Chapter 6

‘Doubt not but that sin

Will reign among them.’

John Milton, Paradise Lost

Jackie awakened, released from the unnatural sleep. Sore. Sluggish. Her entire body one giant ache. She groaned, and tried to get up off the hard surface she was lying on.

She couldn’t move!

Her eyes fluttered open and she looked at her wrists. Heavy chains bound her to the black stone. She could feel similar bonds at her ankles. Trapped. Where was she? What was happening? Jackie turned her head sharply to the left, then the right. This placed looked familiar. Revelation! The underground. She was tied to the table where not so long ago she had seen David and the corpse! The thought made bile rise in her throat.

She tried to stop it, breathed through her nose. She smelled the stench of something charred beyond recognition. She hoped it was David! She hoped he was dead!

“Good evening, Jackie.”

David! Was that even his name? She could feel him breathing down the back of her neck. She could smell him. Blood and rot and death. Sweat beaded on her face and her palms were clammy. Jackie pressed her lips together, trying not to cry or make a sound. He moved away, to her left, bones rattled. Ten shuddering heartbeats later, the fiend returned to her field of vision at the far end of the altar. He leapt easily onto it, carrying a stained, bloodied scroll and a demonic sceptre, and knelt over her.

“I love the smell of fear.”

Jackie uttered a pathetic squeak, no longer able to scream. Fear had tightened her vocal cords until she was unable to utter a comprehensible word. The creature draped the tangle of feathers, bones and hair over her face and ran it over her upper body. He uttered words but she couldn’t hear them clearly. Not English! Jackie turned her head away, but it didn’t matter. She was part of this ritual. Trapped from the moment she entered, when she had thought herself so safe and content. And no one would save her. The last of her fledgling hope dried up. She wept and the desperate sobs racked her chest.

The demon let the charm rest on her stomach. He read from the scroll harsh words, invoking ancient and forbidden curses to call upon the essence of his sister. The room shuddered and wrenched, skeleton supports twisting and shattering.

Tingling needle-like pain began to gather in Jackie’s extremities, running up her arms and legs, through her body and into her head. It felt as if sharp claws were digging through her skull and into her brain! The pain was unbearable! It came from everywhere and nowhere. She wished she would faint – blessed oblivion! A sinking feeling and the chilling touch of something inhuman within her, like an icy fist clutching her insides. Cool and slick and wrong. A presence within her mind. Jackie tried to move, to shake it off, but her body would not obey her.

Her body stilled and she stopped sobbing. ‘David’ was quiet, watchful. Jackie could feel herself plummeting, her control utterly gone; her consciousness shoved into the dark recesses of her mind. Her eyes snapped open and gazed without the slightest hint of fear at the disgusting fiend leaning over her.

She smiled, “Hello, brother.”

“Hello, Sin.”

…

The pair stood in front of the altar in the nave. Sin stood with Jackie’s bag slung over her shoulder. It was dawn and the light was building steadily behind the windows.

“Congratulations, Death. The crossing was easier than I expected. It is unfortunate we cannot perform the same ritual for the rest of our kin, there are too many,” Sin acknowledged.

Death grinned, his putrid breath washing over his sister.

“It was wise indeed to agree to Moloch’s plan. Our father’s idea would have never worked. One soul to perform such complicated magic? To complete our task we require a massacre of souls.”

“Sister, I and mine shall gather them for you. I know what is required to open the Gate and release the Great Host. Soon they will be loyal to our father no longer, only to us.”

“Hell will empty,” she grinned, “and we shall finally stand victorious!”

Sin turned away from him and strode confidently down the aisle. The doors to the monastery flew open before her and she continued on towards Jackie’s car. Behind her the church faded into the lingering fingers of mist. Nicholas watched with determined eyes and ran to follow his adversary, her terrible powers unleashed.