altar from his right and his left. One of them, more bones and filth than actual flesh, had bobbed hair, wore a scarlet fustian gown and a fashionable beret with a rolled brim, indicating that high ranks of layity had also joined the unholy legion.
'May God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit dispose of thee, foul demons!'
With each incantation, he made signs of the cross, but still they advanced. He scrambled around the altar table and limped to a smaller table at the back. Here sat a leather satchel containing his most precious belongings. From inside it, he took a lidded chalice. As he opened it, he continued to pray.
'May Christ take thee in His hands!' He opened the chalice, thumbing out three blessed wafers, and turned back to the invaders. 'He built the Church on firm foundations and promised the gates of the Underworld would never prevail against her.'
He broke the wafers into fragments and scattered them around him in a semi-circle.
'Thou art commanded by the sign of the holy cross!' He thrust his crucifix at them. 'And by the mysteries of the Christian faith. Thou art commanded by the sublime virgin mother of God, Mary, who from her conception has trodden on your crown.'
Again, he made the sign of the cross and, momentarily, their advance seemed to falter — but only for fleeting seconds. If such a thing was possible, the expressions on their decayed faces seemed to have changed, from inhuman anger to something like curiosity.
'Thou art commanded by the apostles! Thou art commanded by the blood of the martyrs!'
One by one, they circled around the altar table.
For the first time in his life, despite all that he'd turned a blind eye to in the service of Earl Corotocus, Benan felt his faith begin to ebb. Never had he imagined he would face an enemy like this, though perhaps, in private, he might have said that he could manage it — that with the fist of the Almighty clenched above him he could stand off the hounds of hell. But still they approached.
'We exorcise thee, cursed dragon!' He lifted the cross as high as he could. 'And all these, thine apostate followers! By the living God, by the true God, by the holy God!'
Their hands clawed as they reached for him.
'Flee, Satan!' he screamed. 'Thou inventor and master of every deception, thou enemy of Mankind!'
As one, they halted.
Benan gazed, blinking, from one to the other. Though they crowded around him, only affording a few feet of safety, an absurd hope suddenly rose in his breast.
Had the ancient rite succeeded? It would have amazed him if it had. Though Benan had scorned Earl Corotocus for his excesses, he'd feared from the outset that his long record of collaboration with the nobleman had damaged him in the eyes of Heaven. He had simply known that God would not send his angels down to assist. That Christ would not appear by his side, armed with a flaming sword.
And yet the devils' advance had apparently ceased.
Benan glanced down. The fragments of sacred wafer lay in a distinct line between him and them — like a barrier. Not one of them had set foot across it. His heart rate increased; he felt the beginnings of hope.
'We command thee! We command thee…' Benan's voice rose triumphantly, only for his words to tail off again.
For with slow, malicious pleasure, the thing in the Episcopal vestments shook its head from side to side and with a single, deliberate step, crossed over the holy fragments. The others copied it and, raising their claws, took hold of the shrieking priest from all sides.
Benan dropped to his knees. His eyes were screwed shut as multiple dead fingers groped through his hair and over his tear-sodden face. His heart throbbed in his chest, but, with a core of steel that even he didn't know he possessed, he proceeded with the exorcism.
'Make way for Christ, in whom thou couldst find none of thy works! Bow beneath the mighty hand of God…'
He dared to look up at them again. It seemed that every demonic face in creation was peering down at him. Crushed, pulped, rotted, scabrous masks of what they'd once been, and now possessed by some force of evil no man could understand, exuding it like a fog of death.
'Tremble and flee at the invocation of the holy name of Jesus, before which all Hell will shake. At the name of Jesus, to which all powers on Earth and in Heaven are subject, which the cherubim and seraphim unceasingly praise, saying 'holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of Hosts.'
Fascinated, they ran their hands over his plump, naked flesh. They found his many welts.
'Our help is in the name of the Lord,' Benan croaked. 'The name of the Lord! God of Heaven, God of Earth, God of angels, God of apostles and martyrs…'
His voice rose to a castrato screech as, one by one, they dug their bony claws into his wounds.
'…who has the power to give life after death because there is no other god than Thee.'
And then they ripped, tearing the wounded tissue from his body like fabric from a seamstress's dummy. His keening howl might have shattered the eardrums of anyone human.
'For thou… thou art the creator of all things visible and invisible,' he sobbed. 'To whose reign there shall be no end. We humbly prostrate ourselves before Thy glorious majesty… deliver us…'
He screeched again as more meat was rent from his bones.
'… deliver us from the infernal host…'
He batted at them with the iron crucifix, until the bishop-thing snatched it from his grasp.
'Hear us, Father. Hear us…'
But his words ended and all that came from his mouth were scarlet bubbles. The white-hot fire that engulfed him was fading, but he had no strength to stand, and they had to hoist him to his feet. His vision was darkening. The end was coming, he knew. Though it hadn't quite come yet, and he was still compos mentis enough to feel
