'Extremely,' said Sparks.
Another animal answered back an identical howl from the other side of the abbey. Then a third sounded, at a greater distance.
'Wolves?' asked Barry.
'Doesn't sound like springer spaniels, does it?' said Eileen.
'Turn very slowly around and face the room,' said Sparks.
'No need to turn slowly, guv,' said Larry, already facing that way and pointing to the center of the cathedral crossing.
A dizzying welter of blue sparks was spinning in a loose circle around a still point two feet above the floor. As it continued to gyrate, the circumference of the circle expanded, first horizontally, then vertically, until it equaled the span of the broken stone pews. The air crackled with a noxious energy. Doyle felt the hairs on the back of his neck elevate.
'What the bloody hell—' muttered Eileen.
The blue sparks faded as a shape emerging out of them defined itself: five translucent, cowled figures kneeling in prayer, knees resting a foot off the floor, as if supported by a spectral prayer rail. Issuing from exactly where it was impossible to determine, but the room was suddenly alive with a chorus of soft, whispery voices. The words were obscure, but the harsh, fervent tone of the invisible chorale penetrated sharply the ear of the listener, a heavy, distressing blow to the conscious ordering of the mind.
'Latin,' said Sparks, listening carefully.
'Is it a ghost?' Doyle heard himself ask.
'More than one, guv,' said Larry, crossing himself.
'See, there's your nuns,' said Barry, who seemed not the slightest bit discomfited by the sight.
Upon longer examination, the figures did project as aspect more feminine than monkish, and the high, insinuating voices that swirled around them did nothing to alter that perception.
Eileen grabbed Larry's lantern, stepped fearlessly down off the altar, and started directly toward the apparitions.
'Miss Temple—' protested Doyle.
'All right, ladies, that'll be quite enough of this prattle,' she said in a strong, projected voice. 'Vespers are done for the evening, now run along; back to whatever hell-place you came from with you.'
'Barry,' said Sparks, a command. Barry immediately jumped down after her. Larry pulled his knives and moved to the right, while Sparks drew a bead with
the shotgun.
'Be gone, stupid spirits, fly away, disperse, or you'll make
us very angry—'
The ghostly voices suddenly stilled. Eileen stopped ten feet
away from the penitent wraiths.
'That's better,' she said approvingly. 'Now the rest of you girls just trot on off as well. Go on.'
The ghostly figures lowered their hands. Barry slowly moved after Eileen, only a few strides behind her now.
'Miss Temple,' said Sparks, loud and clear, 'move away from the center of the room, please.'
'We run into ghosts in the theater all the time—' she said.
'Please do as I say, now.'
She turned back to Sparks to argue. 'There's nothing to worry about, they're perfectly harmless—'
Moving as one, the ghostly figures threw back their hoods, revealing hideously deformed and hairless heads that looked half human and half predatory bird. They let loose a shrill, paralyzing shriek and rose up above Eileen to a height of ten feet or more, preparing to strike. At that moment, two huge wolves sprinted into the nave from either side of the apse, growling ferociously, making straight for Eileen. Barry dove forward and tackled her to the floor as the wolves leapt to attack. Sparks fired the shotgun, both barrels, knocking the lead
animal backward off its airborne course; it hit the ground with a hard thump and lay still, ruptured and bleeding. In the same instant, Larry let fly his knives; there was a loud yelp as the second animal came down on Barry, handles of the knives protruding from its neck and upper chest. The beast still had enough ebbing strength and instinct left to tear into Barry, the arm he'd raised to fend it off gripped in its ripping jaws. Barry reached around, pulled the knife from the wolf's side, and plunged it decisively into the back of its skull. The animal spasmed and fell back, dead before it landed.
'Stay down!' cried Sparks.
But Eileen jumped to her feet, grabbed a lantern, and hurled it at the phantom figures towering above her. The lamp exploded on contact; the images combusted, disintegrating into a shower of silvery sparks and red smoke.
'I hate nuns!' shouted Eileen.
Doyle heard a low, feral growl behind him and turned cautiously. A third wolf stood beside the crate, a few feet behind Sparks, his back completely exposed to the animal.
'Jack ...' said Doyle.
'My gun's not loaded,' said Sparks quietly, without moving. 'Is yours?'
'I'll have to reach for it.'
'Do that, would you?'
Doyle undid his coat and slid his hand delicately inside. With fiercely intelligent eyes, the wolf looked slowly back and forth from Doyle to Sparks. This was by far the biggest of the three brutes: six hands high, at least ten stone. As it inched forward, Doyle pulled out the pistol, but instead of attacking, the king wolf took two running strides and in a high arc leapt out one of the open windows behind the altar. Doyle got off one errant shot and rushed to follow it. Looking down, he saw the drop from the window was at least twenty feet to the cushion of drifts below. He held out a lantern, but the animal had already disappeared from view.
Eileen and Larry attended to Barry, whose lower left arm had borne the brunt of the wolf's attack. Blood ran freely down his hand as she guided his arm gingerly out of the sleeve.
'Not too bad, is it, old boy?' asked Larry.
'Coat took the worst of it,' said Barry, testing his fingers, the movement of which was not impaired.
'Ghosts, can you fancy that?' said Eileen, with the calm neutrality of a practiced nurse.
'Seen worse,' said Barry stoically.
'I hate nuns,' said Eileen. 'I've always hated nuns.'
'These woolly sheep-eaters were real enough, weren't they, though? No hocus-pocus here,' said Larry, leaning over to kick one of the corpses and then retrieve his knives from its hide.
'All right then, Barry?' asked Sparks, reloading the shotgun with shells from his pocket.
'Ugly as ever, sir,' said Barry, with a toothy smile for his ministering angel as she examined the puncture wounds on his forearm.
Doyle's heart rate was just coming under control again when he glanced back out the windows.
'Have a look at this, Jack,' he said.
Sparks joined him. In the distance to the south was a line of bright orange lights, moving in formation toward their position.
'Torches,' said Doyle.
'Coming for something. Us. Maybe that,' said Sparks, gesturing back at the crate. 'Keep an eye on them.'
Doyle estimated they were still a good mile away. Sparks moved to the crate and knelt down to examine the dirt on which it rested, rubbing it between his Fingers, sniffing it. Sparks dislodged the lid. He made no sound, but when Doyle turned back, he saw a sick, stricken expression on Sparks's face.
'What is it, Jack?'
'Games,' muttered Sparks darkly. 'He's playing games.'
Doyle moved to Sparks's side and looked into the crate. There was a corpse inside, little more than bones really, amid rotting burial clothes and matted clumps of scorched hair and flesh. A photograph in a gilded frame had been positioned between its skeletal hands in a travesty of covetous possession: a formal posed portrait of a man and woman, married and upper-class English by the form and style of them.
