CHAPTER 20
THE WAAG
You see? You see? Life from death!” sang Lotte, as she danced around the room with the lifeless corpse.
Pieter could virtually smell the sweat of insanity oozing out of her pores, but he was transfixed by the sickening spectacle. The robed figures continued to chant and sway and some of them lifted their masked faces to the ceiling as though in the throes of ecstasy. Their arms came up, beseeching the heavens. It was bizarre and frantic and horribly deranged, unlike anything in his past experience.
He could feel how intoxicating the atmosphere was, perhaps it was a form of mass hysteria, but one look at the mutilated body of Officer Joos belayed any notion of other-worldly powers. This was murder pure and simple, fed by psychotic madness yes, but executed with merciless violence.
He watched as Lotte swirled in front of him. She was laughing now, the sound of her voice deep and hollow in the skull. Gradually she slowed down, gliding smoothly across the room and then went past him, and Pieter turned to watch as she disappeared through the curtained doorway behind him, still embracing the skeletal remnants.
Strong hands grabbed him from behind then, and he looked to see Bart had a hold of him. He wrapped his huge arms around Pieter and clasped his hands together across Pieter’s chest, locking his arms to his sides in a vice-like grip. Trapped like this, Pieter could do nothing as Bart used his huge bulk and strength to bodily lift him from his feet, and carried him through the curtains after Lotte. Behind them, the masked followers came in a line, suddenly quiet.
Along the short and carpeted passageway, then down the small flight of steps, and through the large iron doorway back into the small square room. The others filed in behind them, some holding flickering torches that they’d removed from the walls outside, and in their orange glow Pieter saw again the circle of chairs surrounding the pit in the floor.
Lotte was seated in one of the chairs. She had removed the goat-skull, and she smiled beatifically at him. In the chair beside her was the decomposing corpse, the bones and old garments slumped down in the seat. In the flickering torchlight its empty eye sockets seemed to move, as though watching Pieter.
Someone handed back her robe and she slipped it around her shoulders. Several of the masked figures seated themselves, and the rest, those holding the torches, took up positions around the walls.
Bart carried Pieter towards the edge of the circular pit. Glancing down, Pieter once again saw the manacles there, and his stomach knotted with mounting fear.
Bart flung him down into the hole and then jumped in after him. Pieter tried to rise, but the other man’s strength was too immense, and although he struggled and tried to resist, it was all too easy for Bart to force him down. First he manacled his left ankle, and then his right, and then he did the same to his wrists, the last iron clasp snapping shut with a resounding snap. Bart then jumped back out and dusted off his hands with a satisfied look on his smug face.
Pieter lay there on his back with his arms and legs spread-eagled. From his position, and because of the lip of the round pit, he could not see the legs of those seated, just their upper bodies.
Silence had fallen. Nobody spoke or sang, and everybody was still. The only sound Pieter could hear was the thudding of his heart, beating faster and faster in his ears. His eyes darted from face to face, seeing all of the demon masks looking down at him. Even the corpse seemed to have tilted its head for a look. Pieter’s gaze came back to Lotte.
She wasn’t smiling anymore. Her small mouth was a narrow slit in the centre of her beautiful face. She looked sad, her eyes pitying. There was a tiny crease between her brows.
When she spoke, breaking the quiet, her voice was a mere whisper.
“Life from death and death from life.”
She reached out a hand and grasped the handle beside her chair, and with a grinding of metal, she yanked it back in one solid movement.
There was a small sound beside his ear. Pieter turned his head, and saw the tiny grate that he’d noticed earlier, just in the side of the pit, he saw it turn and open. There was a gurgling, then water started to pour out through the grate. He felt it swirl around his body, the coldness making him catch his breath, and it swished as more and more poured out of the hole. As it started to slowly fill the bottom of the pit, getting deeper and deeper, Pieter suddenly understood and a blind panic seized him.
He pulled his body hard against his restraints, lifting his body upwards, but the chains securing the manacles into the concrete base of the pit were very short, mere inches in length, and he could barely move. Not even enough to raise himself into a sitting position. He looked around desperately, thinking fast. Where the hell was the water coming from? The grate must open into a small pipe, which fed water probably from the canal. Lotte pulling the handle had obviously opened a valve. Was there a drainage hole of some sort? Surely there had to be?
Pieter glanced down between his feet and saw a small, square-shaped metal plate set flat into the concrete base. On the top was a rusty-looking ring, no doubt used to pull the plate up and empty out the water. But there was no way he could do that, not chained and restrained like this. This led him to one incontestable conclusion.
He was in serious trouble.
Lifting his head he looked towards Lotte again.
“Listen, don’t do this. This is fucking crazy.”
Her eyes considered him, but now they were as blank as her face.
“You’ll never get away with this. Cop killers never do. You’ll go
