The Parliament of the Dead (16 page)

Chapter Fifty-Six

A Moral Dilemma

Tiggy was half way through the tiny toilet window when the ghosts started to rush past her with cries of“Victory!” She had just managed to crawl all the way inside when she came face to face with Iona brandishing the disk.

“We’ve got it!” Iona exclaimed with a grin. 

“Iona!” Tiggy cried,“After everything that’s happened, being shot, being chased, nearly killed, I can’t believe that you would just run off back into that dreadful building; I blame myself - I should have kept a better watch over you - not just tonight, always.  I should have kept a better watch over…” She was in danger of hyperventilating, when she registered her daughter’s grin, and the disk clutched in her hand and began to calm down. “Gosh!  Well done!” Tiggy smiled weakly back, then looked doubtfully at the small opening she had just taken almost ten minutes to scramble through. “Do you think we could leave by the front door?”

“If we’re quick,”replied Iona, taking her mother by the hand and leading her towards the main corridor.  Then she paused. “What about the injured priest?”

Tiggy looked annoyed,“These people tried to kill you, Iona.  Forget him.”

“But their boss tried to kill him.  We can’t just leave him here to die!”

“Well,”Tiggy considered for a moment,“we can call an ambulance when we are safe.”

“I know I pretend never to listen to anything you say, mum, but you always taught me to help people when I could: to try and make a difference.”

“OK,”Tiggy replied slowly, looking at her daughter intently,“can he be moved?”

Iona bit her lip. “I don’t really think…”

She was cut short by a crash from the corridor.  The exorcists had broken out of the chapel.

Tiggy ran back to the window.

Although Iona didn’t mind her mother going ahead, she did think it was really Tiggy’s maternal duty to let her daughter go first.

Tiggy stood on the toilet seat, stuck her head out of the window and shouted,“Your big moment has arrived!”

Then she turned back to face Iona. “I hope this works.”

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Monkey Business

As the priests ran out of the chapel into the corridor a loud and insistent knocking struck up on the outer door.

“Wait!”called Father Pious,“that might be the cardinal.  You, you and you,”he indicated three of the monks,“show him into the chapel while the others come with me to deal with the infestation.”

*   *   *

At the door was a slightly overweight man with a grey trench-coat and grey trilby.  He had a large old-fashioned grey camera around his neck and he seemed to be sweating.

“Ah, brothers, hello,”he spoke with an odd accent that the monks could not place,“I’m a reporter from The Times of London.  I’ve received information that places members of your Order at the location of an incident at the House of Lords earlier this evening.  Do you have any comment for our readers?”

The monks were momentarily dumb-struck, then they slammed the door in the reporter’s face.

“Everybody out!”they called as they ran back towards the others,“Our cover is blown!  Everybody out!”

*   *   *

Outside the reporter punched the air with glee as his face started to dissolve and reform into the shape of the Grey Monk.

“Yes!”he cried,“At last!  I was scary, I was really, really scary!”

*   *   *

Inside the monks dashed through the rooms gathering evidence of their presence so they could leave without a trace.

“Where are you going?”snapped Father Pious at one of the monks who was fumbling with the straps of his rucksack.

“The press are here!”the monk replied, anxiously nodding towards the front door.

“Let them come,”snarled Father Pious,“we need to ensure the disk is safe or destroyed and eliminate as many of those devils as we can before we leave.  You are here to help me, to follow my orders.”

The monk shook his head,“I am sorry Father, you don’t understand.  Our Order can only exist by secrecy; if we are exposed it will be the end for us.  Our Abbot gave us strict instructions to leave if we were even threatened with exposure.  We have to go.”

“Cowards!”spat Father Pious after the monk’s retreating back.

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Peace with God

Iona and Tiggy watched the monks gather at the back of the building and then run out into the night.  When the corridor was clear they hurried to the kitchen to see if there was anything they could do to help Father Thomas.

He was very pale, and his breathing seemed irregular, but they were relieved to see he was still alive.

Suddenly a voice from behind them made Iona and Tiggy spin round.

“Ladies,”Father Pious stood with a pistol in each hand,“this has gone too far, you know too many secrets.  For the good of our work I think the easiest solution is for me to kill you both.”

“But...”began Tiggy.

“No buts,”interrupted Father Pious,“just make your peace with God and we can finish this.  You are standing in the way of the work of the Lord.  You have sown the wind, and will reap the whirlwind.”

For a few seconds there was silence.  Tiggy decided that she would throw herself at the priest.  She would almost certainly be killed, but perhaps she could buy her daughter enough time to run.  Tiggy rocked back on her heels ready to jump forward when another voice stopped her short.

“Hello Padre,”spat the red-haired ghost of Sweeney Todd, his menacing voice dripping with venom.

“Bloody hell!”whispered Iona to her mother,“I never thought I’d be glad to see
him
!”

Sweeney Todd and Father Pious stared each other in the face.  Both sets of eyes were brimming with hatred.

“Let’s leave them to it,”Tiggy whispered to Iona as she led her daughter backwards towards the kitchen.

Iona allowed herself to be directed out of the room.  She thought she heard her mother murmur,“If only I had my camera!”as they reached the corridor.

The priest and the ghost stared at each other and Sweeney Todd was the first to speak. “Of all the breathers I’ave sent to join me in the grave, killin’you is going to be the most pleasurable.” He flicked open his razor while he spoke.

Father Pious jerked his arms out to point his guns at Sweeney Todd, but before he could take aim the Demon Barber swept forward and spun round, cutting two deep gashes in both of the priest’s arms.

The guns clattered to the floor, coming to rest under the table where Father Thomas still lay bleeding. “Abomination!”Father Pious roared, as he reached inside his robe to find a glass vial of holy water which he hurled at the spirit.

The glass container shattered above Sweeney Todd’s head, and he howled with pain as part of his face started to dissolve.

The ghost lunged again, this time for Father Pious’head, but the priest was too quick, dropping to the floor like a stone, as Sweeney Todd swept over him.  From his prone position Father Pious managed to retrieve one of his pistols.

As the ghost turned back for another attack Father Pious let out a volley of shots, but the pain in his arms made it difficult to aim.  The bullets flew wildly around the room, and Sweeney Todd had to dodge upwards and through the ceiling to avoid being hit.

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Behind You

In the corridor Iona and Tiggy were arguing again.

“What about the priest?” Iona was insisting.

“Let them kill each other, come on!”cried Tiggy, trying to pull her daughter towards the exit.

“No, I mean the one bleeding to death on the table!”

The Grey Monk reappeared through the wall, now wearing his conventional habit, sandals and tonsured hair. “Whatever is happening now?  Did I hear shooting?”he asked with a concerned expression.

*   *   *

Father Pious removed his outer robe and drew out the shotgun that had been strapped to his back.  He looked at the wounds on his arms and grimaced.  He would have to deal with this red-haired devil before he could attend to his injuries.

Father Thomas looked towards him, his eyes wide with alarm. “Beee…haaa….”he struggled to speak.  The dried blood that had started to cake around his lips was joined by a fresh flow.

The older priest looked irritated. “What?”he snapped at his former colleague.

“Beee…haaaa…nd… youuu!”

“Bea hand you?” Father Pious repeated. “Talk sense man.” Then he straightened up. “Behind you!” He had just time to repeat the words he had finally realised Father Thomas had been trying to say when Sweeney Todd was upon him.

The priest dropped his gun as the razor of the Demon Barber spun around him, inflicting cut after cut.

After just a few seconds Father Pious fell to the floor and lay motionless, an expanding pool of blood exuding from his body.

Chapter Sixty

A Bloodstained Razor

“I think the priest is dead.” The Grey Monk called back to the others.  He had volunteered to spy on the fight while Iona and Tiggy escaped.

“Which one?” Tiggy called from down the corridor.

“The really nasty one with a love of weapons.”

“How’s the other one, the guy on the table?” Iona shouted as she reappeared in the corridor and started to walk back towards the kitchen where the fight had taken place.

“He looks like he’s about to join his boss.”

As they rushed over to see the injured man Tiggy took out her mobile phone and dialled“9-9-9.”

Tiggy had just summoned an ambulance when Sweeney Todd reappeared in the room.  He motioned towards the body of Father Pious with his bloodstained razor.

“You see, breather, violence usually is the answer after all,”the ghost spoke with a sneer,“and now I think its time for
you
to die.”

The Grey Monk spun around the room in a panic:“I’ll get help, I’ll get help!”he cried as he disappeared through the window.

Tiggy sucked air between her teeth angrily,“Why do you want to kill us?  What have we done?  We helped you!”

While she was speaking she started to move away from Iona.  At first Iona felt deserted, then she realised that her mother was trying to take the ghost’s attention away from her. “Without my daughter,”she continued,“you would still be running away from their attack on your parliament!”

“Runnin’away?” Sweeney Todd sounded angry,“The Demon Barber of Fleet Street ain’t never run away, alive or dead.”

“Well,”continued Tiggy,“you didn’t exactly stand and fight in the House of Lords…” As she spoke she was slowly edging towards the barred window, so that Sweeney Todd was in between the two‘breathers,’and he could not look at both at once.

Iona was now behind Mr. Todd.  She looked to the door; she could probably slip out without him noticing.  Her mother was making the ghost angrier and angrier, and he seemed to have forgotten about her.  However, Iona dismissed this thought as soon as it appeared; that would mean leaving her mother with an undead serial killer.  Looking desperately around she saw the shotgun on the floor where Father Pious had dropped it.

Tiggy glanced at Iona and followed her line of sight to see what her daughter had been looking at.  Their eyes met for a moment and Tiggy made a small, almost imperceptible, shake of her head.

Iona realised that her mother thought her plan was too dangerous.

Sweeney Todd noticed Tiggy looking towards her daughter and turned towards Iona, his razor glinting in the light.

“You!” The anger he had been directing towards Tiggy seemed suddenly to be transferred to her daughter. “The others wouldn’t listen to me; they listen to you.” He swished his blade in a figure-of-eight. “It won’t happen again.  You’ll be the first to die!”

Tiggy let out an ear-splitting scream of rage as she leapt towards the ghost.

Sweeney Todd spun round to see her almost on top of him.  She fell right through his spectral form and his face twisted in a sadistic smile.  His smile faltered when he realised that she had snatched the razor from him as she fell.

“It’s pathetic,”snarled the ghost,“how you breathers squirm and struggle for a few seconds more of your miserable lives.  You can’t win against me, you do know that, don’t you?”

While Sweeney Todd had been distracted Iona had picked up Father Pious’shotgun.  She hoped and prayed that the safety-catch was off.  She had no idea where the safety-catch was or what it looked like, and realised that she could be sliced into small cubes by the time she had found it.

“Hey!”she called, a lot more confidently than she felt,“dead boy!  Leave my mother out of this!”

She pulled the trigger.

The recoil from the gun pushed her backwards so she nearly fell, losing her grip on the weapon, which landed on the floor.  She scrambled to pick it up again.

Looking up, Iona realised she didn’t need the shotgun.  Sweeney Todd was dissolving in a spinning cloud of light, the sound of his curses growing fainter and fainter.

Iona and Tiggy scrambled across the floor to hold each other tightly.

Chapter Sixty-One

Help is Here

“Never fear,”called the Grey Monk,“help is here!” He flew into the room surrounded by other ghosts, ready to fight against Sweeney Todd.

He stopped mid-flight, looking rather disappointed to see no signs of the renegade ghost.

“It’s almost dawn,”Iona said to the Grey Monk. “Cardinal somebody-or-another is due to visit, you better leave in case he’s as vicious as Father Pious and his boys.”

“He’s dead; we killed a priest!  They will never leave us alone now, we will be hunted down.”

“These people fear the truth above all else,”said Tiggy, “this disk should bring a halt to their activities.”

As the sky started to turn red with the rising sun the ghosts began to melt away into the light.

Tiggy found two chairs and placed them next to Father Thomas’s table, and they sat with him to wait for the ambulance to arrive.  They looked at one another in silence.  Iona noticed for the first time how much her mother’s eyes looked like hers (although she couldn’t help musing that they could do with a darker eyeliner).