“Oh yes?” said Crowley. “Oh yes?”
“I will tell you why you came here tonight and I will answer your questions. You came here because you knew that not to come would be to draw attention to yourself. It is your plan to have this Mission demolished at the first possible opportunity, and to make your shady and treacherous deals with this corpse here.” Wormwood cowered in his seat as the tall man continued. “I will never allow a stone of this Mission to be touched without my consent!”
“Your consent?” screeched Crowley. “Who in the hell do you think you are?”
“Enough!” The red-eyed man pushed back his chair and drew himself to his full height, his eyes blazing and his shoulders spreading to draw out his massive chest. His hands formed two enormous fists which he brought down on to the table with titanic force, scattering the food and shuddering the candelabra. “Crowley,” he roared, his voice issuing from his mouth as a gale force of icy wind, “Crowley, you would know who I am! I am the man to whom fate has led you. From your very birth it was ordained that our paths would finally cross, all things are preordained and no man can escape his fate. You would know who I am? Crowley, I am your nemesis!”
Crowley hurled his chair aside and rushed for the door, his desperate movements those of a wildly flapping bird. His hands grasped about the door-handle but found it as solid and unmoveable as if welded to the lock. “Let me go,” he whimpered, “I want nothing more of this, let me out.”
The giant in crimson turned his hellish eyes once more upon the young man. “You have no escape, Crowley,” he said, his voice a low rumble of distant thunder. “You have no escape, you are already dead, you were dead from the moment you entered this room, dead from the first moment you raised a glass to your mouth, you are dead, Crowley.”
“I'm not dead,” the young man cried, tears welling up in his eyes. “I’ll have the law on you for this, I’m not without influence, I’m…” Suddenly he stiffened as if a strong cord had been tightly drawn about his neck. His eyes started from their sockets and his tongue burst from his mouth. It was black and dry as the tongue of an old boot. “You… you,” he gagged, tearing at his collar and falling back against the door. The tall figure loomed above him, a crimson angel of death. “Dead, Crowley.”
The young man sank slowly to his knees, his eyes rolling horribly until the pupils were lost in his head. A line of green saliva flowed from the corner of his mouth and crept over his shirt. He jerked forward, his manicured nails tearing into the parquet flooring, crackling and snapping as convulsions of raw pain coursed through his body.
Above him, watching the young man’s agony with inhuman detachment, stood the crimson giant. Crowley raised a shaking hand, blood flowed from his wounded fingertips, his face was contorted beyond recognition. He bore the look of a grotesque, a gargoyle, the skin grey and parched, the lips blue, bloodless. He raised himself once more to his knees and his mouth opened, the blue lips made a hopeless attempt to shape a final word. Another convulsion tore through his body and flung him doll-like to the floor where he lay, his limbs twisted hideously, his eyes staring at the face of his destroyer, glazed and sightless. Brian Crowley was dead.
The red-eyed man raised his right hand and made a gesture of benediction. With terrifying suddenness he turned upon the Captain, who sat open-mouthed, shaking with terror. “You will dispose of this rubbish,” he said.
“Rubbish?” The Captain forced the word from his mouth.
The red-eyed man gestured at the twisted body which lay at his feet; then, raising his arm, he pointed across the table. The Captain followed his gaze to where Councillor Wormwood sat. His hands grasped the table top in a vice-like grip, his eyes were crossed and his head hung back upon his neck like that of a dead fowl in a butcher’s window. The skin was no longer yellow, but grey-white and almost iridescent; his mouth lolled hugely open and his upper set had slipped down to give the impression that his teeth were clenched into a sickly grin.
The giant was speaking, issuing instructions: the bodies were to be stripped of all identification, this was to be destroyed by fire, the table was to be cleared, the decanters to be drained and thoroughly washed out. The bodies were to be placed in weighted sacks… the voice rolled over the Captain, a dark ocean of words engulfing and drowning him. He rose to his feet, his hands cupped about his ears that he might hear no more. The words swept into his brain, the black tide washed over him, dragging him down. The Captain fought to breathe, fought to raise his head above the black waters. This was the Mission, his life, the evil must be driven out while any strength remained in his old body. His hands sought to grasp these thoughts, cling to them for dear life.
But the hands were old and the tide strong. Presently the Captain could grip no more and the poison waters swept over him, covering him without trace.
13
The ambulance roared away from the Flying Swan, its bell ringing cheerfully. Most of the smoke had been fanned away through the Swan’s doors and windows, but an insistent smell of electrical burning still hung heavily in the air. After the excitement was over and the ambulance had departed, the cowboys stood about, thumbs in gunbelts, wondering whether that was the night over and they should, out of respect to Norman, saddle up and make for the sunset.
Young Master Robert, however, had other ideas. He climbed on to a chair and addressed the crowd. As nobody felt much like talking at that particular moment he was able to make himself heard. “Partners,” he began, “partners, a sorry incident has occurred but let us be grateful that the party concerned has not been badly injured. I am assured by the ambulance man that he will be up and about within a couple of days.” There were some halfhearted attempts at a cheer. “To show the brewery’s appreciation of a brave attempt, we are awarding, sadly in his absence, the Best Dressed Cowboy award, which includes an evening out for two with one of our delightful young ladies here at one of the brewery’s eating houses, a bottle of champagne and twenty small cigars, to our good friend Norman, the Spirit of the Old West!”
There was some slightly more enthusiastic cheering at this point, which rose in a deafening crescendo as Young Master Robert continued, “The next three drinks are on the house!”
Suddenly Norman’s unfortunate accident was forgotten, Old Pete set about the ancient piano once more and the Swan emerged again, a phoenix from the ashes of the Old West. Young Master Robert approached Neville behind the bar. “I am going out to stoke up the barbeque now. I’ll get the sausages on and then give you the nod to start leading them in.”
“Leave it to me,” said Neville, “and I’ll see to it that the free drinks are only singles.”
Omally, who had been revived by the aid of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation administered by each of the Page Three girls, overheard this remark and hastily ordered three doubles from Mandy before the part-time barman was able to communicate his instructions. “Same for me,” said Jim Pooley.
Invigorated by their free drinks the cowboy patrons began to grow ever more rowdy. Old Snakebelly’s qualities obviously combined those of Irish potheen, wool alcohol and methylated spirits. Old Pete had already attempted to blow out a lighted match only to find himself breathing fire and smoke. Small rings from glass bottoms had taken most of the polish from the bar top.
Omally leant across the bar and spoke to Neville. “You have put on a fine show and no mistake,” said he. “I had my misgivings about tonight but” – and here he took an enormous swig of Old Snakebelly, draining his glass – “it promises to be a most memorable occasion.”
The part-time barman smiled lopsidedly and polished away at a dazzling pint pot. “The night is far from over,” he said ominously, “and are you feeling yourself again, John?”
“Never better,” said Dublin’s finest, “never better.”
“’Ere,” said Mandy suddenly, “that Lone Ranger what stinks of fish keeps pinching my bum.” Neville went over to have words with the unruly lawman. “Omally,” the Page Three girl said when Neville was out of earshot.
“The same,” said himself.
“Listen.” Mandy made a secretive gesture and the man from the Emerald Isle leant further across the bar, just far enough in fact for a good view down the young lady’s cleavage. “You wanna buy a couple of dozen bottles of this Old Snake whatsit on the cheap?”
