'I'm sure all this waiting around getting beaten on has annoyed you as much as it has me.' He had a gleam in his eye and a faint, cruel smile on his lips. 'Well, you'll be pleased to know that period is now officially over. We're not scared, we're not weak. We're men… men of God… and now we're going to show that we can't be forced to cower, or hide. That we're not going to be overrun. It's time for us to stand up proudly and prove who we are.' He ground his teeth together so hard everyone on the front row heard it. 'Now we strike back.'
Hipgrave and Roeser disappeared to the back of the hall and returned with a long, low crate. They levered off the lid with a dagger, delved into the straw packing and removed two rifles, both of which looked like Second World War issue. Hipgrave handed one to Blaine who checked the loading mechanism and sighting.
'In the basement of the former regimental headquarters of the Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment, now part of the cathedral compound, there is a store of weapons and a limited supply of ammunition,' he said, still admiring the sighting. 'They're not exactly top of the range, but they still pack a pretty big punch.'
'Bastard didn't dish those out when we were riding into the danger zone,' Mallory hissed to Daniels.
'He was saving them for people who mattered,' Daniels replied wryly.
Blaine tossed the rifle back to Hipgrave who deposited it back in the box. 'For too long those devils have attacked us freely. They think we haven't got any teeth. Tonight we're going to show them that we have. Tonight we're going to make them scared of us, by hitting one of the most important, powerful demons out there. Prepare yourself for a tremendous victory. We gather on the rooftop at nineteen hundred hours precisely tomorrow night.'
As he left the great hall, a ripple of impromptu applause ran through the knights. Even Mallory, who had no respect for the authority or badge, felt a wave of excitement at the thought of finally doing something after weeks of inactivity.
In the end, it was Hipgrave who made the first move. Mallory was finishing a small bowl of thin carrot soup after a hard morning of physical training and overseeing repairs to the walls when the captain crossed the refectory purposefully.
'Mallory,' Hipgrave said with a curt nod, knowing they were being watched. But when he sat down he leaned across the table conspiratorially. 'There's something I want you to see.'
'I'm surprised you've found the time to come here. Blaine seems to be relying on you more and more.'
Hipgrave gave a self-satisfied smile. 'It often takes a crisis for someone's true worth to be recognised. But if anything, it's only made me more aware of my responsibilities. We have to flush that devil out before it strikes again, Mallory. And it will, make no mistake, because that's its nature.' He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Mallory could see the instability clearly upon him, in the long, odd pauses in his speech or the exaggerated gestures he often made to underline a point. It wouldn't take much for him to crack. 'I have to be honest here, Mallory, you wouldn't have been my first choice to stand at my shoulder on this. You've not got the military mind. You're subversive and untrustworthy.'
'Thanks,' Mallory said, draining the last of his soup.
Hipgrave dropped a hand firmly on Mallory's wrist. 'This is no joke, Mallory. We have been gifted with a tremendous responsibility. I spent a long time wrestling with why I was made to suffer by seeing the changes that happened in this place when everyone else was blind to it. Why I was made to be an outsider.' Mallory realised this was the worst thing that could have happened to Hipgrave. 'And then I realised it was because I had been chosen by the Lord, for a mission.'
'Or it could have been a coincidence.'
'In your world, Mallory. In my world, a world ruled by God, there are no coincidences. Everything that happens is through His Will. He chose me to be His instrument in ridding this holy place of Evil. And I choose you to help me. I have to choose you, because you have the God-given eyes to see clearly too. I don't profess to know the Lord's mind in this, and I cannot begin to understand what He sees in you, Mallory. But you fit into His plan somewhere, and I have to go along with that.'
'Well, glad I'm not a fifth wheel.'
'Now, come with me.' Hipgrave walked a few paces ahead of Mallory as if he were leading him out for some menial task. Once they were away from the eyes of the brethren, he relaxed a little. 'I've been doing some exploring myself. These new buildings are very strange indeed. They change their layout, you know. Not in any obvious way — I mean, if we want to get to the great hall we get there. It's just that sometimes the route is different. Three long corridors one day, two corridors and a set of stairs the next. I've been keeping detailed notes. But that's not the only thing.'
He led Mallory into a small chapel on the periphery of the new section. There was a plain altar and cross at one end, and three rows of wooden chairs. At the back stood a small desk covered with masses of candles; most of them had burned right down, their wax set in a great white flood across the desk and on to the floor, like the lava flow of a volcano.
Hipgrave headed over to the wood-panelled wall behind the altar and began to work his way along it, tapping. When he found what he was looking for he turned to Mallory, smiling triumphantly, and said, 'Watch this.' He pressed the panel forcefully in the top two corners and it slid back silently. Mallory felt a rush of cold, dank air. 'A secret passage,' Hipgrave said redundantly.
He went to the back of the room, selected a candle with a little life and lit it with his flint.
'Are you sure this is a good idea?' If the main corridors changed their route continually, Mallory didn't feel comfortable going into a secret network that might be even more unpredictable.
'No need to worry,' Hipgrave replied breezily, 'I've already investigated it. There are plenty of exit points along the way.' He motioned for Mallory to follow him, then stepped into the dark, shielding the candle with his hand. Mallory considered leaving Hipgrave in there before accepting it would get him nowhere. Reluctantly, he followed.
The tunnel was just wide enough to walk along without brushing shoulders against the walls. After ten feet, a small flight of steps led down, and from then on it twisted and turned so much that Mallory had soon lost all sense of direction. It was damp with whistling, cold air currents suggesting large spaces somewhere ahead.
They'd been following it for ten minutes when another downward flight of stairs took them into a low- ceilinged room where expanses of something glowed white in the flickering candlelight. Hipgrave recoiled when he saw what was there.
Bones were heaped on all sides. The black eyeholes of skulls glared out from a confusion of skeletal remains so jumbled up that it was impossible to tell where one body ended and another began, or even if the skeletons were whole. The ghoulish display was oppressive.
'This wasn't here before,' Hipgrave said.
'An ossuary.' Mallory had been there before, briefly, on his first exploration of the new buildings. 'They were popular in medieval times, particularly at monasteries… somewhere to store the remains of the people who had lived there. There's a famous one in the catacombs under Paris.'
Hipgrave surveyed the immense size of the bone-heap stretching way beyond where the candlelight could reach. 'There must have been a lot of people living here.'
'Or it's been around for a very long time.'
As they moved through it, Mallory was disturbed to see at the back of the piles some bones that didn't look human — too long, too twisted, a skull that appeared to have horns growing out of it. Just a trick of the shifting shadows, he told himself.
Hipgrave had been unnerved by the ossuary, too, for he remained silent for the next twenty minutes until Mallory was forced to ask him exactly where they were going.
'It's not the same route I followed before…'
Mallory's heart sank at the indecision in Hipgrave's voice; they were lost. 'We should turn back-'
'No, no, we'll get there eventually.'
Mallory was about to argue when Hipgrave let out a jubilant cry. He hurried forwards and knelt down. As Mallory came up behind him, he saw what had caught Hipgrave's eye: a thin blue line of what looked like an electrical discharge crackling along the floor, up the walls and across the ceiling. It was so faint as to be indiscernible unless you were actually upon it.
'What is that?' Mallory asked. He was surprised to feel a faint buzzing in his sword where it hung against his leg, as if it were responding to the energy.
'I don't know. But it's been in a few of the tunnels I've wandered down.'
