The Devil Rides Out (22 page)

‘Well, we can't stay here,' Rex protested.

‘I know, and we've got to find some sanctuary where we can keep Simon safe until morning.'

‘How about a church?'

‘Yes, if we could find one that is open. But they will all be locked up at this hour.'

‘Couldn't we get some local parson out of bed?'

‘If I knew one anywhere near here I'd chance it, but how can we possibly expect a stranger to believe the story that we should have to tell? He would think us madmen, or probably that it was a plot to rob his church. But wait a moment! By Jove, I've got it! We'll take him to the oldest cathedral in Britain and one that is open to the skies.' With a sudden chuckle of relief, De Richleau set the car in motion again and began to reverse it.

‘Surely you're not going back?' Rex asked anxiously.

‘Only three miles to the fork-roads at Weyhill, then down to Amesbury.'

‘Well, don't you call that going back?'

‘Perhaps, but I mean to take him to Stonehenge. If we can reach it, we shall be in safety, even though it is no more than a dozen miles from Chilbury.'

Once more the car rocketed along the road across those grassy, barren slopes, cleaving the silent darkness of the night with its great arced headlights.

Twenty minutes later they passed again through the twisting streets of Amesbury, now silent and shuttered while its inhabitants slept, not even dreaming of the terrible battle which was being fought out that night between the Power of Light and the Power of Darkness, so near to them in actuality and yet so remote to the teeming life of everyday England.

A mile outside the town, they ran up the slope to the wire fence which rings in the Neolithic monument, Stonehenge. The Duke drove the car into the deserted car park beside the road and there they left it. Rex carried Simon, wrapped in De Richleau's great-coat and the car rug, while the Duke followed him through the wire with the suitcase containing his protective impedimenta.

As they staggered over the grass, the vast monoliths of the ancient place of
worship stood out against the skyline–the timeless symbols of a forgotten cult that ruled Britain, before the Romans came to bring more decorative and more human gods.

They passed the outer circle of great stone uprights, upon some of which the lintels forming them into a ring of arches still remain. Then De Richleau led the way between the mighty chunks of fallen masonry to where, beside the two great trilithons, the sandstone altar slab lies half buried beneath the remnants of the central arch.

At a gesture from the Duke, Rex laid Simon, still unconscious, upon it. Then he looked up doubtfully. ‘I suppose you know what you're doing, but I've always heard that the Druids, who built this place, were a pretty grim lot. Didn't they sacrifice virgins on this stone and practise all sorts of pagan rites? I should have thought this place would be more sacred to the Power of Evil than the Power of Good.'

‘Don't worry, Rex,' De Richleau smiled in the darkness. ‘It is true that the Druids performed sacrifices, but they were sun-worshippers. At the summer solstice, the sun rises over the hilltop there, shedding its first beam of light directly through the arch on to this altar stone. This place is one of the most hallowed spots in all Europe because countless thousands of long-dead men and women have worshipped here–calling upon the Power of Light to protect them from the evil things that go in darkness–and the vibrations of their souls are about us now making a sure buttress and protection until the coming of the dawn.'

With gentle hands, they set about a more careful examination of Simon. His body was still terribly cold but they found that, except for where Rex had clawed at his neck, he had suffered no physical injury.

‘What do you figure to do now?' Rex asked as the Duke opened his suitcase.

‘Exorcise him in due form, in order to try and drive out any evil spirit by which he may be possessed.'

‘Like the Roman Catholic priests used to do in the Middle Ages.'

‘As they still do,' De Richleau answered soberly.

‘What–in these days?'

‘Yes. Don't you remember the case of Helene Poirier who died only in 1914? She suffered from such terrible demoniacal possession that many of the most learned priests in France had to be called in before, with God's grace, she could be freed from the evil spirit which controlled her.'

‘I didn't think the Church admitted the existence of such things as witchcraft and black magic.'

‘Then you are very ignorant, my friend. I do not know the official views of others but the Roman Church, whose authority comes unbroken over nineteen centuries from the time when Our Lord made St Peter his viceregent on earth, has ever admitted the existence of the evil power. Why else should they have issued so many ordinances against it, or at the present time so unhesitatingly condemn all spiritualistic practices which they regard as the modern counterparts of necromancy, by which Hell's emissaries seek to lure weak, foolish and trusting people into their net?'

‘I can't agree to that,' Rex demurred. ‘I know a number of Spiritualists, men and women of the utmost rectitude.'

‘Perhaps.' De Richleau was arranging Simon's limp body. ‘They are entitled to their opinion and he who thinks rightly lives rightly. No doubt their high principles act as a protective barrier between them and the more dangerous entities of the spirit world. However, for the weak-minded and mentally frail, such practices hold the gravest peril. According to the Roman Church, there is no phenomenon of modern Spiritism which cannot be paralleled in the records of old witch trials.'

‘According to them, maybe, but Simon's not a Catholic.'

‘No matter, there is nothing to prevent a member of the Roman Church asking Divine aid for any man, whatever his race or creed. Fortunately I was baptised a Catholic and, although I may not be a good one, I believe that with the grace of God, power will be granted to me this night to help our poor friend.

‘Kneel down now and pray silently, for all prayers are good if the heart is earnest and perhaps those of the Church of England more efficacious than others since we are now in the English countryside. But be ready to hold him if he leaps up for, if he is possessed, the Demon within him will fight like a maniac.'

De Richleau took up the holy water and sprinkled a few drops on Simon's forehead. They remained there a moment and then trickled slowly down his drawn, furrowed face. But he remained corpse-like and still.

‘May the Lord be praised,' murmured the Duke.

‘What is it?' breathed Rex.

‘He is not actually possessed. If he were the holy water would have scalded him like boiling oil, and at its touch the Demon would have screamed like a hell cat.'

‘What now then?'

‘He still reeks of evil so I must employ the banishing ritual to purge the atmosphere about him and do all things possible to protect him from Mocata's influence. Then we will see if this coma shows any signs of lifting.'

The Duke produced a crutch of Rowan wood, then proceeded to certain curious and complicated rites; consisting largely in stroking Simon's limbs with a brushing motion towards the feet; the repetition of many Latin formulas with long intervals in which, led by the Duke, the two men knelt to pray beside their friend.

Simon was anointed with holy water and with holy oil. The gesture of Horus was made to the north, to the south, to the east and to the west. The palms of his hands were sprinkled and the soles of his feet. Asafœtida grass was tied round his wrists and his ankles. An orb with the cross upon it was placed in his right hand, and a phial of quicksilver between his lips. A chain of garlic flowers was hung about his neck, and the sacred oil placed in a cross upon his forehead. Each action upon him was preceded by prayer, concentration of thought, and invocation to the archangels, the high beings of Light, and to his own higher consciousness.

At last, after an hour, all had been accomplished in accordance with the ancient lore and De Richleau examined Simon again. He was warmer now
and the ugly lines of distress and terror had faded from his face. He seemed to have passed out of his dead faint into a natural sleep and was breathing regularly.

‘I think that with God's help we have saved him,' declared the Duke. ‘He looks almost normal now, but we had best wait until he wakes of his own accord; I can do no more, so we will rest for a little.'

Rex passed his hand across his eyes as De Richleau sank down beside him. ‘I'll say I need it. Would it be … er … sacrilegious or anything if I had a smoke?'

‘Of course not.' De Richleau drew out his cigars. ‘Have a Hoyo. It is thoughts, not formalities, which make an atmosphere of good or evil.'

They fell silent for some time, then Simon stirred beside them and they both stood up. He slowly turned over and looked about him with dull eyes until he recognised his friends, and asked in a stifled voice where he was.

Without answering, De Richleau drew him down between Rex and himself on to his knees, and proceeded to give thanks for his restoration. To the end of the beautiful penitent appeal, the Duke read in a solemn voice from the Prayer Book by the aid of a little torch while the others repeated verse by verse after him. Then all three stood up and began at last to talk in their normal voices.

De Richleau explained what had taken place, and Simon sat upon the altar-stone weeping like a child as now, with a clear brain, he began at last to understand the terrible peril from which his friends had rescued him.

He remembered the party which had been given at his house and that the Duke had hypnotised him in Curzon Street. After that–nothing, until he found himself present in the Sabbat which had been held that night, and even then he could only see vague pictures of it, as though he had not participated in it himself, but watched the whole of the ghastly proceedings from a distance; horrified to the last degree to see a figure that seemed to be himself taking part in those abominable ceremonies, yet mentally chained and powerless to intervene or stop that body, so curiously like his own, participating in that godless scene of debauchery.

Dawn was now breaking in the placed his arm affectionately round Simon's shoulders. ‘Don't take it to heart so, my friend,' he said kindly. ‘For the moment at least you have been spared, and praise be to God you are still sane, which is more than I dared to hope for when we got you here.'

Simon nodded. ‘I know–I've been lucky,' he said soberly. ‘But am I really free–for good? I'm afraid Mocata will try and get me back somehow.'

‘Now we're together again you needn't worry,' Rex grinned. ‘If the three of us can't fight this horror and win out we're not the men I always thought we were.'

‘Yes,' Simon agreed, a little doubtfully. ‘But the trouble is that I was born at a time when certain stars were in conjunction, so in a way I'm the key to a ritual which Mocata's set his heart on performing.'

‘The invocation to Saturn coupled with Mars,' the Duke put in.

‘I'm scared he'll exercise every incantation in the book to drag me back to him despite myself.'

‘Isn't that danger over? Surely it should have been done two nights ago, but we managed to prevent it then.'

‘Ner,' Simon said, with a little wriggle of his birdlike head. ‘That would have been the most suitable time of all, but the ritual can be performed with a reasonable prospect of success any night while the two planets remain in the same house of the Zodiac'

‘Then the longer we can keep you out of Mocata's clutches, the less chance he stands of pulling it off as the two planets get farther apart,' Rex commented.

De Richleau sighed. His face looked grey and haggard in the early morning light. ‘In that case,' he said slowly, ‘Mocata will exert his whole strength when twilight comes again, and we shall have to fight with our backs to the wall throughout this coming night.'

Now that the sun was up Rex's resilient spirit reasserted itself. ‘Time enough to worry about tonight when we are through today,' he declared cheerfully. ‘What we need most just now is a good hot breakfast.'

The Duke smiled. ‘I thoroughly agree, and in any case we can't stay here much longer. While we eat we'll discuss the safest place to which we can take Simon.'

‘We can't take him anywhere at the moment,' Rex grinned. ‘Not as he is–with only the car rug and your great-coat to cover his birthday suit.'

Simon tittered into his hand. It was the gesture which both his friends knew so well, and which it delighted them to see again. ‘I must look pretty comic as I am,' he chuckled. ‘And it's chilly too. One of you had better try and raise me a suit of clothes.'

‘You take the car, Rex,' said the Duke, ‘and drive into Amesbury. Knock up the first clothes dealer you can find and buy him an outfit. Have you enough money?'

‘Plenty. I was going down to Derby yesterday for the first Spring Race Meeting if this business hadn't cropped up overnight. So I'd drawn fifty the day before.'

‘Good,' the Duke nodded. ‘We shan't move from here until you return.' Then, as Rex strode away across the grass to the Hispano, which was now visible where they had left it in the car-park, he turned to Simon:

‘Tell me,' he said, ‘while Rex is gone. How did you ever get drawn into this terrible business?'

Simon smiled. ‘Well,' he said hesitantly, ‘it may seem a odd thing to say, but you are partly responsible yourself.'

‘I!' exclaimed the Duke. ‘What the deuce to you mean?'

‘I'm not blaming you of course, in the least, but do you remember that long chat we had when we were both down at Cardinals Folly for Christmas? It started by your telling us about the old Alchemists and how they used to make gold out of base metals.'