The Antipope

of the table. To the further horror of those already seated, the hall door swung silently shut and closed into its frame with a resounding crash.

“I hope you will enjoy this modest spread,” said the crimson figure. “It is but local fare.”

Crowley finally found his voice. He was by nature a predator, and not one to be intimidated by such a theatrical display no matter how convincing it might appear. It would take more than a few bright lights and a bit of cold air to make him deviate from his calculated scheme. It was clear that the Captain had hired this man, possibly a local actor; there was definitely something familiar about him, and those eyes, certainly tinted contact lenses, no body could have eyes that colour surely?

“Local fare you say,” said Crowley merrily. “It would seem that you have plundered the finest food halls of Christendom and employed one of the world’s master chefs to prepare this magnificent feast.”

The tall man in crimson smiled his thinnest of smiles and said, “I fear that the other guests have declined their invitations and we shall be forced to dine alone, as it were. I also fear that by an unforgivable oversight the caterers have omitted to supply us with either cutlery or serving staff and you will be forced to serve yourselves. Captain, if you would be so kind as to bring in the fish.”

The Captain did as he was bid without hesitation. At the arrival of the fish Crowley clapped his hands together in glee and shouted, “Magnificent! Magnificent!”

The four men sat about the enormous gilded dining table, the golden glow of candleflame eerily illuminating their faces whilst casting their shadows about the richly hung walls in a ragged, wavering danse macabre. Each man was occupied with his own thoughts. Crowley’s brain was bursting with a thousand unanswered questions, everything here demanded explanation. His eyes cast about from face to face, and devious plots began to hatch inside his skull. Councillor Wormwood, although a man greatly in favour of connivance and double-dealing, was capable upon this occasion of no such premeditation. He was an old man and felt himself to be pretty well versed in the ways of the world, but here in this room he knew there was something “different” going on. There was a dark aura of evil here, and it was evil of the most hideous and malignant variety.

Captain Carson glowered morosely about the table, he really didn’t know much about anything any more. All he knew was that he was seated here in a room, which had been exclusively his for the past thirty years, with three men who out of the entire world’s population he loathed and hated to a point well starboard of all sanity.

At a gesture from the red-eyed man the three set about the mouthwatering dishes. Crowley was amazed to find that the sweetmeat he had sampled minutes before had now taken on the most delicious and satisfying of tastes. He gurgled his delight and thrust large helpings into his mouth.

Councillor Wormwood pecked at his choosings like the ragged vulture he was, his claws fastened about the leg of some tropical fowl and his hideous yellow teeth tearing the soft white flesh away from the pinkly cooked bones. The Captain sampled this and that and found all equally to his liking.

As no cutlery had been supplied the three men dug into the finely dressed displays with their greasy fingers reducing each dish to a ruination suggestive of the march of soldier ants. The crimson figure at the head of the table left most of the dishes untouched. He dined upon bread, which he broke delicately between his muscular fingers, and drank occasionally from the decanter of claret set at his right elbow.

The hours passed and the gluttony of the three men was slowly satisfied. The Captain loosened the lower buttons of his jacket and broke wind in a loud and embarrassing manner. At length, when it seemed that the undignified destruction of the table was at an end, the crimson figure spoke. Sweeping his burning eyes over the three men he said, “Is all to your liking, gentlemen?”

Crowley looked up, his mouth still bulging with food. “It is all ambrosia,” he mumbled, wiping cream away with the cuff of his lace shirt.

“Mr Wormwood?”

The creature raised its yellow eyes. There was grease upon his cleft chin and he had spilt white sauce on his jacket lapel. “Most palatable,” said he.

“And Captain?”

The Captain chewed ruefully upon a jellied lark’s wing and grunted assent in a surly manner.

Crowley was growing bolder by the minute, and felt it high time that he put one or two of the questions he had stewing in his head. “Dear sir,” said he, “may I say how much I have enjoyed this dinner, never in my days have I tasted such claret.” He held up the short crystal glass to the candle-flame and contemplated the ruby-red liquid as it ran about the rim. “To think that anything so exquisite could exist here in Brentford, that such a sanctuary dedicated to life’s finer things could be here, it is a veritable joy to the soul.”

The red-eyed man nodded thoughtfully. “Then you approve?”

“I do, I do, but I must also confess to some puzzlement.”

“Indeed?”

“Well,” and here Crowley paused that he might compose inquisitiveness into a form which might give no offence.

“Well, as to yourself for instance, you are clearly a man of extreme refinement, such is obvious from your carriage, bearing and manner of speech. If you will pardon my enquiry might I ask to which part of our sceptred isle you owe your born allegiance?”

“I am broadly travelled and may call no place truly my home.”

“Then as to your presence in these parts?”

“I am at present a guest of the good Captain.”

“I see.” Crowley turned his eyes briefly towards the elder. His glance was sufficient however to register the look of extreme distaste on the Captain’s face.

“Then, sir, as you have the advantage of us might I enquire your name?”

The red-eyed man sat back in his chair. He took from a golden casket a long green cigar which he held to his ear and turned between thumb and forefinger. Taking up an onyx-handled cigar cutter he sliced away at one end. Satisfied with his handiwork he placed the cigar between his cruel lips and drew life into it from the candle-flame.

“Mr Crowley,” said he, blowing a perfect cube of smoke which hovered in the air a second or two before dissolving into nothingness. “Mr Crowley, you would not wish to know my name.”

The young man sipped at his wine and smiled coyly. “Come now,” he crooned, “you have supplied us with a dinner fit for royalty, yet you decline to identify yourself. It is unfair that we are not permitted to know the name of our most generous and worthy host.”

The red-eyed man drew once more upon his cigar, while the index finger of his left hand traced a runic symbol upon the polished tabletop. “It is to the Captain that you owe your gratitude,” said he. “He is your host, I am but a guest as yourself.”

“Ha,” the young man crowed, “I think not. You suit all this a little too well. You sit at the table’s head. I feel all this is your doing.”

“My doing?” the other replied. “And what motive do you think I might have for inviting you to the Mission?”

“That is something I also wish to know. I suspect that no other guests were invited this evening and” – here Crowley leant forward in his seat – “I demand an explanation.”

“Demand?”

“Yes, demand! Something funny is going on here and I mean to get to the bottom of it.”

“You do?”

“Who are you?” screamed Crowley, growing red in the face. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here, Mr Crowley?”

“Me? I was invited, I came out of respect to the Captain, to celebrate the Mission’s centenary. I have a responsible position on the board of trustees, in fact I am a man not without power. You would do well not to bandy words with me!”

“Mr Crowley,” said the crimson figure. “You are a fool, you have no respect for the Captain, you have only contempt. It was greed that brought you here and it will be greed that will be your ruination.”