Creed (42 page)

He checked how much film was left in the camera, which wasn’t easy in that dim light. Plenty more for the main event, he assured himself.
If
there was to be a main event. He glanced down at the ballroom again.

Well, there was one he hadn’t noticed before. God, this guy was an ugly brute. Big and pretty clumsy too (unless he was very drunk). The other guests were quickly stepping out of his path as he clomped through them. Those who failed to notice his approach in time were rudely nudged aside. Every so often the tall man would come to a halt and stand there looking around, his whole upper torso moving with his head as though he were wearing a neck and back brace of some kind beneath his baggy jacket. Creed tried to think who he reminded him of.

His fancy dress was pretty crummy compared to most of the other guests’ and the mask he wore, with its ridiculously high forehead and scar-stitched face, was neither extreme enough nor subtle enough to win any prizes. Oh yeah, that’s who he looked like: a cheapo edition of the old Frankenstein monster. This was a
weird
way of honouring the late Lily Neverless; but then maybe it was exactly what the old girl had wanted. The movie world loved eccentrics, didn’t it?

Whoops! Frankie had bumped into one of the dancers, and the other guy didn’t seem too pleased. This one was a snazzier dresser in his velvet frock coat, embroidered waistcoat and knee breeches. A powdered wig would have been more in keeping with the costume though, rather than the mangy-haired mask that made him look like an oversized Yorkshire terrier. A ferocious one at that, for he snarled at the big man and swiped at the air between them with an equally hairy paw – sorry, hand. Creed zoomed in and took a snap.

His hope that something worthy might develop from this incident was dashed when the big man turned and lumbered away, treading on a lady guest’s delicate foot as he went. She howled, but her partner, who was wearing a threatening Scaramouche mask, bowed an apology at the broad back and timidly led her hobbling away. Terrier Man – or Wolf Man, as he undoubtedly thought of himself – resumed the dance, and very graceful he was too.

Creed lost patience and began to tuck the Nikon back into his coat. He was too agitated to sit there any longer; too agitated and too bloody scared for Sammy and himself! Time to move out, find the boy and run. And if he
couldn’t
find his son, then the police would have to. That was their job, that’s what they were paid for.

The music stopped abruptly as he was pushing himself to his feet, and a peculiar hush fell over the assembly. There was no more chatter, although whispers passed through the crowd like a rustling breeze; there was no more laughter, and no one dared even to cough. Creed peered through the ornamental balustrade, puzzled by the intensified atmosphere. He saw one man grab his partner to hold her upright as she swooned. Everyone was perfectly still. They were all looking in the same direction.

At the far end of the room was a short but broad semicircular staircase leading up to a curtained set of arched doors. A lone, gaunt figure was standing before the doors.

The man Cally claimed was Nicholas Mallik wore the same eighteenth-century attire chosen by so many of the guests that night, except that his costume had none of the soft shades of those others. His was black. Jet black with thin gold braid edging the tunic and swirling through the waistcoat. Even the muslin scarf around his neck and tied in a bow over a white wig at the back was black; as were the stockings rising from buckled shoes.

Had it not been for his deeply lined face and thin frame he might have looked wickedly elegant. As it was, he merely looked wicked.

But why no mask? Creed wondered. True, with a kisser like that a funny mask wasn’t entirely necessary to keep faith with the company of grotesques down there, but why should he be the only one to flout the party spirit?

An extraordinary thing happened then. Someone in the crowd whispered a name, and so still was the room that the sound carried to every part. Somebody else repeated the name, louder this time, although still in a whisper. Now another person spoke it, and yet another joined in. Soon it was chorused around the ballroom, but quietly as though there was something awesome in its very sound.

‘
Belial.
’

Everyone present sank to their knees and bowed their heads.

Creed blinked. Even the women were grovelling on the floor. He shook his head in surprise. Who
was
this guy? Did these people kneel in reverence or in fear? And why were they calling him Belial? Well, at least they weren’t calling him Mallik, so that scotched the idea that the mass murderer had risen from the dead! Creed smiled grimly. He had almost –
almost
– come to the point of believing it himself. Despite his own ridicule, he had started to have doubts! Schmuck.

But this was great. As he’d suspected all along, this was some freaky kind of quasi-religious set-up. Or its opposite, more likely. Judging by many of those disguises, plus what was going on in the Retreat’s cellars,
definitely
the latter. Creed retrieved the Nikon from his pocket, hoping desperately that a grand unmasking was about to take place and he could snap some well-known faces. Oh the fame, the glory. The lovely filthy lucre! He’d be able to name his own price.

He zoomed in for a close-up of the man they were calling Belial (had a strangely familiar ring to it, that name) and shuddered. Christ, he was an evil-looking mother. This was only the second time Creed had got a really good look at those deep-set eyes and he realised they were as black as sin itself. (Hadn’t they been a pale grey the first time he’d seen them?) Their dark gaze drifted over the masqueraders as if demanding complete supplication and woe betide anyone who wasn’t offering it.

Creed jerked back as those thunderous eyes seemed to meet his own.

He held his breath and bit into his lip as he crouched as low as he could possibly get. Surely he couldn’t have been seen – it was too gloomy up there, the thick balustrade he hid behind too concealing. Yet for a split-second – not even that; an infinitesimal fraction of time – Creed had experienced that same jolt, that same stab-into-the-mind sensation as when they had first locked eyes in the cemetery.

This time it had been sharp, like an instant electric shock; it left him momentarily stunned.

Nothing else happened however, at least, not as far as he was concerned. There was no shout of alarm from below, no denouncing finger pointing his way.

Cautiously, Creed aimed the camera again and took a quick shot. Through the viewfinder he noticed the low light reading and realised that the ballroom had become perceptibly dimmer; he quickly adjusted the setting and took another couple of shots.

Belial (
Belial?
) had begun to speak and, although his voice was low, his words were perfectly audible even to Creed up on the balcony.

‘There are doubters among you,’ the man said, seeming to challenge everyone in the room, including Creed himself. ‘There are those who, despite all they have witnessed, all they have been given, are still unsure of the old powers. There are those among you who have been corrupted by the age in which you live, your minds jaded by the mundanity of materialistic realism and values, your faith dwindled by the atheism of your own intellect, your senses pathetically satiated by bogus and vulgar imageries of celluloid fantasy and the false word.’

Prat, Creed thought.

‘Should your hearts and minds be so shallow that you perceive the mysteries and ancient ideologies as mere divertissements, indulgent abstractions eventually to be scorned, there is no place here for you. I will also remind you of this: if you do not believe in the God, you cannot believe in the anti-God.

‘Each of you has been touched by the powers and gained from their influences, yet even so there are those who are not satisfied, and others who fear that the forces of the outcast Angels, the Archangels and the Virtues, are waning, that anarchic scepticism towards all things nether-worldly has dissipated their spiritual potency.’

Creed quietly clucked his tongue. If he’d got it right, this guy was bemoaning the fact that nobody believed in the boogeyman any more, that it was all entertainment as far as the great unwashed public was concerned. Maybe he had a point.

‘Tonight your faith will be renewed and your beliefs strengthened for the new millennium, when once more disorder shall reign and the dark hierarchies shall roam the earth. You, the disciples of the diablerie, shall follow in our paths and be awash with our glory.’

Someone applauded, hesitantly at first, and Creed wondered if it was out of embarrassment. But no – others joined in and soon the whole room was in appreciative uproar. The speaker held up his hand to stay the noise and Creed aimed the camera again. The raised hand, in Hitleresque salute, would please the caption writers.

The speaker continued, his voice low and as dark as the clothes he wore. ‘Tonight the Power will also be witnessed by an outsider . . .’

Uneasy murmurs spread around the ballroom.

‘. . . an outsider who epitomizes the cancerous cynicism of this secular and creedless age. Someone who has joined us willingly and who will provide impartial testimony to our omnipotence.’

Creed looked up from the viewfinder for a moment and stared. His eye went back to the camera.

Ravage-face appeared in the lens again, an ugly smile on his thin, line-ridged lips. His gaze roved over the audience before him as Creed fiddled with the focus. Judas, this face was pure unadulterated evil. Fantastic. Creed clicked the shutter.

And as he did so, and as if on cue, the man he was photographing looked directly into the lens.

Pain as well as shock caused Creed to close his eyes. It was as though the delicate walls of his brain had been scraped crudely with an artist’s pallette knife. His whole body cringed into itself and his sudden cry brought spittle to his lips.

He blinked, forced himself to look down into the ballroom once again.

All the masked faces were turned in his direction and the man in black, the one they called Belial, was pointing up at him.

Creed rose awkwardly, the Nikon falling to his chest to hang there, forgotten, no longer important. He wanted out,
right now
, out of this hell-hole. The dread in him outweighed anything else, even the thought of rescuing Sammy.
Out, out, out
. . .

He whirled around. And stopped dead.

The jackal mask was grinning at him.

Cally was holding Sammy’s hand.

Creed’s jaw sagged. He tried to say his son’s name.

But Cally was removing the jackal mask.

And it wasn’t Cally at all.

It was the dark-haired woman, the one called Laura.

And she was smiling too, just like the maniac below.

And Creed realised for the first time that her teeth were slightly crooked, crooked like Cally’s.

The tight, sequinned gown was like the one Cally had been wearing too, although the cleavage was under considerably more pressure from Laura’s brimming breasts. Her bitter/ musky odour came at him in a wave and he knew he’d sniffed something like it earlier that evening, although it had been more subtle, an underlying fragrance, a bouquet rather than a heavy scent. He’d noticed it when Cally had returned to the boxroom where he’d been hiding while she searched for Henry Pink.

As if to mock him with the truth, Laura shimmered her image so that for an instant her features transmuted to Cally’s.

Creed felt dizzy. His body sagged.

With great effort, he steadied himself; he was in
too
much trouble to faint.

He switched his attention to Sammy. His son seemed out of it, his eyes glazed, unfocused. He was still wearing his school uniform, the tie askew, shirt collar unbuttoned. But he didn’t appear to be harmed; doped up, maybe, but otherwise untouched.

‘Sam . . .?’

The boy blinked, but did not answer. A tiny frown shadowed his pale forehead.

The woman was frowning too, but with hers went a grin. ‘They’re waiting for you downstairs,’ she informed Creed.

One of her hands reached behind for the boy’s coat collar and, with no effort at all, she raised him from the floor. Sammy hung limply, still no recognition in his gaze. Slowly, and still watching Creed, Laura turned her head and ‘breathed’ the boy.