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himself heard, bringing the weapon down in a vicious arc that beheaded the corpse at a single blow. And
at that very moment every candle flame fluttered, extinguished in a smoke haze and plunged the crypt into
blackness.
Sabat cursed, realised his mistake, almost fired blindly on his original alignment of the .38 but he had
never been one to shoot rashly. Accuracy was uncertain, the stabbing flame gave away one's position to
the enemy. He waited, his mouth dry, finger lightly on the trigger.
Everybody was screaming or was it a host of invisible evil spirits borne on the wind? A melee; perhaps
the members of the coven had panicked and were fleeing blindly trying to find the exit. Cursing, bodies
falling.
Even as Sabat deliberated upon a course of action he heard the pounding of hooves, the snorting of some
huge demented beast, its putrid smell. Oh Jesus God, he'd left it too late, allowed Spode to summon the
Evil One when one well-placed. 38 slug would have stopped him!
Sabat found himself cowering back in the narrow cleft, his instinct to start firing wildly into the snarling
cauldron of blackness but logically he knew it would be useless, a futile waste of ammunition that might
bring the wrath of the attacking powers upon him, their vengeance terrible for this puny mortal insult.
Something smashed and rolled across the floor, probably one of those candlesticks. Hooves struck, flesh
and bone was being pulped; wild bestial noises and human cries of terror. He felt the rush of air, the
nearness of things beyond even his own knowledge and at any moment he expected to be dragged from
his hiding place. Quentin's voice pounded against his brain but no mockery this time, sheer terror in the
warning; 'Flee while there is still time.'
I cannot, for Damballah has trapped me and 1 am here to see this through!
And then, as suddenly as the malevolent maelstrom had begun, it ended, the blackness instantly
becalmed; people were groaning, somebody laughing insanely. A rat scurried across the floor as though it
had been caught out in the open and sought the protection of its hole before the next psychic storm.
Sabat waited, blinked as light came suddenly, a shimmering nervous black altar candle, ignited by some
unknown hand, brightening as though it sought a missing mate. He braced himself, afraid of what he might
see, closing his eyes momentarily at the awful sight which greeted him but opening them again because he
knew he must look eventually. At least he was still alive and sane, unscathed, a shipwrecked mariner
adrift on the ocean savouring every precious second left to him.
The dead and dying littered the floor, a miniature replica of that aftermath of battle on the barren astral
wasteland of Hopelessness, rats instead of vultures waiting to feed on the slain, knowing that the
wounded would die. Faces smashed into bloody anonymity; crumpled, naked bodies that bore cloven
hoofprints as though they were branded yearlings struck down by anthrax and still twitching; death-throes
that grew weaker with every passing second.
Only Alison appeared to be unharmed, mentally and physically, kneeling there in that same torn dress of
many colours with not a trace of fear in her wide dark eyes. She did not appear surprised to see Sabat,
brief recognition flickering in her eyes. He straightened up, stepped out to go to her and in that instant a
shadow fell across the single pool of candlelight.
Sabat recoiled, his first reaction being to try to squeeze back into that meagre place of refuge which had
spared him. Aghast, he thought for one moment that the paralytic drug had begun to work again, draining
his muscles but the .38 came up swiftly, instinctive snap-shooting that blitzed a hail of lead on whatever it
was that came towards him. Oh God, not even Sabat could create anything like that!
The shape was human, a lumbering silhouette that resembled Royston Spode yet the features could only
have come from the depths of Hades, a misshapen skull that had had flesh clumsily adhered to it as
though in a blasphemous attempt to create Man. Bloated eyes too large for the narrow sockets, a
hooked nose, the nostrils clogged with mucus, a mouth that was smeared redly as though it was a ghoul
that had recently feasted on raw flesh. The bullets had chipped the head, cut grooves across the cheeks
and jawbone before ricochetting harmlessly away. And now it was determined to vent its fury on Sabat!
Seconds that might have been an eternity, and in that time Sabat recognised his attacker, realised the full
implications of what had happened during those nightmarish minutes of carnage. Spode's body it was, on
which some horrific super-natural transplant had taken place, the resurrected features of William
Gardiner festooned on to Royston's own obesity, a blending of body and soul that had somehow gone
wrong because of the false sacrifice. And Spode knew; knew that partial success was indeed miserable
failure and Sabat would pay the penalty for what had happened!
Spode was invincible to mortal attack; Sabat might just as well have wasted his shells on that skeleton
that had lain there earlier. Slow measured steps, a wrestler closing in on an inferior opponent, knowing
full well that he can crush the life out of him but preferring to savour the finale.
Sabat closed his eyes, tried to pray . . . struggled to find the right words; remembered just one line.
'Lord, beat down Satan quickly!'
Spode checked but only momentarily, as though another bullet had glanced off him, an annoyance but
nothing serious. Sabat stepped back another pace, felt the roughness of the wall gouge his shoulder
blades. He closed his eyes. This, then was the end. Finis. His senses swam, the paralysis seemed to be
coming back, a dull creeping numbness preparing him for death. He didn't mind dying, it was what
happened afterwards that worried him. Even Quentin was silent, his brother's soul succumbing to the
presence of a terrible evil.
Sabat could smell this thing that might have been Spode, a lingering stench of uncleansed stables, rank
foul breath coming in icy blasts. Something touched his arm, had him shuddering and turning his head,
yelling 'Get it over. Kill me, finish me!'
Even as he awaited death in some horribly agonising manner, a thud jerked him out of his resignation to
the end; a noise such as Spode had made when he hacked mercilessly at the body he believed to be
Sabat's, a tearing, cutting sound like a knife blade being forced to the limit of its sharpness, then brute
force taking over. A scream that no human vocal chords were capable of making, a screeching and
cursing in a tongue which Sabat did not understand.
Sabat's eyes were open. This could not be happening, it was some cruel figment of fantasy, his astral
torturing him during that brief period when life slipped into death, a taunting hope that would be dashed
with the coming of oblivion.
Spode was tottering, floundering, a drowning man panicking. Those vile features were unrecognisable in
an expression of unbelievable agony, lips moving soundlessly now, mute curses, falling. He hit the floor,
heaving as he struggled for breath, a grotesque fish that found itself grounded, its death struggles growing
weaker by the second; lying there, eyes that dimmed, staring hatefully up at Sabat, moving on to ...
Alison!
The West Indian girl stood there, eyes closed as though she could not bring herself to look upon this
creature who had once been her master, the bloody sacrificial knife slipping slowly from her fingers and
clattering on the stones. Her lips were moving, Sabat had to strain his ears to catch the words uttered in
Creole. 'Die, fiend of a false god for this is still Damballah's day and I am his disciple!'
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