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Miranda prayed that she might die there and then; a sudden heart attack brought on because she had
passed the fear barrier. Or madness, her brain snapping and sparing her the awfulness of reality, turning
this into some wild sexual fantasy. But neither happened. She could not even draw back; instead to her
horror she felt her tongue protruding, pushing its way into what had once been Gardiner's mouth in a
simulation of copulation. A vile taste and it was impossible even to retch, the sour flavour of damp earth
on her palate blended with one of putrefying flesh. The altar candle dimmed still further and beneath the
weight of her own body the skeleton appeared to move, a settling of ancient bones that dug into her with
a terrifying eagerness. 'He has breath,' Royston screeched. 'What else does he need, brethren?'
'Flesh,' the reply came back instantly.
'He has flesh now, pressing against his sacred bones. But what else, brethren? Flesh and breath, but his
new arteries will need to be filled with that which will bring life to him, bring him back to us from beyond.'
'Blood!' A deafening chorus, a classroom prompted into the right answer by their teacher. 'G/ve him
blood so that he will live again!' Echoes: 'blood . . . blood . . . blood.' Several of the smaller candles
situated around the crypt were suddenly extinguished, the lurking shadows darting back, the stench of
smoking candlewax sickening.
Miranda felt Royston moving close to her, knew what he was going to do, felt the coldness of the steel
knife blade as it nicked her wrists; a tiny quarter-inch gash but gouged so expertly that she felt the blood
spurting from her almost instantly. Now her other wrist, her hands placed back immediately in Gardiner's
skeletal grip.
Her head was pulled back by her auburn hair. She braced herself mentally; physically it was impossible
even to cringe. A sharp strangulating pain and she knew the knife had cut deep, her head lowered back
into its original position, that ghastly kiss of life for the dead.
Wide-eyed she watched herself from an angled position. Silence, except for a noise like a tap squirting
into a basin, white bones turning darkly crimson. And, oh Jesus, she was still pushing into that vile mouth
with her tongue!
It was darker now; just one altar candle left burning. For Miranda the black shadows were tinged with
red and her tongue-thrusts were becoming weaker by the second. And there was no pain as though her
body and her brain were no longer in communication with each other.
She was convinced that she had died a couple of minutes before the end actually came, before the
spouting blood slowed to a thick trickle and she sagged down on to the dripping skeleton. Her astral
body was a yard or so above her corpse, seeing Royston jerk her head back, ignoring her as he stared
into the blood-filled eye sockets of William Gardiner, seeking a movement, a sign of some sort; willing life
where there was only death.
'Does he live?' Quavering voices, trembling whispers from beyond the circle of light cast by the remaining
candle. Most of the coven secretly hoped that he did not.
Royston sucked in his breath, Miranda saw that his features had changed yet again, sunken and wasted,
reminiscent in structure of that awful skull; the same narrow mouth into which she had been forced to
thrust her tongue in a stinking french kiss.
'Life is there.' Royston lifted one of the fleshless hands as though testing its pulse. 'But our sacred
benefactor is not to be reincarnated so easily. He has accepted our sacrifice but craves another!'
Gasps of awe, sheer selfish terror in each of the listeners came like a shrieking gale to flicker the single
candle flame. Some of those present remembered how Sheila Dowson had been taken in the blackness
of Satan's mass. Now it could be any one of them, summoned by this terrible high priest of darkness, a
call which none could ignore. A life for a life.
'More blood.' Royston dipped his fingers in a thick warm pool beneath the bones, a flick of his wrist
spraying those who cowered in terror, bringing stifled cries from their dry lips as they felt it splattering on
their bowed heads. 'And I,' his voice rose to a pitch, 'have commanded that victim to come here to me,
as surely he will before long; one whose blood is as evil as our revered one and with it William Gardiner
will arise and lead us in whatever form he chooses to take!'
Mature men and women whimpered their fear for they knew enough of the one who addressed them to
accept the truth of his words. They were as terrified of him as they were of the skeleton which had been
exhumed from St Adrian's churchyard. There was no escape, nowhere to hide, for this priest of Satan
would seek them out and exact a terrible revenge. Had he not punished Miranda in full for her infidelity?
'He will come,' Royston's tone was as vibrant as an electric current, reducing their naked bodies to
trembling flesh. 'And that will be the ultimate sacrifice, one which even our great Master will not refuse.
He will grant our request and bring back the one who has been lost to us for so long. And brethren, when
that moment arrives, we shall all drink the blood of he who is our enemy and calls himself Sabat.
The remaining black candle flickered and finally extinguished itself, plunging the crypt into total darkness.
CHAPTER NINE
IT WAS full daylight when Sabat awoke, stirred slowly and stretched his cramped limbs. In spite of his
discomfort he felt refreshed, sitting up with a start, groaning as the memory of those nocturnal hours came
back to him in full, the full horror of all that had happened.
He had fought off the psychic attack, a conjuror playing a final trick when all that had gone before had
been a flop; deceived Quentin in a manner in which his brother's soul would not be fooled again. But in
the end the dark powers had won because exhaustion had claimed Sabat, thwarted his search for
Miranda. He knew that without a doubt the prostitute would be dead by now.
One moment when his eyes misted over and then he had cast off the feeling of grief. The thought of
vengeance replaced it, hardening his features, pumping a grim determination into the lithe body which
gunned the engine of the Daimler and had the speedometer needle flickering on 70 mph within the first
hundred yards.
There was no immediate hurry now, yet Sabat drove like one possessed (as he surely was), cornering
with screeching tyres on the winding road, promising himself that this man called Royston would pay not
only with his life but with his soul. And Sabat would not make the same mistake which he had made
when he had confronted Quentin in that remote forest clearing. God or Satan, he would use either to
exact the terrible revenge he sought, Suddenly he saw the motor-cyclist, a hurtling denim-clad rider
coming towards him, taking the left hand bend too wide and too fast, unhelmeted so that an expression of
terror was visible even in that fraction of a second. Sabat's reactions were as sharp as ever, pulling the
wheel over, mounting the grass verge, miraculously avoiding a head-on collision.
Now everything was slow motion, every detail hideously accentuated as though deliberately to torture the
two men. The biker was alongside the Daimler, a stunt rider doing crazy aerobatics as his machine reared
like a plunging rodeo mount. Sabat had two fields of vision; in his wing mirror he watched the riderless
motorbike hit the ground and career on a diagonal course for the opposite ditch, while through the
windscreen he saw the thrown rider reach his apex, arms and legs kicking like a sky-diver. Coming
down. So slowly, head first, long blonde hair flowing, mouth wide to emit a terrible scream. For one
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