The Lonely Shadows: Tales of Horror and the Cthulhu Mythos (8 page)

He mustn’t let himself start imagining things. Because that was fatal. It slowed his mind and reflexes to danger point. And when the time came for them to get out of this place, if they ever got out, it would be necessary, not only to think fast, but to move fast also. Because they might never get a second chance.

“They’re all very well made,” he agreed finally, fighting down his dislike of the man. He straightened his back and look around. “Where did you pick them up?”

Kestro smiled enigmatically, creasing the flabby folds of his face. “Oh, that’s my little secret,” he said in his oily tone. “Perhaps one day, I may be able to tell you. But until then, I’m afraid—”

He spread his thick fingers in a gesture that had little meaning behind it, but Kennett thought he detected a definite beat of menacing laughter behind the other’s words.

Then Kestro glanced up, almost guiltily, at the marble-edged clock on the wall. “Forgive me for keeping you both talking like this. It’s getting late and dinner will be ready. Perhaps we had better rejoin the guests.”

Dinner was a meal of silence, quickly over. Kennett ran his practiced gaze over the assembly and didn’t like what he saw. It was if a vast cloud of darkness grew over the entire gathering, spread and spread, pressing down over the tall candles and silver sticks, making the leaping shadows climb jerkily out of the walls.

Weakly, he leaned back in his chair and tried to concentrate on what lay ahead. Around him, voices spoke in quiet little murmuring sounds, almost unheard, fading slowly, but nevertheless intruding on his consciousness sufficiently to wrench his mind away from what he was trying to think about. The tall candles threw a pale light upon him and the voices were scarcely whispers now in the great black shadow.

They seemed somehow to blend together into an oddly soothing sound, half-lulling him to sleep. He jerked upright in his chair, suddenly frightened. He mustn’t let that happen! He looked round at the faces nearest him. Blurry wisps of whiteness around the table. And somehow, they all looked dead, as if part of them, some vitally essential part, had been taken away.

He grew aware that Kestro had risen to his feet at the end of the long, candle-lit table. He stood for a moment, surveying them all. Then he said quietly: “I trust you have all eaten well, and that the food was satisfactory.”

Damn it!
thought Kennett fiercely.
Why did the fellow always have to be so ingratiating?

“Most of you here will know what comes next, my friends.” A hidden devil licked its lips hungrily behind the dark flames of his eyes, before falling back into the black depths. Then the heavy lids dropped lazily back into place.

There was a sudden scraping of chairs. Kennett pushed his back automatically and rose to his feet with a tense sensation of impending disaster in his body. The feast had ended; the madness and the horror was about to begin!

Fisher stepped closer to him. There was a worried frown on his lean face. His eyes were clouded.

“What the devil do you suppose he meant by that?” he asked. The other tightened his lips convulsively. “It’s quite clear to me what he meant. This is where they prepare for the Black Mass. Or some other equally horrible service. It isn’t going to be very nice to watch.”

He glanced about him, desperately, seeking a way out of escape.
Hurry! Hurry!
his mind shouted at him.
While there is still tim
e.

“We’ve got to get out of here somehow,” he said in whisper, speaking out of the side of his mouth. “And fast! Once they start this fiendish sacrifice, there’ll be no stopping them. And there’s something else you probably ought to know.”

“What’s that?” The other was visibly agitated. A little muscle in his cheek was jumping madly. And there was a pulse beating heavily in his neck.

“They need a victim—a human sacrifice, unless I’m very much mistaken.” He glanced at the other out of the corner of his eye, keeping most of his attention on the tall Creole in front of the main entrance. “Something tells me, that’s why you were invited in the first place,” he added significantly.

“Nonsense.” Fisher squared his shoulders, but there was a thin quaking in his voice that he couldn’t hide.

“Still think he’s just gathered these people here for a friendly game of bridge?” murmured Kennett grimly. He inclined his head towards the far end of the room. “Then take a good look at that.”

Fisher turned. Two servants carried an oblong crate, half-filled with straw and something that moved and screeched, into the middle of the room. Kestro walked over from a nearby group of laughing guests and looked down at it carefully, examining the contents.

Then he nodded, evidently satisfied, and gave a quick jerk of a thick hand towards the door set in the wall, covered with a heavy drape of black cloth. His lips were moving, but he was too far away for either of them to make out what he was saying.

“See what was in that?” enquired Kennett tersely. His heart was beginning to hammer madly at the base of his throat. His brain felt oddly stiff. “No. Then I’ll tell you. A black cockerel and a pure white hen.” He clamped his teeth together, tight.

“They’re not fooling this time. This is the real thing. Unless I miss my guess, Kestro intends to carry the Black Mass through to its completion tonight.”

The other ran his fingers worriedly through his mop of brown hair. “What the devil do you mean?” he asked thinly, speaking half to himself.

“He intends to raise the Devil himself.”

“But that’s— It’s ridiculous.”

“Is it? I can assure you there’s no trickery about this.” He took hold of the other’s arm in a tight grasp. “Whether you believe it or not, I’m getting you out of here. Come on—and try not to make it too obvious that we’re leaving.”

They walked slowly towards the door, eyes wary, watchful. The Creole servant eyed them curiously as they approached, but said nothing and made no move to bar the way.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to leave sooner than we expected,” said Kennett, forcing calmness into his voice. Whether the other understood what he said, he wasn’t quite sure. “Would you bring my hat and overcoat?”

The Creole turned away. There was an expression of grim, sardonic amusement at the back of his dark eyes that sent a convulsive shudder racing over Kennett’s limbs. Something was wrong! He was positive about that. Surely they couldn’t just walk out like this. It was almost as if—

“Oh, but you’re not leaving so soon.” The oily voice sounded at his elbow. He whirled. Kestro stood a couple of feet away. There was a smile spread over his grotesque face, but the leaping devil was there in his eyes.

They regarded Kennett steadily, unblinking, like twin slivers of molten silver, shining faintly in the shadow of his face.

“Why the party has only just begun. You don’t want to miss the most interesting part, surely?” A deep, chuckling gasp of sheer, unadulterated evil rippled and heaved his great, flabby bulk. His blue lips, almost engulfed in flesh, twisted into a sly grin.

His right arm reached out towards Kennett, found his sleeve and clung to it. There didn’t seem to me much strength in the thick fingers, but the other could scarcely repress a shudder of revulsion as they touched him.

“I’m afraid I can’t allow you to go without first witnessing my little—surprise—I usually keep in store for my guests.”

“Don’t be a fool, Kestro! Do you think I’m so blind that I can’t see what you’re up to? I warned Fisher what would happen to him if he came here. But he wouldn’t listen. That’s why I accompanied him, as you’ve probably already realised.”

“True. You’re a very clever man, Mr. Kennett, but a very foolish one. You realise that by coming here, you’ve delivered both yourself and your friend into my hands entirely.” He clapped his hands together sharply. “Now we have two victims for the sacrifice to the Great Master. Two not one.” His high laugh sent madness blazing like a flame through Kennett’s mind, searing away all the emotion and the sanity. He couldn’t think, his brain refused to function. “Now you will both have to stay and see it through. Right to the very end.”

“What the devil—” Kennett lunged forward. Arms grasped him tightly about the elbows, before he had taken a couple steps, holding him back. Madly, he struggled to free himself. God! Once these things got them into that accursed temple of theirs—

“You can’t escape,” purred Kestro in a low voice that was almost lost in the bloated throat. “Every door is watched. Just try to remember that and give us as little trouble as possible.” His flabby face creased in a broad grin. “It won’t be long now. Already, the final preparations are being completed. Bring them into the temple.”

Something caught Kennett a wicked blow on the arm and guttural voice from behind him muttered an unintelligible command. Almost instinctively, he stifled the gasp of pain that rose unbidden to his lips, and stumbled forward.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Fisher was receiving the same treatment. His mind was spinning like an unloaded engine, throwing up plan after unusable plan. They had to get out of this nightmare place. But how? It was something for which he had no answer at the moment.

Kestro came forward, his face very evil, and pushed aside the black drapery revealing a narrow door set deep into the wall. He unlocked it with a key from his pocket and motioned them inside.

Kennett stepped through with Fisher following close on his heels. Then he halted in mid-stride, all the fear coming back like a cold hand clutching at his heart, speeding it up, gripping the muscles of his chest.

The first impression that forced itself on his dazed mind was—blackness! The room was long with a low ceiling and even the walls were black, smooth and shiny. Black tapestries, embroidered with the ancient symbols of the Order of Sathanas hung everywhere.

At the far end was a vast altar, a thing of black marble, surmounted by a huge broken Cross being crushed in the coils of a gigantic black serpent. Black candles of pitch stood on either side, flickering dimly in the darkness.

The altar cloth was embroidered with gold, studded with precious stones that winked mockingly at Kennett, jeering at him out of a thousand eyes of blue and red and green; depicting scenes from the Book of Set.

And in front of the altar, rising from the cold smoothness of the temple floor, was a rough stone slab, badly discoloured with dark stains that time could not efface.

Kennett felt his body tighten. God alone knew how many poor wretches had been sacrificed on that bloody stone slab to appease some hideous Black Deity, butchered by a crazy priest such as Kestro.

“You had better prepare yourselves, my friends. Tonight the Great Master receives two more victims, and I make myself one with the Dark One. Then, everything will be mine.” Kestro moved forward until he stood in front of them, glaring up with a feral eagerness on his massive features.

His face seemed to lift from his body, to float all by itself, outlined against the grey dimness. But the oily smile was still there and the small eyes look steadily into his, staring down into his very soul.

Kennett steeled himself. This loathsome monster in human guise must not overcome him, or they were both lost. The darkness seemed to shimmer and recede, the walls of the black temple to flow away until they stood in a far distance. Kestro’s gaze locked with his.

His face loomed closer. And now there was something black and awful around it, an evil aura that seemed intent on leaping forward at him with a frenzied movement, falling back only as he strove to keep a tight hold on his buckling consciousness.

Finally, when it seemed his mind could hold out no longer, normality returned.

The black walls rushed back into their original places, and there was Kestro, his head rejoined to his grossly corpulent body, glaring down at him. Then, without another word, he brushed past them, out through the narrow door, slamming it behind him.
They were alone in the Temple of the Damned!

Kennett started forward between the long rows of seats, his face taut. “There must be some way out of here,” he said fiercely. “There has to be. If only we can find it before that hellish crew comes back.”

They went down into the lower levels of the temple towards the crazy altar with its symbols and evil-smelling candles. At the back, there was an elaborately-carved handrail, winding away through the heavy darkness.

“What’s this?” asked Fisher. He pointed, clambering swiftly up the half-hidden stairs that lay behind the tall array of the altar. “Looks as although there maybe a way out of here.”

At the top of the stairs, a wooden trapdoor covered a splintered exit near the top of the wall. The steps went right up to it, then stopped.

“No use,” muttered Kennett. “It’s bolted from the other side. We’ll never get out that way.”

“It’s worth a try, anyway,” admitted Fisher. “Here, let me have a go at it.” He lowered himself slightly, then heaved upwards, throwing the full weight of his athletic body at it. The wood gave a little, and there came a faint splintering from the other side.

“It’s yielding,” gasped the other. “Stand back, I’ll try again.” This time, the door fell outwards with a sudden rending crash. Beyond, there was only darkness.

“We made it, Peter. We made it!”